Review-“Passage through to Hell”

Andrew Esguerra
Staff Writer

Passage Through Hell: A Memoir by Armen Anush. Studio City, CA: H. and K. Manjikian Publishers. 2005. 123 pp. Volume 1 of the Armenian Genocide Library Book Series.

The eyes of a boy just shy of ten years old capture details more horrific and vivid than any photograph of the Armenian Genocide. These experiences were recorded in Passage Through Hell: A Memoir by Armen Anush, the first volume in a series of four eyewitness accounts by Genocide survivors in the “Armenian Genocide Library Book Series.” Series founder Hagop Manjikian presented the volumes at a lecture this past May at Fresno State.

Young Armen Anush’s story opens to the lessons, legends, and history he recalls from his schoolwork. One spring morning, he finds that the school is boarded up and the children are chased away by armed men. The story follows his actions from that day onward, when the men and older boys defended their homes and villages against Turkish soldiers. It was the last time he saw many members of his close-knit family before he was put through a living hell, conveyed so poignantly that Anush’s loss and devastation feels like your own. The humanity of his experience is found in the eight family members who witness and suffer at the hands of despicable Turkish soldiers, greedy merchants, and those who turn a blind eye to them; however, it is the strength and stoicism of the Armenian spirit that makes reading the gory details of Genocide bearable.

Death loomed all around the exiled people, which makes Anush question what had changed in the Armenian people. People, who prior to the Genocide, would stop their daily lives, and even weddings, to mourn the death of one person from their village, now walked passed hacked up corpses without saying a word. It was this tragedy and commonality of horrific things that scarred the Armenians and was seared into the minds of the survivors such as Armen Anush. Yet it is the realistic portrayal of a lone family’s fight for survival in a sea of tired, starving women and children that draws the reader into the depressing story. The desperation and suffering drove some insane, and the diet of crumbs and dirty water left many as walking skeletons, always near death. Memories painful and sickening are written in the book, which makes it all the more necessary to read and hard to put down.

Anush later became a distinguished writer and principal, yet he still notes in the author’s foreword his apprehension towards putting into words what he experienced. In the end, Passage Through Hell: A Memoir is a fundamental read for Armenian and non-Armenians alike who want to fully grasp the endless circles marched in the deserts by the Armenians. Not many survivors are left to describe first-hand the cruel efficiency of the soldiers who murdered the Armenian women and children too starved to keep up the pace.

I applaud Hagop and Knar Manjikian for publishing this translation that immortalizes one man’s account of the Great Crime that until day goes unacknowledged by too many.