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Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide
When World War I began, Karnig Panian was only five years old, living among his fellow Armenians in the Anatolian village of Gurin. Four years later, American aid workers found him at an orphanage in Antoura, Lebanon. He was among nearly 1,000 Armenian and 400 Kurdish children who had been abandoned by the Turkish administrators, left to survive at the orphanage without adult care.
This memoir offers the extraordinary story of what he endured in those years—as his people were deported from their Armenian community, as his family died in a refugee camp in the deserts of Syria, as he survived hunger and mistreatment in the orphanage. The Antoura orphanage was another project of the Armenian genocide: its administrators, some benign and some cruel, sought to transform the children into Turks by changing their Armenian names, forcing them to speak Turkish, and erasing their history.
Panian's memoir is a full-throated story of loss, resistance, and survival, but told without bitterness or sentimentality. His story shows us how even young children recognize injustice and can organize against it, how they can form a sense of identity that they will fight to maintain. He paints a painfully rich and detailed picture of the lives and agency of Armenian orphans during the darkest days of World War I. Ultimately, Karnig Panian survived the Armenian genocide and the deprivations that followed. Goodbye, Antoura assures us of how humanity, once denied, can be again reclaimed.
This memoir offers the extraordinary story of what he endured in those years—as his people were deported from their Armenian community, as his family died in a refugee camp in the deserts of Syria, as he survived hunger and mistreatment in the orphanage. The Antoura orphanage was another project of the Armenian genocide: its administrators, some benign and some cruel, sought to transform the children into Turks by changing their Armenian names, forcing them to speak Turkish, and erasing their history.
Panian's memoir is a full-throated story of loss, resistance, and survival, but told without bitterness or sentimentality. His story shows us how even young children recognize injustice and can organize against it, how they can form a sense of identity that they will fight to maintain. He paints a painfully rich and detailed picture of the lives and agency of Armenian orphans during the darkest days of World War I. Ultimately, Karnig Panian survived the Armenian genocide and the deprivations that followed. Goodbye, Antoura assures us of how humanity, once denied, can be again reclaimed.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2015
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763 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
April 17, 2018
Many people are unfamiliar, or uninformed about the Armenian Genocide (1915-1922). I certainly was much more aware of the WW II Holocaust, which involved my own people and occurred during my early childhood. The twentieth century was no stranger to these events. There were slaughters of Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rawandan Tsusis and Bosnians, to name a few. They were all attempts to curb the growth of alien populations and gain supremacy. In addition to the terms, genocide and holocaust, we are now familiar with “ethnic cleansing”. Certainly, the legacy of problems in the Middle East today could be blamed on the butchery that occurred in the Ottoman state.
Karnig Panian was 5 years old, Christian, living an idyllic life with his loving extended family, when with little warning, they were ousted from their home to a forced march. Many were unable to endure the inhumane conditions and died on their way to the desert concentration camps. There a huge toll on their lives occurred with many, many deaths.
“Almost everyone in the caravan had fallen into despair. Men and women, old and young, they all saw the darkness. These people, who just weeks earlier, had been prosperous, living in their homes, praying in their churches, working in their fields and helping the less fortunate, had been turned into a race of emaciated semi-corpses. They were like plants that had been uprooted and cast aside, and they were now dying slowly, shriveling into nothing.” ( p.43-44)
Eventually Panian was sent to an orphanage with thousands of other children, where they were starved and treated brutally, punished if they did not observe Moslem rites,forced to change their names to Turkish and forbidden to speak their native tongue..
After release from a later improved orphanage, he went on to become a teacher and wrote constantly. The original manuscript of this memoir was published in 1992 and was written in Armenian.On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, his 2 daughters translated it into English.
This book contains a wealth of information, in footnotes, photographs, introduction with a history of Armenia and an afterward by the same expert, Keith David Watenpaugh.
An interesting fictional account of survivors of the Genocide in America is viewed in the novel, book:Zabelle /
Karnig Panian was 5 years old, Christian, living an idyllic life with his loving extended family, when with little warning, they were ousted from their home to a forced march. Many were unable to endure the inhumane conditions and died on their way to the desert concentration camps. There a huge toll on their lives occurred with many, many deaths.
“Almost everyone in the caravan had fallen into despair. Men and women, old and young, they all saw the darkness. These people, who just weeks earlier, had been prosperous, living in their homes, praying in their churches, working in their fields and helping the less fortunate, had been turned into a race of emaciated semi-corpses. They were like plants that had been uprooted and cast aside, and they were now dying slowly, shriveling into nothing.” ( p.43-44)
Eventually Panian was sent to an orphanage with thousands of other children, where they were starved and treated brutally, punished if they did not observe Moslem rites,forced to change their names to Turkish and forbidden to speak their native tongue..
After release from a later improved orphanage, he went on to become a teacher and wrote constantly. The original manuscript of this memoir was published in 1992 and was written in Armenian.On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, his 2 daughters translated it into English.
This book contains a wealth of information, in footnotes, photographs, introduction with a history of Armenia and an afterward by the same expert, Keith David Watenpaugh.
