Ravished Armenia

My first real contact with Armenians was while serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in St. Petersburg, Russia.  We regularly ran into Armenians in our efforts to preach on the streets.  One of the members of the branch in Pskov was an ethnic Armenian.  One of the sister missionaries in one of the districts I served in was from Armenia.  It was from her that I first learned about the Armenian alphabet, which was like nothing I had ever seen before.  Since then, I have had a few chances to get to know more Armenians and learn a little about the history of this small country in the Caucasus that has outsized sway around the world because of its ubiquitous and rather tight-knit diaspora.  The diaspora is so large and so widespread, in part, because of the World War I time-frame killings Armenians were subjected to.

Ravished Armenia: The Story of Aurora Mardiganian, the Christian Girl Who Survived the Great Massacres by Aurora Mardiganian (Arshalyus Mardiganyan) is an autobiographical account of the Turkish oppression of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire starting in 1915.  The Mardiganian family, relatively wealthy financiers, are warned by their shepherd that he had a dream about the Armenians’ imminent destruction, but his prediction is dismissed.  Soon, though, it comes true, as the family is driven from their home, along with all the other Armenians.  Occasionally, leniency is shown to those who will renounce their Christian faith and adopt Islam, but even then, the freshly converted Armenians are killed by their Turkish and Kurdish oppressors.  Aurora, like most of the women and children, is driven from place to place, guarded by Turkish policemen.  Those who are too slow to keep up during forced marches are dispatched quickly and usually cruelly, although Mardiganian’s account does point out a few instances of decency and humanity from guards or locals in the places the Armenians were marched.  Her story, like many of those who lived during this time, is made all the more tragic because she was there to see the deaths of her father, mother, a sister, and a brother.  She was sold multiple times to be a harem girl.  This never worked out for the buyer because Aurora was never willing to accept Islam.  It really didn’t work out for her, either, though, because her refusals were usually met with abuse and deprivation.  After wandering the Ottoman Empire under the care of the Turkish police or as the property of various rich Turks, having seen so much killing, rape, and pillaging, her old shepherd friend, then working for a Turk trying to get Aurora to submit to Islam before being fully accepted into his harem, helped her escape.  She stayed with friendly Kurds before eventually being helped by Americans in the region and then making her way to Russian-controlled territory and under Russian and Armenian military oversight, made her way to Tbilisi, then Russia, and then the United States.

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with Armenians will have heard of what they refer to simply as the Genocide.  There are some political implications involved in using that term, but that is what the Armenians refer to it as, and it was, undoubtedly, a terrible time for them.  There are not many things one can compare their suffering to, although maybe the treatment of the Bosniaks when the former Yugoslavia fell apart is a decent comparison.  Aurora’s story was one of suffering and tragedy.  As a memoir meant to tell of her people’s travails, there is no larger discussion of world politics at the time or even the regional situation (in short: it’s the Caucasus and the Middle East, so it’s somewhere beyond complicated).  The reader just gets a relatively young girl’s take on a horrible situation.  On the other hand, despite all the destruction, violence, and despair, there is hope in the book.  I found the willingness she had, along with a few others, to not renounce Christ despite the often gruesome consequences extremely brave and inspiring.  The will to survive and the resourcefulness displayed by those in a tight spot to do so were admirable, too.  There are also lessons in the book about avoiding the totalitarian and authoritarian impulses that so often afflict those in power that lead to so much death and destruction of human life.
 

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Avenue of Spies

France is famous for artwork, food, seaside rivieras, skiing, and the architecture and monuments of Paris.  France is on almost everyone’s list of places to visit.  Most people think it’d be cool to see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, or spend time in Normandy or on the Mediterranean French Riviera.  Not everyone thinks snails are something they should try, but crêpes are on everyone’s list.  France also has an interesting reputation as being a country of cowards and wimps.  There are lots of jokes about French surrender in battle.  Some of this comes from a collaborationist government during World War II.  Despite the Nazi collaborators, there were many in France who joined the resistance and fought against Germany in open armed rebellion as well as in all kinds of underground activity.

