Armenian Genocide: Grandma's Tattoo Suzanne Khardalian

Many Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes during the First World War, moving from the then Ottoman Empire, into the vast deserts of Iraq and Syria. During this time over a million people either died or were murdered in what the Armenians describe as genocide, even though Turkish officials refute this statement. The director of the film Armenian Genocide: Grandma’s Tattoo Suzanne Khardalian delves into her own family’s history to investigate and discover the shocking truth behind some of the unusual tattoos her late grandma had acquired. She recalls her grandma as being a bit different from the rest of the women her age, as she was never fond of physical contact and was always covered with odd markings. “Grandma Khanoum was not like …show more content…
Allied forces abducted over 90,000 young Armenian girls during the height of World War I, these young Armenian girls were either forced to use prostitution as a means of survival, or they were subject to giving birth to children after forced marriages or rape. The tattoo was a means of identification to their captors, like how people mark their cattle. European and American missionaries, who worked specifically to find them, even though they were recovered in various different places, saved many of these slaves. Even though the director is speaking from the perspective of one Armenian, this is something that many women were subjected to during this time. The movie does a great job in piecing various different storylines together, as there are different people in the movie who give their perspective as well, such as Lucia, the then 98-year-old sister of Grandma Khanoum, her Aunt Marie, as well as her own mother who shares her own stories about her grandmother and an interesting tidbit about a Kurdish man who was initially supposed to help her escape but actually tricked her grandma and kidnapped her and held her hostage as his