Dan Merian

Description

Transcription

00:00 - 00:23
Roger Hagopian (RG): My name is Roger Hagopian. I'm a filmmaker in the Armenian community. I'm here to interview Daniel Merian on his family history, both sides of his family and his present experience in Whitinsville.
00:25
Dan Merian (DM): Thank you, Roger.
00:28 - 00:37
RH: If you would like to begin by telling the story of I would assume your mother's side of the family having arrived earlier.
00:37 - 1:27
DM: Exactly. Sure. Well, I can start with my grandfather, and he was born in Bayberd in northern province of Erzurum, in between the northern right near the Black Sea near Trebizond (Trabzon) south of Trebizond. The village is Bayberd, the town and he was born there and lived there till the genocide or right before? I'm not sure exactly the dates, but the family was deported. And he went to Istanbul, Constantinople. And from there he made his way to Egypt, and Alexandria, Egypt.
01:27 - 02:04
DM: And he had a big family because his father married a number of times because the wife was dying, you know, lifespans were very short there sometimes and they got sick. So, he was married, like three times…my grandfather's father, and so he had kids from each wife, so and so my father had a lot of brothers and sisters, all around, and they all escaped. One went to Italy. One went to Boston, and that's why he came here.
02:04 - 03:00
DM: And the way it happened was, he had a sister. The baby was born. And during the deportations the neighbor took the baby and said, you know, she could be killed. Let me keep her, Turkish neighbor, and raised her. So, this was his background. He got to Constantinople. He had a brother in Boston, already in Boston. Karnig my grandfather's name was Antranig Sarafian and his brother Carnig Sarafian was in Boston. He left a few years earlier, before the genocide, to study at BU law school. And he told my grandfather to, they got in contact with each other from Boston.
03:00 - 03:38
DM: My grandfather went from Constantinople to Egypt. He was in Alexandria, and he worked for an Armenian tobacco company, the Matossian Tobacco. Armenians are very big in tobacco in the Near East. And especially in Egypt, and they control the cigarettes. And my grandfather was like an accountant and a tobacco tester there. And he had a brother that escaped and went to Milan, Italy. So, he had another brother in Italy.
03:38 - 04 49
DM: And so, what happened was he stayed in Egypt a number of years, till 1918. He met my grandmother, probably by 1914, 1915—when he got there after the genocide. He saw her in a play and they got married and he liked her. He was 32 years old. My grandmother was 16. And she married him and they had two children in Egypt, in Alexandria. Aram and Arshalooys. And at that time in Egypt, his brother in Boston, said to him Antranig, you have to come to America, there's plenty of jobs. I have this job set up for you in Newton at the Sherman paper mill, Newton Upper Falls. So, he went there. So, he decided to come. My grandfather but my grandmother with the two babies couldn't come right away.
04:50 - 05:25
DM: He would go first. And I think his entry was in 1918, to New York and then to Boston, and he went to Newton and worked in Sherman paper mill, and had an apartment. All the Armenians, there were many other Armenians working. Besides Watertown, at The Arsenal, they went to Newton to work in the factory. And they had triple-deckers. And in Upper Falls, a lot of immigrants. It was kind of the most immigrant area of Newton, with a lot of double-deckers and triple-deckers.
05:26 - 05:53
DM: And so, he went there and worked and then he called my grandmother to come two years, 1921. My grandmother came with two children, and came to Newton. They lived in Needham first. It was like a wilderness all. It wasn't developed. It was like a forest, and then so my grandmother was used, you know, a city, and so it was hard in the beginning.
05:53 - 06:36
DM: So that was my grandfather's story, how he got here. And, now my grandmother was from Iskenderun. Her name was Elizabeth Zorian. In fact, one of the founders of the ARF, Stepan Zorian, they were related. And so, there's not many Zorians around and a lot of them are related that do have that name. But she was born in Iskenderun, which is in, near Musa Dagh, that area there, called Alexandretta (today), and she lived there till 1908.
06:36 - 07:14
And she migrated, you know, she escaped. The Adana massacres took place in 1908 and 1909. And now, it's close by, and a neighbor, a Kurdish neighbor told my grandmother's parents that they're going start rounding up the people. You better get out of here. And they were a very wealthy family, my grandmother's family. So they, you know, got everything together and got on a French ship and they went to Alexandria, Egypt, too.
07:15 - 07:33
DM: And so, the family was there in Alexandria. They, what did the Armenians do when they got to the beach, where did they go? They don't know anyone. So, they put tents out, the government, they put tents. And they lived in tents on the beach for a while till they got settled in the town.