An interesting fictional account of survivors of the Genocide in America is viewed in the novel, book:Zabelle /
May 29, 2016
The story of the survival of the Armenian people as lived (and recounted) by one orphan boy.
November 5, 2016
Armenians live on
As an Armenian who knows little about my families history other than that my great grandmother, who lived through the genocide, survived and would not speak openly about here horrific experience at the hands of the Turks, I was greatly moved and thankful for this story told by Mr Panian. The story despite the horror it shares is a wonderful story of survival and determination to remain grounded in faith and family despite attempts to strip that away. I would recommend to anyone who is interested in a heart felt story and the happenings of the Armenian Genocide. I feel like it's an appropriate read for ages 13 and above.
As an Armenian who knows little about my families history other than that my great grandmother, who lived through the genocide, survived and would not speak openly about here horrific experience at the hands of the Turks, I was greatly moved and thankful for this story told by Mr Panian. The story despite the horror it shares is a wonderful story of survival and determination to remain grounded in faith and family despite attempts to strip that away. I would recommend to anyone who is interested in a heart felt story and the happenings of the Armenian Genocide. I feel like it's an appropriate read for ages 13 and above.
July 2, 2019
Chapters are divided chronologically. Most of the memoir is focused on Panian's life in the orphanage after their exodus from Gurin to the desert deportation camps. Many footnotes are included and were very helpful.
Pages 59-65 and pages 157-166 are strictly black and white historical photographs showing the orphanage, orphans, important leaders, and Panian's later life after the war.
The memoir starts when Panian is 5 years old which makes it difficult to trust every detailed recollection. As stated, the bulk of his story lies within the orphanage and sometimes get wordy and listless. However, his life in the desert deportation camp and his life after the orphanage was somberly intruging.
Pages 59-65 and pages 157-166 are strictly black and white historical photographs showing the orphanage, orphans, important leaders, and Panian's later life after the war.
The memoir starts when Panian is 5 years old which makes it difficult to trust every detailed recollection. As stated, the bulk of his story lies within the orphanage and sometimes get wordy and listless. However, his life in the desert deportation camp and his life after the orphanage was somberly intruging.
March 28, 2018
I would highly recommend this short memoir of childhood during the Armenian genocide. The author recounts his idyllic early childhood on a cherry tree orchard in Turkey, followed by displacement to the Syrian border region and life in a Lebanese orphanage in Antoura. I learned a lot about this period of history through reading this. The author's daughter also reflects on current events impacting Armenians in Syria in the afterword. It's written in a similar manner to Elie Wiesel's memoirs.
February 28, 2017
Not the typical Genocide novel. There's not a large shock and awe factor, but it does give a good glimpse into life for those who become orphaned during these horrendous and unnecessary events. I do believe the Armenian Genocide IS a Genocide and should labeled as such even though only twenty something countries label it correctly.
April 6, 2020
In Karnig Panian’s memoir of life before, during, and after the Armenian Genocide, we see a glimpse into the experience of one individual through the lens of both childhood and adulthood as he remembers them later in life. Though his memoir is but one experience of many varied stories and paradigms of the Armenian people during the genocide, Panian’s work strives to serve as a collective narrative of the spirit, resilience, and character of the Armenians of Anatolia during the genocide. The memoir centers around the years of the Genocide, World War I, and its aftermath, but its writing reflects years of introspection, growth, and knowledge far beyond childhood that inform Panian’s later retelling. As Panian grew older, the world may have found it easy to lump the sufferings of his people into the misfortunes of various people groups in the twentieth century or to write off Armenian pride as simply another example of nationalist exceptionalism. In his memoir, Panian seeks to bring humanity to the increasingly nationalistic struggle between Armenians and Turks by retelling the experience he had lived as a boy. For he and others who lived through the Genocide, survival and remaining Armenian was not “rabid nationalism” or something they felt they owed to any entity, but something intrinsic to who they were.
Early in his life, Panian’s understanding of what it means to be an Armenian is shaped heavily by his community, which largely consists of his extended family, and the land they live on. His entire world consists of Gurin and the river valley of Tsakh Tsor, where he plays, attends church, feasts with family, and celebrates life. Once he arrives in the deserts of Hama and goes to the orphanages of Hama, Antoura, Aintab, Beirut, and then Jbeil, he learns of differences in custom and dialect between him and other Armenians. The thread that ties them together is their language, their religion, and their knowledge from those who have gone before them that they are Armenian, and this unites them to one another. Another common trait Panian focuses on throughout is self-sacrifice, that being “born Armenian” meant “making massive sacrifices for each other.” In contrast to the Turkish administrators in the orphanage at Antoura who seem incapable of feeling empathy for or having any mercy on the orphans, even when they see firsthand how desperate for food the boys are or witness inhuman beatings, the Armenian children seek to provide for one another from the start and maintain a sense of communal survival both physically and culturally during their stay. The ability of the boys to form groups consisting of leaders who worked together and shared their food amongst one another to try and ensure the survival of as many of them as possible attests to this trait of sacrificing self-interest for the good of one’s fellow man. These boys likely learned this as children in their Armenian households and during the deportations when their families did all they could to protect them from harm even as they wasted away, such as Karnig’s grandma making him and his siblings her “only priority” when their mother died. Those who do not follow this ethic of self-sacrifice and “put [their] interests above those of all the others” are viewed as “committ[ing] the worst of crimes--betrayal.”
