Nikki Shah

What enables a person to fight and to carry on after all has been taken from them? After their family, their home, their entire world is gone? Is it the simple will to live, to fight for survival, or the strength to never give up? I believe that it is the will to not allow the other side to win, to show them that you are not inferior because of your religion or race. But how would you stand up against someone when they are pointing the barrel of a rifle up your brother or sister’s nose?

Reading Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian, has opened my eyes to world we live in and the types of people we share it with. I didn’t realize how terrible it could be. Though I do not, and will never, understand how someone could justify killing others because of their religion, acts of malevolence could still be happening all over the world. Before reading Forgotten Fire, I did not know the magnitude of Armenian genocide. Thousands of men, women, and children were brutally killed by people who believed they were superior because of their religion and race.

“The problem with loneliness is that, unlike other forms of human suffering, it teaches us nothing” (Bagdasarian, page 130). Human suffering was a large part of the holocaust. When I read about the holocaust, it was hard for me to understand how people could be so tolerant to the awful things that were happening in their country.  The idea that human beings could go along with these terrible deeds done by others around them is unfathomable to me. I could not imagine what the thousands of Armenians felt as they were being dragged to their doom.

In Forgotten Fire, Vahan Kenderian is forced away from his brothers, his sisters, his mother, and his father when they are taken away and killed in the Armenian holocaust. Vahan was forced to fight for his life in many situations, barely surviving and watching his family die. Based on a true story, this has explained the workings of such terrible people in Turkey.

When I first learned of the inhumane actions that occurred in Armenia, I was shocked that people could be so cruel to others. “I dropped to the ground and covered my head with my hands, the world exploding around me” (Bagdasarian, page 48), a young twelve-year-old boy said as he watched soldiers murder his grandmother. I couldn’t imagine one day being in my bed and the next in a jail cell waiting for my death. I was also curious as to what was going through the minds of tens of thousands of people during this time. Were they scared? Were they angry? Did they fight against soldiers when their brothers were killed? Or did they watch helplessly, in fear of loosing their own lives? I couldn’t imagine what I would do, and I hope that I will never have to make that choice.