07:34 - 07:55
DM: And Armenians are very industrious and they established quickly and they started businesses and things like that. But she was in a town, went to a French school. She learned English, my grandmother. Which helped immensely when she got here, finally, in the United States.
07:58 - 08:22
DM: She had the two children, and she left. Her whole family was in Alexandria. She had a mother. The father, I think, already died. The mother, two brothers, a sister, and they stayed in Egypt. And my grandmother came to be with her husband in Newton.
08:23 - 08:39
DM: So, she came in 1921 with the two children and went to Newton Upper Falls. And like I say, lived in Needham, initially and then moved to Newton Upper Falls in a triple-decker. And they started their life in America.
08:40 - 09:11
DM: She would work in the factory too, but she also would be helping other Armenians in the town because they didn't speak English and she knew English. And my grandmother showed (people) how fill out paperwork for them for the government and things like that. She was very active with ARS and used to do what she could and I guess one of the questions I would have asked her if she was still here was: how the hell do you have the energy to do everything you did? It was just amazing.
09:12 - 10:17
DM: You know, she eventually had six children. And Alice, my mother, Arshalooys (Betty) my oldest aunt, and Berj, Bob (the younger brother), and Vahe, and Sylvia (the youngest sister), and Aram, was the one with the came from Egypt. And when he was eight years old, he was in the, they were playing with my mother and brother on a rock in Newton Upper Falls. And it was a big current at a time it wasn't like it now. And they slipped, they played, and they slipped and he got washed down. So, they lost a child. So that stuck with my mother a lot and their family for many, many years. So, throughout their whole life. The loss, but that's what happens. You know that's life. Life continues you know, and so, they made their lives.
10:17 - 10:50
DM: They start building their lives with their 6; 5 children now, in America and all of them got college educated, and they're very successful. And that was their thing. They came for the kids for their well-being, of course for their own well-being too. But in Egypt, they did have a comfortable life. They did. You could hire a maid for five cents a day and they can clean and cook and everything. So, but…
10:51 - 11:17
DM: And then, like I say, my mother's experience. She was born in Newton and she grew up in a triple-deckers and went to schools in Newton Upper Falls. And like I say, there was a community there, an Armenian community. In fact, a lot of the people didn't speak English and the bus used to come pick up people, take them to Watertown, take to other places.
11:17 - 11:44
DM: Some worked in the Arsenal and they, a lot of people from Pazmashen, and their bus driver used to say Pazmashen, and you know, the guys used to run out to get on the bus. They know which bus to get on. It was funny. It was a little story but, you know, it wasn't the easy life. It was a hard life.
11:44 - 12:01
DM: They both worked in factories, had to raise kids. They didn't have any money. They had poor, they had nothing. And it was tough. My grandfather used to tell my grandmother every five years, " Elize, passport,‘badrastenk’ “prepare your passport”, we're going back to Egypt." But they had no money to go back.
12:01 - 12:42
DM: So anyway, so that was the story. But they, you know, they did it for the children, and they're very loving and caring people. I never knew my grandfather, but I knew my grandmother. And so, me and my mother growing up, went to school in Newton, eventually went to BU. And that's when she met my father. She worked in, she went to BU and graduated in French and political science. Worked at the Boston Public Library in the French division, till she met my father.
12:43 - 13:19
DM: And just a story of, the brief story of my grandfather and grandmother and how they came here to this country. My father’s (story) is totally different. You know, it's a totally different. . .for most western Armenians shares a lot of the same stories from Anatolia in the West. My father was from the Soviet Armenia he was but he was born in 1918, September 17, in the first independent Republic of Armenia, my father.
13:20 - 13:23
RH: Can you go back to your family's roots in Van?
13:23 - 14:11
DM: Yes, so I was going to get to that so, so he was born in Armenia, a small village near Lake Sevan called Dzovinar. And this village in a series of villages along the lake, were descendants of people that emigrated out from Van area 350 years ago. They went from all Alashgert. Alashgert was a town in Van. And so, the history, they were Vanetsies, but they came much before then to Armenia, to that area Lake Sevan and even the dialect that my aunts, I met my aunts, we're speaking with a lot of them had some of the words that they would speak in that dialect in Van. Very interesting.
14:11 - 14:55
DM: My father was born, 1918. The Soviets took over. He was in a terrible time in the 1920s in Armenia, between the Soviets taking over, the collectivization of the land, they were all farmers, or fishermen, near the lake, and the potato farmers or cabbage. And, you know, we're very good farmers, the land was bountiful. When the Soviets came, they changed everything. They took the land from the people. They let you keep a little bit. But then they were doing the collective farm.