Early in his childhood, Karnig does not seem to view the Turks as so wholly other and inhuman as he comes to see them by the end of the novel. He writes of Armenians and Turks living “in peace...side by side,” but that they were aware of casting Turks as “thieves, lazy, uneducated, or murderers” (likely due to lingering mistrust from the earlier massacres in the 1890s). When Turkish officials are deporting his village, Karnig does not speak ill of the first group of policemen that lead them in their march and attempt to reassure them with promises of safety. As he encounters the brutal officials of the death marches in the desert and the administrators at the orphanage, however, Karnig describes the hatred he and fellow orphans develop for the Turks repeatedly. This hatred develops as a direct result of the example the officials set, their revealing of their character as “brutal, sadistic fiends” which only “strengthened [the orphans’] resolve against them.” I think seeing this development in how Karnig views the Turks can help us understand relations between Armenians and Turks today. Firstly, it reveals that Armenians and Turks are not genetically or inherently averse to one another, and secondly, it reveals that these animosities result from years of horrors at the hands of Turks. If Turks were to reveal themselves to be compassionate, empathetic people, then Armenians would have reason to see them differently. However, time and time again in this book, the Armenians are strengthened in their determination to never ally with Turkishness in any way because of the consistent mistreatment they suffer. Whether through death marches, cultural genocide, or civil war, each encounter with different groups of Turks continues to cement the experience that Turks will never allow the Armenians to be at peace so long as they exist as they are. “Because [they] were born Armenian” they would “suffer...for no other reason,” further solidifying the sentiment that Turks and Armenians cannot coexist. Perhaps if more Turks had shown Panian and those around him that they did have value as humans, that their mere existence was not a crime, then maybe Panian and others like him would have not formed such a “deadly hatred for Turks” and a belief in their immutably evil character.
Many often say that Armenians have sad eyes. I have had someone tell me that I “look[ed] particularly Armenian that day” when I had been incredibly hurt by them and was very sad. For some reason, Armenians have always held onto this identity of sorrow as part of us, but I think this is because we are a people for whom memory is of primary importance. When Yusuf and the boys escape the orphanage, he tells them they can forget it because it is “nothing but a memory.” But this only prompts Karnig to think of the fate of those he left behind at the orphanage and other Armenians in the region. We do not forget our communities, our heritage, our land. It is why reciting the Hayr Mer, even when Karnig does not really understand the words, remains crucial for him. It connects him to his family and the faith that carried them on through generations. It is why I can go back to Armenia and feel a sense of familiarity in the smiles, words, hearts, and land there. It is how I can stand before a small church in a village outside of a city my family traveled through on their way to America before the Genocide, tell them I am the first in my family to come back since that time, and be welcomed with loud applause and cheers. This sense of collective memory, though it may not be personal to each one of us, drives us to “preserve our very existence” and “keep our Armenian heritage alive.”
I think people who do not know Armenians well might think of us as stuck in the past. I see it as the opposite. We value our past and want to honor the lives and sacrifices of those who came before us, and as the future they fought for it seems only fitting we continue to seek recognition for past atrocities. We work towards a future because we have a past: a history that tells us who we are and what we are capable of. We hold so tightly to “our faith, our language, and our identities” because we know what it is like to nearly lose these things and it is why they factor so heavily into our present endeavors in intellectual, cultural, and political spaces. Panian went on to a life of education and esteem in his field, but he balanced his forward-thinking Westernized life in a diaspora community in Lebanon with reflections on where he had come from and the community he had lost at the hands of the Turks. Both can exist, and both have a place in what it means to be an Armenian today.
Early in his life, Panian’s understanding of what it means to be an Armenian is shaped heavily by his community, which largely consists of his extended family, and the land they live on. His entire world consists of Gurin and the river valley of Tsakh Tsor, where he plays, attends church, feasts with family, and celebrates life. Once he arrives in the deserts of Hama and goes to the orphanages of Hama, Antoura, Aintab, Beirut, and then Jbeil, he learns of differences in custom and dialect between him and other Armenians. The thread that ties them together is their language, their religion, and their knowledge from those who have gone before them that they are Armenian, and this unites them to one another. Another common trait Panian focuses on throughout is self-sacrifice, that being “born Armenian” meant “making massive sacrifices for each other.” In contrast to the Turkish administrators in the orphanage at Antoura who seem incapable of feeling empathy for or having any mercy on the orphans, even when they see firsthand how desperate for food the boys are or witness inhuman beatings, the Armenian children seek to provide for one another from the start and maintain a sense of communal survival both physically and culturally during their stay. The ability of the boys to form groups consisting of leaders who worked together and shared their food amongst one another to try and ensure the survival of as many of them as possible attests to this trait of sacrificing self-interest for the good of one’s fellow man. These boys likely learned this as children in their Armenian households and during the deportations when their families did all they could to protect them from harm even as they wasted away, such as Karnig’s grandma making him and his siblings her “only priority” when their mother died. Those who do not follow this ethic of self-sacrifice and “put [their] interests above those of all the others” are viewed as “committ[ing] the worst of crimes--betrayal.”
