In-Person Author Talk- Forced Into Genocide: Memoirs of an Armenian Soldier in the Ottoman Turkish Army

This memoir recalls Yervant Alexanian’s experiences in the center of the Armenian Genocide. Like other Armenians of his generation, he was an eyewitness to the massacre and dislocation of his family and fellow countrymen in Ottoman Turkey during World War I. Alexanian was conscripted into the Turkish army—but unlike others so conscripted, he survived.

His story of resourceful action and fateful turns is a suspenseful insider’s account of a Genocide survivor. From his singular position, Alexanian was able to document the tragedy of his people in his journals and diaries, but he also offers us a behind-the-scenes look into the motivations and actions of Turkish military officials as they committed the atrocities.

No comparable account exists in the literature of the Armenian Genocide. This edition, translated from Alexanian’s hand-written Armenian-language chronicle, includes never-before-seen documents and photos that the author preserved. Through his eyes we relive the cruelty of the Genocide’s perpetrators—but also rare, unexpected acts of humanity between victim and oppressor.

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