14:56 - 15:50
DM: So, everyone shared. They had to work for the big farm and most of the stuff went to Russia, but KGB was going around. It was very, you know, you couldn't, you have to be careful the way you talked. It was very, very tough. And most people don't know this: the villages around Lake Sevan, there was like almost a civil war in the 1920s, 25 to 27. There were always things going on, like they would push Soviets out from one village, from the villages. They would actually fight and they would go back and forth. And they couldn't, because the villagers had no control over their destiny. They were going to collectivize the land. So, the villagers killed all their animals. So, they had no animals. Because they didn't want, they would take all the animals from the from the people. It was very hard.
15:51 - 16:25
DM: Anyway, but he grew up in this scenario, but he felt the only way to get ahead was to be educated. So, my father was very educated. Went to, he was serious in his studies and went to college. He spent one year at the university in Yerevan. He spent one year there studying history, and he couldn't take the heat because it's very hot in Yerevan. It is cooler in the Lake Sevan area because it's above sea level. And it really affected him so he came back.
16:26 - 17:14
DM: But going back briefly before that, there were many times that his family went to Artsakh, Karabakh, Nagorno-Karabakh. They lived there three years. Times were tough in the village. They went to Karabakh to work in the plantations, rubber plantations . They used to grow rubber in Artsakh, and there was a big crop. You could do it, everything grows in Karabakh. It's very fertile, the soil. And they lived there. And they went with the ox and the cart and the wagon taking them, and they walked and took their animals all the way there. And that's how they traveled.
17:15 - 17:52
DM: And then they went back to Armenia, of course, after Karabagh. But that was just a side, like, he did live there for a number of years. He went to university, came back. He taught Russian in different villages around, the surrounding villages. He liked languages he taught Russian and he became very fluent. After that he got his draft notice. This was in 1938, and they drafted him into the Soviet Army.
17:53 - 18:33
DM: He made a big speech, and he went to his village and people and he's leaving and he left. Went to train on the calvary. Horse, and had a sword, and this was initially it was in the cavalry, he was a good horsemen, my father. Growing up in the village. But anyway, that didn't last too long because they didn't, the cavalry forces didn't do too well. So, they switched. He was a heavy machine gunner. He, they put him, they drafted him, they gave him training.
18:34 - 19:00
DM: About a month or two later they sent him to, after the training, to Finland for the Russo-Finnish war. It was cold. The snow. It was miserable. The Finns were great fighters. They used to dress the white snow suits, hide behind trees, all the white birch trees in the forest and the Russians just weren't prepared.
19:03 - 19:36
DM: They suffered a lot of casualties and they were surrounded by a Finnish unit. But they didn't want to be captured so my father, with a couple guys, they went, found their way out. And he led his group out back to battalion, back to safety, to Soviet lines. He was acknowledged because he did a brave feat, the way he got out. And they said oh, you're a good soldier. They sent him to Officer school.
19:36 - 20:11
DM: So now he became a captain in the Soviet army, and had a battalion. And they sent him to, in fact the Premier of the Soviets was Kalinin, and they sent him to Moscow. They gave him a medal, the Red Star Order of Lenin for being a good soldier. Anyway, they stationed him in Poland during 1941, June.
20:11 - 20:35
DM: That's when the war broke out, when the Germans attacked. Previously they carved up Poland. Germans took one-half, the Soviets took one-half. He was on the half of the Soviet side, my father, when the war broke out. The Germans are attacking. It was just crazy. They weren't prepared. They're shooting machine guns at the plane. It was just terrible.
20:37 - 21:03
DM: They push back, push back, push back. Six months later he was captured by the Germans. He was in prison camp in Dachau. Among many camps, that was the first one in Poland. They just threw the Soviet soldiers outside, put barbed wire around them. You'd wake up the morning it'd be ten people dead around you, frozen. It was terrible in the beginning.
21:05 - 21:42
DM: He survived because he was hardy. He was used to nothing, growing up in Armenia. Like I said, it was very hard. They had meat maybe once a year. Because the animals were so scarce and so valuable. Andbecause you can get so much from a cow. You get milk, you get yogurt, get butter, you get so many things you can do from cows, and so they're valuable. He was used to not having a lot. So those are the ones who survived a lot rather than the Communist Party leaders' kids from Moscow, Leningrad. They were the first to go because they were used to better life.