Early in his childhood, Karnig does not seem to view the Turks as so wholly other and inhuman as he comes to see them by the end of the novel. He writes of Armenians and Turks living “in peace...side by side,” but that they were aware of casting Turks as “thieves, lazy, uneducated, or murderers” (likely due to lingering mistrust from the earlier massacres in the 1890s). When Turkish officials are deporting his village, Karnig does not speak ill of the first group of policemen that lead them in their march and attempt to reassure them with promises of safety. As he encounters the brutal officials of the death marches in the desert and the administrators at the orphanage, however, Karnig describes the hatred he and fellow orphans develop for the Turks repeatedly. This hatred develops as a direct result of the example the officials set, their revealing of their character as “brutal, sadistic fiends” which only “strengthened [the orphans’] resolve against them.” I think seeing this development in how Karnig views the Turks can help us understand relations between Armenians and Turks today. Firstly, it reveals that Armenians and Turks are not genetically or inherently averse to one another, and secondly, it reveals that these animosities result from years of horrors at the hands of Turks. If Turks were to reveal themselves to be compassionate, empathetic people, then Armenians would have reason to see them differently. However, time and time again in this book, the Armenians are strengthened in their determination to never ally with Turkishness in any way because of the consistent mistreatment they suffer. Whether through death marches, cultural genocide, or civil war, each encounter with different groups of Turks continues to cement the experience that Turks will never allow the Armenians to be at peace so long as they exist as they are. “Because [they] were born Armenian” they would “suffer...for no other reason,” further solidifying the sentiment that Turks and Armenians cannot coexist. Perhaps if more Turks had shown Panian and those around him that they did have value as humans, that their mere existence was not a crime, then maybe Panian and others like him would have not formed such a “deadly hatred for Turks” and a belief in their immutably evil character.
Many often say that Armenians have sad eyes. I have had someone tell me that I “look[ed] particularly Armenian that day” when I had been incredibly hurt by them and was very sad. For some reason, Armenians have always held onto this identity of sorrow as part of us, but I think this is because we are a people for whom memory is of primary importance. When Yusuf and the boys escape the orphanage, he tells them they can forget it because it is “nothing but a memory.” But this only prompts Karnig to think of the fate of those he left behind at the orphanage and other Armenians in the region. We do not forget our communities, our heritage, our land. It is why reciting the Hayr Mer, even when Karnig does not really understand the words, remains crucial for him. It connects him to his family and the faith that carried them on through generations. It is why I can go back to Armenia and feel a sense of familiarity in the smiles, words, hearts, and land there. It is how I can stand before a small church in a village outside of a city my family traveled through on their way to America before the Genocide, tell them I am the first in my family to come back since that time, and be welcomed with loud applause and cheers. This sense of collective memory, though it may not be personal to each one of us, drives us to “preserve our very existence” and “keep our Armenian heritage alive.”
I think people who do not know Armenians well might think of us as stuck in the past. I see it as the opposite. We value our past and want to honor the lives and sacrifices of those who came before us, and as the future they fought for it seems only fitting we continue to seek recognition for past atrocities. We work towards a future because we have a past: a history that tells us who we are and what we are capable of. We hold so tightly to “our faith, our language, and our identities” because we know what it is like to nearly lose these things and it is why they factor so heavily into our present endeavors in intellectual, cultural, and political spaces. Panian went on to a life of education and esteem in his field, but he balanced his forward-thinking Westernized life in a diaspora community in Lebanon with reflections on where he had come from and the community he had lost at the hands of the Turks. Both can exist, and both have a place in what it means to be an Armenian today.
February 16, 2018
The review I wrote seems to have disappeared...
As I read this book, Goodbye, Antoura, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between what is known as the Armenian Genocide by the Turks during WWI and the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis during WWII. Families were uprooted from their ancestral homes where they had lived for generations and marched away for several weeks to a camp in the Syrian desert. Many died during the march but the survivors were only provided starvation level amounts of food. Many were shot but none were specifically mentioned in this book. The only things missing were the gas chambers.
The Turks took many of the children to orphanages and gave them Turkish names, only allowed them to speak Turkish or they would be punished, they were converted to the Muslim faith and punished for any relapses, and they were given almost starvation level meals sometimes just bread. After WWI ended with the Turks and their allies losing, many of the remaining Armenians made the journey back to their homes now under the jurisdiction of the French from the winning side. But as time went on, the French troops eventually were withdrawn and the Turks began attacking the Armenians again to drive them out or kill them. Today we refer to this type of action as ethnic cleansing.
