Haig Baronian
Haig Baronian
Born in 1908 in Baybourt Turkey
I do not remember how many days our decimated caravan marched. Day by day, the male contingent of the caravan got smaller and smaller. Under the pretext of not killing them if they would hand over liras, gold coins, men would be milked of what little money they had, and then they would be killed anyway. Days wore on. Those who could not keep up were put out of their misery.
Always bodies were found strewn by the wayside. At one place, my little grandmother loudly cursed the Turkish government for its inhumanity. Pointing to us children, she asked: "What is the fault of children to be subjected to such suffering?" It was too much for a gendarme to bear; he pulled his dagger and plunged it into my grandmother's back. The more he plunged his dagger, the more my beloved Nana asked for heaven's curses on him and his kind.
Unable to silence her with repeated dagger thrusts, the gendarme mercifully pumped some bullets into her and ended her life. First my uncle, now my grandmother were left un-mourned and unburied by the wayside. We moved on.
Haig survived the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turks against the Armenians in 1915. He graduated from Cornell in 1931. He owned and operated his own Interior Design business. He is survived by his wife, Sandra, their son, Robert, and his grandchildren, Christina and Nicholas.
Haig Died November 24, 2003.
Born in 1908 in Baybourt Turkey
I do not remember how many days our decimated caravan marched. Day by day, the male contingent of the caravan got smaller and smaller. Under the pretext of not killing them if they would hand over liras, gold coins, men would be milked of what little money they had, and then they would be killed anyway. Days wore on. Those who could not keep up were put out of their misery.
Always bodies were found strewn by the wayside. At one place, my little grandmother loudly cursed the Turkish government for its inhumanity. Pointing to us children, she asked: "What is the fault of children to be subjected to such suffering?" It was too much for a gendarme to bear; he pulled his dagger and plunged it into my grandmother's back. The more he plunged his dagger, the more my beloved Nana asked for heaven's curses on him and his kind.
Unable to silence her with repeated dagger thrusts, the gendarme mercifully pumped some bullets into her and ended her life. First my uncle, now my grandmother were left un-mourned and unburied by the wayside. We moved on.
Haig survived the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turks against the Armenians in 1915. He graduated from Cornell in 1931. He owned and operated his own Interior Design business. He is survived by his wife, Sandra, their son, Robert, and his grandchildren, Christina and Nicholas.
Haig Died November 24, 2003.