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On April 24, 1915, the entire leadership of the Armenians in Istanbul and elsewhere in Ottoman Turkey was rounded up and summarily executed. This ushered in the systematic, organized, deliberate, well-orchestrated annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians who lived in their ancestral homeland since its almost prehistoric beginnings and was known as Western Armenia. This holocaust subsequently has been recognized as the Armenian Genocide, the first of the twentieth century.
We have been studying and interacting with children of survivors of the Armenian Genocide for the last 20 years in a formal and professional fashion and for our entire lives as part of that generation that followed the survivors. It is clear that there are some distinct characteristics in how we relate to problems we face. Certain ideas seem to emerge the more one deals with children of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Whatever the similarities happen to be between us and others who have faced major cataclysmic events, some very particular things apply to the Armenians and perhaps especially to Armenians in the Diaspora.
In order to understand the heritage of the children of survivors it is important to go back and reconstruct the way of life among most of the Armenians who lived in Western Armenia under the Ottoman rulers for centuries. Because of their Christian religion, and being a defeated and occupied nation, the Armenians did not have the rights and privileges of Moslem Ottoman Turks. They maintained their identity and security through family relationships, work, church, and schools. This had been a way of life for the majority of the survivors, before the genocide of 1915, having going through periodic massacres and persecutions under