To this day, the Turks deny there ever was any Armenian genocide or ethnic cleansing and if asked about it, the most you are likely to get from them is that they will say the Armenians started it and they were just protecting themselves. This happened to us personally when we flew into Istanbul to board a cruise ship. We arrived late at night and two friendly Turks were there to meet us at the airport and take us to the ship. All was fine until we asked something about the Armenian since we had recently watched a documentary about the genocide. Suddenly things were very quiet until one of them said the Armenians started it and the Turks were just protecting their families. It is still a very sensitive issue to them.
I particularly like this book because it presented personal stories but also provided a larger context in which the events took place. If you have ever wondered what all the Armenian Genocide was about, this would be the book to read. Highly recommended.
As I read this book, Goodbye, Antoura, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between what is known as the Armenian Genocide by the Turks during WWI and the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis during WWII. Families were uprooted from their ancestral homes where they had lived for generations and marched away for several weeks to a camp in the Syrian desert. Many died during the march but the survivors were only provided starvation level amounts of food. Many were shot but none were specifically mentioned in this book. The only things missing were the gas chambers.
The Turks took many of the children to orphanages and gave them Turkish names, only allowed them to speak Turkish or they would be punished, they were converted to the Muslim faith and punished for any relapses, and they were given almost starvation level meals sometimes just bread. After WWI ended with the Turks and their allies losing, many of the remaining Armenians made the journey back to their homes now under the jurisdiction of the French from the winning side. But as time went on, the French troops eventually were withdrawn and the Turks began attacking the Armenians again to drive them out or kill them. Today we refer to this type of action as ethnic cleansing.
To this day, the Turks deny there ever was any Armenian genocide or ethnic cleansing and if asked about it, the most you are likely to get from them is that they will say the Armenians started it and they were just protecting themselves. This happened to us personally when we flew into Istanbul to board a cruise ship. We arrived late at night and two friendly Turks were there to meet us at the airport and take us to the ship. All was fine until we asked something about the Armenian since we had recently watched a documentary about the genocide. Suddenly things were very quiet until one of them said the Armenians started it and the Turks were just protecting their families. It is still a very sensitive issue to them.
I particularly like this book because it presented personal stories but also provided a larger context in which the events took place. If you have ever wondered what all the Armenian Genocide was about, this would be the book to read. Highly recommended.
September 19, 2022
This memoir offers an extraordinary story of what the author endured in the years of deportation—as his people were deported from their Armenian community, as his family died in a refugee camp in the deserts of Syria, as he survived hunger and mistreatment in the orphanage. The Antoura orphanage was another project of the Armenian genocide: its administrators, some benign and some cruel, sought to transform the children into Turks by changing their Armenian names, forcing them to speak Turkish, and erasing their history. A must read.
March 25, 2016
A very tragic stories about children especially The orphans during The Armenian Genocide. Danish grey weather seem to aid how sentimental this book could be. A story of an innocent orphanage boy who survived during The Genocide Era, mentally strong, vulnerable at times, maintained his identity as true Armenian. Love the part that narrates how resilience he was at tender age, and the ugly truth of an overlooked & horrifying modern atrocity.
June 26, 2024
The heart touching story of the series of displacements that a boy named Karnig Panian faced from the time he was 5 years old.... A story of unbelievable resilience...
"Memory cannot be assasinated. Truth cannot be denied."
"It had only been eight or ten days since we had left our town. Like all the other kids, I had already bidden farewell to the innocence of my childhood. I was a small boy, yet the misery I was witnessing was already teaching me the bitter, cynical lessons that most people learn only after a lifetime of suffering."
"We marched in complete silence, dejected and downcast, but unable or unwilling to even complain, like obedient animals being marched to the slaughterhouse."
"Almost everyone in the caravan had fallen into despair. Men and women, old and young, they all saw only darkness. These people who just weeks earlier had been prosperous, living in their homes, praying in their churches, working in their fields, and helping the less fortunate had been turned into a race of emaciated semi corpses. They were like plants that had been uprooted and cast aside and they were now dying slowly shriveling into nothing. "
"I was accustomed to eating bread with butter, jam or cheese, but now I ate it dry with ravenous relish. Hunger after all is the best spice. Every time I bit into those crusty loaves, I thanked and praised God for such bounty. I wanted to live."
"Thirst too was a weapon of annihilation in the arsenal of the Turkish government, which was silently enacting its genocidal plan before the indifference of the world."
"As the epidemics continued, the number of mothers dwindled, while the number of orphans surged. Hundreds of children wandered around the camp, having lost everyone, dying slowly and without a whimper, their eyes accusing all mankind."
"Abroad that train were the last remaining sons of an annihilated nation racing toward unknown shores, tossed about by the waves of the fate. All that was left of our families and hometowns were our memories."
"It was an unequal battle between the administration and the students. Clearly Jemal Pasha's plan was to Turkigy us, but we were determined to resist, not out of rabid nationalism, for which we were too young, but simply because we wanted to hold on to our identities, which were all we had left."