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw (ISBN: 978-0-8041-4004-1) is one story of underground activity during the Nazi occupation of France.  It is about an American, Dr. Sumner Jackson, his Swiss-born wife, Toquette, and their son, Phillip, who lived on the same street as many of the leaders of the occupying Germans, but aided the French resistance and paid the ultimate price for that patriotic effort.  Jackson was a surgeon at an American hospital in France and used both his residence and the hospital as venues for fighting the Germans.  Toquette and Phillip were also happy to be involved.  Phillip couldn’t do much as a teenager, but understood what his parents were involved in.  The house was used as a place to pass documents and information, the hospital was used to make Allied soldiers disappear once they had been adequately treated.  Many were able to escape to neutral Spain and then back to England.  The Nazis were next door and across the street and in houses all along the street, but the Jackson family was able to aid the resistance for quite some time before eventually being rounded up with other patriotic Frenchmen and sent to concentration camps in Germany.  The entire family survived the camps.  Toquette was extricated from one by the Swedes (reminded me a tiny bit of Raoul Wallenberg) and the Red Cross.  Sumner and Phillip survived their camp experience, in large part thanks to Dr. Jackson’s abilities as a doctor and being able to barter those services for easier assignments for his son.  However, they were being transported away from Germany on a transport ship that was bombed by the English.  The ship was destroyed.  Phillip was able to swim away and was rescued by German fishermen before they realized that he wasn’t German.  His father, though, who had a chance to not board the ship when the Germans, at the behest of the Red Cross, asked for all French speakers to step out of line, but decided to board anyway out of a sense of duty to the sick and injured men he was aiding as a doctor, did not survive the bombing.  Phillip’s last war-time activity was as a member of the British Army, translating, searching for, and testifying against German war criminals.  He was eventually re-united with his mother in France.

I found the book to be pretty good.  Like many history books that focus on one very specific event or one person, it seemed like there were parts of the book that were added simply to fill a page requirement.  Overall, though, the story was interesting, and the historical details about those involved, both French and German, were worth reading and learning about.  I am always impressed by those who were willing to take risks to do what was right during World War II.  Especially toward the end of the war, as Germany lost territory, men, and influence, any anti-German conduct was immediately punishable by death.  The Jackson family’s readiness to take on those risks essentially without asking any questions speaks volumes about their moral fiber and presents an example worth emulating.  

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Heir to the Empire

I remember going to a friend’s house as a kid and seeing some Star Wars books on his family’s bookshelves.  I remember being confused by that since I knew there were only three movies, and the titles on the spines of these books had nothing to do with the movies except the “Star Wars” part.  I did not understand at all that there was an entire fictional world that nerds had created beyond the original three movies.  It really didn’t interest me, so I didn’t think much of it until more recently, when some people in my family got into Star Wars and re-opened the question of what is now referred to as something like the “expanded universe” (Star Wars nerds somewhere will happily tell me I’ve used incorrect terminology, I’m sure).  As I became acquainted with Star Wars Rebels, I was introduced to a villain named Thrawn, who was a great bad guy in the animated series, and I didn’t know that he had actually existed for a long time in some of those books I saw at that friend’s house.

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (ISBN: 978-0-593-35876-4) is the first in a trilogy (seems writers and publishers have long found trilogies to be very marketable) featuring a blue-skinned, red-eyed humanoid alien as the brains behind what is left of the Empire after Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion had conquered the Empire in the movies.  Thrawn is written as an incredibly smart military and political genius who not only knows the art of war and diplomacy, but is also a student of culture, particularly the arts.  He uses this knowledge to help him understand his enemies and stay one step ahead of them.  The book also includes movie favorites like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Lando Calrissian, and others.  They have their own adventures fighting off remnants of the Empire (commanded by Thrawn), dealing with pirates (the underworld always being a Star Wars staple), and fighting with new enemies like the ape-like Rukh or the human Mara Jade.  Rukh and his species are ruthless killers, but not quite up to the task of defeating Wookies, and Leia ends up making an uneasy truce with one of the aliens since they are all loyal to Darth Vader and Leia is his daughter.  Luke Skywalker, Han, Lando, and the famous droids R2-D2 and C-3PO are captured by Mara Jade and other pirates, spend time negotiating with them, and eventually get away by banding together with the pirates to fight off Imperial forces aided by an imposter Jedi.  The last big event in the book is Thrawn’s forces attempting to attack a freight depot and make off with hundreds of ships for his depleted Imperial navy.  With Luke Skywalker’s aid, that attack is more or less thwarted, but since the books is the first in a series, it feels very much left open and unresolved.

I thought the book was OK.  Other Star Wars books I’ve read, like the Ahsoka book, were better.  I found that this one simply didn’t hold my attention.  To me, that’s saying something because I came in already thinking Thrawn was a pretty cool character.  Maybe it’s because there were other storylines?  I was also seriously underwhelmed with the writing.  I thought it was to repetitive and cliché.  One does not need to hear about the same facial expression every time a character thinks or does the same thing.  The reader gets it after the first couple times.  I thought that maybe a different way of saying things or some different words could’ve been used.  I know it’s painfully obvious when a writer has been using a thesaurus, but a little variety couldn’t hurt.  I think I wasn’t too impressed with the sections about the old Star Wars characters.  This story would’ve been better had it been all new, not the writer’s take on characters that every person has their own ideas about.  Fans who are all in will likely like the book, but for us who just kind of hover on the edges of Star Wars fandom, it was forgettable.

This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License and is copyrighted © MMXXI John Pruess.