Yahanadjian Family
Mari Firkatian, a granddaughter of genocide survivors, spent her childhood living in Bulgaria, where her family came to live after they were forced to flee Armenia. The family hailed from a village called Mets nor Gyugh, meaning “large new village,” which was north of Bursa, the first Ottoman capital. Her maternal family’s name was Yahanadjian, which roughly translates to “olive oil farmers”; they made their living off of olive oil trees, and when they were forced to leave, they chose Bulgaria because they hoped that staying close to the Ottoman Empire would allow them to someday reclaim their farming property.
When the deportation orders came to Mets Nor Gyugh, Mari’s grandmother Iskouhi and her family found themselves being shepherded on and off a series of trains to various nearby towns. Occasionally, they would be forced on and off trains for no apparent reason. In the city of Konya, Iskouhi’s grandfather offered a cigarette to a train station worker, who told them, “don’t get on this train, you’ll all die.” So Hosep took the family to a nearby suburb, where they hid with another Armenian family in a house with high walls, to prevent anyone from knowing that there were young women there. During this time, Iskouhi lost many members of her family to a typhoid epidemic; however, the constant presence of Turkish soldiers made the family hesitant to leave the area.
Mari’s grandfather, Krikor, also found himself at that train station in Konya with his own family. However, his family made the ill-fated decision to get on the train—all except Krikor, who stayed with his mother as she was too ill to travel. He never saw the rest of his family again.
Krikor and his mother went to a refugee camp in Greece, where she contracted Cholera and perished. From there, he went to Bulgaria alone, where he likely met and married Iskouhi.