"The pangs of hunger were so terrible that some boys resorted to desparate measures- they ate paper, drank ink and swallowed dead flies that they found around the courtyard. We were basically becoming feral, performing acts that would have nauseated us when we were still back home with our families. For two years we lived like this. The youngest boys in the orphanage were about my age. We had spent two formative years in hunger, misery, fear and pain and we had become disillusioned, cynical and emaciated. But we had not yet yielded a single inch. We had kept our faith, our language and our identities intact."
"In those days at Antoura, it was so easy to die and so hard to survive."
"Also like many of the boys, I would get under the covers, cross myself and murmur prayers in Armenian. I whisphered the Hayr Mer every night just as my mother had taught me. I barely understood the words, but without any family left, this prayer was basically my only connection to my past and my identity. It was my shield against Turkification."
"We all sat solemnly around the fallen statue. There was a silent, holy conversation going on between it and us. We werent even quite sure who the satute was supposed to depict. But we knew it was another link to our pasts, another key to our memories."
"In Antoura, we fought battle against an enemy intent on destroying our identities. We didnt have mothers or fathers, or even good teachers and educators to guide us and impart wisdom. The older boys were our role models, We took our cues from them, realizing that they did their best to be good examples. They encouraged us to keep our language alive, pray to our God, and never forget that we were Armenians."
"The cave then, became our Armenian school, our Armenian church, our bastion of our Armenian identities."
"Because we were born Armenian, we were enduring incredible hardships and we were making massive sacrifices for each other. I was acutely aware of how difficult it was to be Armenian. For five years, I had been suffering for no other reason."
"For the past five years, we had been moved across deserts and mountains without a moment of rest, without a place to call home. Was this our fate? Were we to be moved like cattle from one place to another for the rest of our lives? Lost in these thoughts I watched the countryside zooming past the train. Goats grazed calmly while villagers worked in the fields. I felt a strong sense of empathy with these people. From the depths of my heart, I wanted them to prosper. I wanted no more orphans in the world, no more destitute children."
"We often spoke of the past. The previous five years had been imprinted indelibly onto our souls. But we had to keep looking to the future. No matter what happened, wherever we ended up, we would continue struggling to keep our Armenian heritage alive to preserve our very existence. We had to grow into respectable men and restore our nation's honour. We had to become educated, to learn languages and sciences."
"Memory cannot be assasinated. Truth cannot be denied."
"It had only been eight or ten days since we had left our town. Like all the other kids, I had already bidden farewell to the innocence of my childhood. I was a small boy, yet the misery I was witnessing was already teaching me the bitter, cynical lessons that most people learn only after a lifetime of suffering."
"We marched in complete silence, dejected and downcast, but unable or unwilling to even complain, like obedient animals being marched to the slaughterhouse."
"Almost everyone in the caravan had fallen into despair. Men and women, old and young, they all saw only darkness. These people who just weeks earlier had been prosperous, living in their homes, praying in their churches, working in their fields, and helping the less fortunate had been turned into a race of emaciated semi corpses. They were like plants that had been uprooted and cast aside and they were now dying slowly shriveling into nothing. "
"I was accustomed to eating bread with butter, jam or cheese, but now I ate it dry with ravenous relish. Hunger after all is the best spice. Every time I bit into those crusty loaves, I thanked and praised God for such bounty. I wanted to live."
"Thirst too was a weapon of annihilation in the arsenal of the Turkish government, which was silently enacting its genocidal plan before the indifference of the world."
"As the epidemics continued, the number of mothers dwindled, while the number of orphans surged. Hundreds of children wandered around the camp, having lost everyone, dying slowly and without a whimper, their eyes accusing all mankind."
"Abroad that train were the last remaining sons of an annihilated nation racing toward unknown shores, tossed about by the waves of the fate. All that was left of our families and hometowns were our memories."
"It was an unequal battle between the administration and the students. Clearly Jemal Pasha's plan was to Turkigy us, but we were determined to resist, not out of rabid nationalism, for which we were too young, but simply because we wanted to hold on to our identities, which were all we had left."
"The pangs of hunger were so terrible that some boys resorted to desparate measures- they ate paper, drank ink and swallowed dead flies that they found around the courtyard. We were basically becoming feral, performing acts that would have nauseated us when we were still back home with our families. For two years we lived like this. The youngest boys in the orphanage were about my age. We had spent two formative years in hunger, misery, fear and pain and we had become disillusioned, cynical and emaciated. But we had not yet yielded a single inch. We had kept our faith, our language and our identities intact."
"In those days at Antoura, it was so easy to die and so hard to survive."
"Also like many of the boys, I would get under the covers, cross myself and murmur prayers in Armenian. I whisphered the Hayr Mer every night just as my mother had taught me. I barely understood the words, but without any family left, this prayer was basically my only connection to my past and my identity. It was my shield against Turkification."
"We all sat solemnly around the fallen statue. There was a silent, holy conversation going on between it and us. We werent even quite sure who the satute was supposed to depict. But we knew it was another link to our pasts, another key to our memories."
