Forgotten Fire

"Who does now remember the Armenians?" -- Adolph Hitler

These are the ominous, evil words which proceed Adam Bagdasarian's adolescent historical novel based on the experiences of his great-uncle who was a survivor of the Armenian holocaust of Turkey in 1915-1916. It was with these words that Hitler sought to justify his plan to elminate the Jews.

And so I ask, "Do you remember?"

When I was a child, my mother would encourage my sister and me to finish our supper. She would say to us, "Eat up! There are children starving in Armenia!" I never gave those words much thought until I read this moving story about a boy named Vahan and how his indomitable spirit keeps him alive even after witnessing the horrible deaths of the beloved members of his family and during his exodous from Turkey. This work is definitely an eye-opener, especially when the reader digs for more historical information and learns that even today that the Turkish government does not acknowledge the murder of over 1.5 million Christian Armenians during this dark period and that even the British government refused to recognize it early in the twenty-first century.

Curious for more information? Go here, here, here, and here.