"In Antoura, we fought battle against an enemy intent on destroying our identities. We didnt have mothers or fathers, or even good teachers and educators to guide us and impart wisdom. The older boys were our role models, We took our cues from them, realizing that they did their best to be good examples. They encouraged us to keep our language alive, pray to our God, and never forget that we were Armenians."
"The cave then, became our Armenian school, our Armenian church, our bastion of our Armenian identities."
"Because we were born Armenian, we were enduring incredible hardships and we were making massive sacrifices for each other. I was acutely aware of how difficult it was to be Armenian. For five years, I had been suffering for no other reason."
"For the past five years, we had been moved across deserts and mountains without a moment of rest, without a place to call home. Was this our fate? Were we to be moved like cattle from one place to another for the rest of our lives? Lost in these thoughts I watched the countryside zooming past the train. Goats grazed calmly while villagers worked in the fields. I felt a strong sense of empathy with these people. From the depths of my heart, I wanted them to prosper. I wanted no more orphans in the world, no more destitute children."
"We often spoke of the past. The previous five years had been imprinted indelibly onto our souls. But we had to keep looking to the future. No matter what happened, wherever we ended up, we would continue struggling to keep our Armenian heritage alive to preserve our very existence. We had to grow into respectable men and restore our nation's honour. We had to become educated, to learn languages and sciences."
April 29, 2025
Reading the World Challenge: Armenia 🇦🇲
"Outside in the courtyard, we spoke Armenian whenever the Turkish women weren't around. But we did so with fear. We knew we were breaking the rules." - Karnig Panian, "Goodbye, Antoura"
When searching for an author from Armenia, I was stumped until my husband suggested to read something in regards to the Armenian genocide. It was then that I found this memoir. This has been my favorite book this year, so far.
Karnig Panian was only five years old when his world turned upside down. It all started when schools closed down and Turks began invading Armenian cities. Of course it would be ingenuous at first, with the Turks telling the Armenians they must leave their homes for their own safety—it'll be there when they come back in a couple weeks. But as they walk, passing deserted towns, they soon realize they won't be going back...
Doesn't this sound all too familiar?
Armenians were forced to live in the desert, scalding in the hot sun. The majority died of heat stroke. Watching his parents and siblings die, Panian was left as an orphan, and for the next four years, we follow his journey from orphanage, to living in caves, back to orphanages. It's a memoir that shows the resiliance young Armenian boys faced while being assimilated into Turkish culture.
This memoir was so compelling, I couldn't put it down. I don't know how this hasn't been made into a movie or series yet. To learn about the Armenian genocide through a first-hand account of a child's perspective was heart-wrenching. Many genocides since then have followed the same regiment: displacement, starvation, assimilation, and erasement. There's an extremely important lesson to learn here: Education is power. When governments attack education, you should be very worried.
I'm giving this book a 5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Next stop: Australia 🇦🇺
"Outside in the courtyard, we spoke Armenian whenever the Turkish women weren't around. But we did so with fear. We knew we were breaking the rules." - Karnig Panian, "Goodbye, Antoura"
When searching for an author from Armenia, I was stumped until my husband suggested to read something in regards to the Armenian genocide. It was then that I found this memoir. This has been my favorite book this year, so far.
Karnig Panian was only five years old when his world turned upside down. It all started when schools closed down and Turks began invading Armenian cities. Of course it would be ingenuous at first, with the Turks telling the Armenians they must leave their homes for their own safety—it'll be there when they come back in a couple weeks. But as they walk, passing deserted towns, they soon realize they won't be going back...
Doesn't this sound all too familiar?
Armenians were forced to live in the desert, scalding in the hot sun. The majority died of heat stroke. Watching his parents and siblings die, Panian was left as an orphan, and for the next four years, we follow his journey from orphanage, to living in caves, back to orphanages. It's a memoir that shows the resiliance young Armenian boys faced while being assimilated into Turkish culture.
This memoir was so compelling, I couldn't put it down. I don't know how this hasn't been made into a movie or series yet. To learn about the Armenian genocide through a first-hand account of a child's perspective was heart-wrenching. Many genocides since then have followed the same regiment: displacement, starvation, assimilation, and erasement. There's an extremely important lesson to learn here: Education is power. When governments attack education, you should be very worried.
I'm giving this book a 5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Next stop: Australia 🇦🇺
February 9, 2022
I picked this book up because I was one of many unfamiliar with the Armenian Genocide (1915–early 1920s)
Using the cover of World War I, the Ottoman state sought to annihilate their Armenian population. Panian recounts the events of his childhood that led to his stay at the orphanage in Antoura, Lebanon. His account shows us that even the youngest Armenians organized against “Turkification” and forced conversion to Islam through small acts of resistance, persistent use of the Armenian language, and an unwavering faith in the Armenian Apostolic Church.
This is a remarkable memoir. It is an indispensable tool for awakening our consciences and forging our solidarity with those who have suffered the horrors of genocide. I would recommend this to those interested in the history of children and childhood during war.
“Bodies my be slaughtered, human beings bludgeoned and burned, but if even one child survives, then memory survives as well. Memory cannot be assassinated. Truth cannot be denied.”
Using the cover of World War I, the Ottoman state sought to annihilate their Armenian population. Panian recounts the events of his childhood that led to his stay at the orphanage in Antoura, Lebanon. His account shows us that even the youngest Armenians organized against “Turkification” and forced conversion to Islam through small acts of resistance, persistent use of the Armenian language, and an unwavering faith in the Armenian Apostolic Church.
This is a remarkable memoir. It is an indispensable tool for awakening our consciences and forging our solidarity with those who have suffered the horrors of genocide. I would recommend this to those interested in the history of children and childhood during war.
“Bodies my be slaughtered, human beings bludgeoned and burned, but if even one child survives, then memory survives as well. Memory cannot be assassinated. Truth cannot be denied.”
September 8, 2022
This memoir was heartbreaking and so difficult to read, but I am glad I did. To read a true narrative about such an atrocious event instead of looking at it from a statistical standpoint was powerful. The twisted beauty in this is that Panian does not tell the story with anger or a lust for revenge, he tells it from a point of childlike fear which makes fills it with so much raw human emotions. It drew out so many emotions from me: a heartwarming joy in the first chapter as celebrations are depicted, reminding me so much of my own family gatherings in Lebanon; stark fear and loss when Panian was orphaned; outrage at the way the boys were treated and that they could know no peace or stability; etc...
This book is NOT a light read. But it is a powerful one. A human one. These stories are too often lost, especially when issues such as this one, the Armenian Genocide, are denied and forgotten. Reading this book, feeling a shred of what they felt, allows their stories and identities to keep living, even when so many are gone.
This book is NOT a light read. But it is a powerful one. A human one. These stories are too often lost, especially when issues such as this one, the Armenian Genocide, are denied and forgotten. Reading this book, feeling a shred of what they felt, allows their stories and identities to keep living, even when so many are gone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2023
The most moving of any memoir from a survivor of the Armenian Genocide I have ever read. One of the best memoirs I have read from any time. Panian is a fantastic fantastic writer and the translation must be doing it justice. The perspective of a child is conveyed so well that I found myself immediately in the shoes of Panian as he recounted his beautiful earliest memories. All the more harsh then was the experience of being ripped out of those shoes and into the position of horrified observer as more and more incursions are made into his childhoods peripheries. The recounting that follows, of his experience surviving the genocide and resisting its cultural component is invaluable to anyone hoping to understand this point in history, the mechanisms of genocide, and the life of one survivor. For its prose alone I would recommend this book, but for its value as a lense through which to understand humanity and history I would shove it in your hands.
December 5, 2023
I had never even known the existence of the Armenian genocide before this book. This book made me cry silently in my bed so I didn’t disturb my roommate. Knowing Panian was just five years old is heartbreaking, and his perspective gives insight what it was like to be Armenian in the Ottoman empire during WW2. The chapter called “The Desert” Panian talks about how some especially corrupt guards would take a liking to young Armenian girls. This was HEARTBREAKING!!!! They would pester the girls parents and when the parents would say no they would forcefully kidnap them!!! It’s a great book, and highly detailed even though it happened when the author was young. This could mean some truths are stretched, but the trauma the author endured would be hard to forget.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2019
A very important story that gives great insight into the Armenian Genocide. I would highly recommend this book. There are some details in the story that I was a little hesitant to believe considering that much of the events from book took place when Panian was five-years-old. Although, he does a very good job writing the story.
February 13, 2024
3.5
Me l’he hagut de llegir per la classe d’història, per lo qual baixa una mica de punts… a més l’havia de llegir rapid, així que no l’he pogut disfrutar totalment.
Howeveeer, bon llibre. Història molt impactant i dura, me n’alegro de saber una mica més sobre el genocidi armeni.
Me l’he hagut de llegir per la classe d’història, per lo qual baixa una mica de punts… a més l’havia de llegir rapid, així que no l’he pogut disfrutar totalment.
Howeveeer, bon llibre. Història molt impactant i dura, me n’alegro de saber una mica més sobre el genocidi armeni.
September 9, 2024
Another book I read for class (comparative genocide), but I think of this book at least once a week. The chapter with the ground up bones burned itself in my brain. This is in the top five books I have EVER read even outside of class. Professor manning thank you for assigned us this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2018
Panian gives the heart-wrenching truth of what happened in Armenia new life in his memoir. a must read.
January 28, 2023
Such a beautiful and inspiring story
It is crazy how much Armenians suffered without any recognition.
It is crazy how much Armenians suffered without any recognition.
June 9, 2025
A great story of survival and continuity. Makes you sad and content at the same time.
October 1, 2025
4.5 really compelling
July 17, 2016
A memoir of the Armenian genocide. A description of the crude reality of the Armenian genocide, as seen from the perspective of a 5 year old orphan boy. Through the pages, you will come face to face with the suffering, the hunger, the cruel punishment and physical and emotional pain inflicted. A real page turner.
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