21:47 - 21:53
RH: Was that the time when Hitler invaded Poland around 1939?
21:53 - 22:24
DM: Yeah, they transferred them on trains to Germany. And he was in Auschwitz. It was a big camp. Huge, he said. They put all the Soviets, Russians, they took care of their own groups, like the Russians. English, Americans would be on their own. And the Soviets, they wouldn't mix them together. It was brutal.
22:24 - 23:29
DM: You had typhus. Eighty-five pounds, like a skeleton. And he, it was tough. What saved him, he was in Buchenwald, Auschwitz, transferred to a number of camps. But in Auschwitz, I think it was in Auschwitz that the German officer came and hit him again. He tried to stay, he was so hungry, that you know he went a second time for soup. And he hit him with a whip knocked him to the ground. And a few hours later, the German officer came up to my father, he said, I don't know what came over me. I'm so sorry, what I did, from a beautiful wooden box full of tins of jams, jellies, crackers, bread. And he said, I don't know. I feel terrible, showing pictures of his family. And he said, “From this day on, am I going to take care of your like my son. ” Where this comes from, you know? God only knows.
23:29 - 24:10
DM: So, he took care of my father. And he took him, he switched him from the camp to a better position like helping the doctor in the camp. Take care of patients like the Russian doctor. He would take care of things, like a nurse. So, he got more rations, better conditions to live, in a barracks and things like that. And he got his strength back. And the man said to him, the German officer said, “I tell you if even if I get transferred, I'mgoing to give orders that they take care of you.” So that's how he got his strength back. It was amazing.
24:11 - 24:46
DM: He transferred to a camp near France, near Southern Germany. When Americans, they did D-Day he was still there in '45. My father, they liberated the camp. An American officer came in. They said they had a pact, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin had a pact. They were supposed to give all the ex-Soviet prisoners. Soviet prisoners back to the Soviet Union.
24:48 - 25:30
DM: And they consider you traitors if you if you were a Soviet prisoner. It wasn't like America and British coming back to ticker tape parades. But they're not like the Japanese. They're all different ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. They weren't like the Japanese. you know, they weren't going to kill themselves. And so, he said to the German officer, “We can't, you can't send us back. They're going to shoot me now. I'm an officer and they consider me a traitor”. Regular soldiers were sent ten years to Siberia. My father had a cousin. He was in Germany too, he went back. He stepped foot in his village in 1956.
25:31 - 26:10
DM: Ten years in Siberia for being captured. Peasant, couldn’t read and write. My father was educated, you know, and was an officer and they consider them you know, traitors, and they shot a lot of them. He explained that to the American officer, and he said, “Just wait a minute.” He came back a few minutes, an hour later and said, “Look, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to give each of you guys, (there was fifteen other Armenians like my father in the camp) give you some money, going to take you to the train station in the town, and you can take trains, and I'll say I didn't see you guys.”
26:14 - 26:23
RH: Were there other Armenians in this camp? Because it was a displaced-persons, a DP camp they called it, a global displaced persons camp in Stuttgart was located there. Do you know where it was located?
26:24 - 27:06
DM: I'm not sure where. But it wasn't that camp because that camp was started after the, I think after the war for the displaced people, the DPs. So, this was just a regular German camp. I can't say which one it was. I don’t think he never told me. So, and that's what they did. So, he went to the train station. He went to Brussels, Belgium, my father. Other people went to Paris, and other people went to other places. And what does he do? He gets to Brussels, Belgium. What does he do? How does he find someone? He doesn’t speak French, which they speak in Brussels.
27:07 - 27:26
DM: What he does, he thinks, and he goes to a phone booth and there's a phonebook. He looks for a name. He found the name Garabedian. He calls up and he says to the guy in Armenian, you know, he figures the guy will speak Armenian. He explains the situation, he said, “stay there”. He came with a big car, picked my father up, took him to his house.
27:27 - 27:52
DM: And it turned out he owned three oriental rug stores in Brussels, Belgium. Had two daughters, and took my father in like a son. Hid my father out about a year. Lived with him, taught him rug weaving, rug repair, things with the rugs which would help in his carpet business later on when my father got to this country.
27:53 - 28:36
DM: But it was a very tough time in Belgium, because the KGB after the war were going and looking for their ex-soldiers. And this guy, Papa Garebedian, he called him, he was very wealthy. He had three stores. He was a very special man and helped my father, knew the police chief. At one time the KGB was coming around and they got like about ten guys, other Armenians, and they were coming and they flew my father in a helicopter into the middle of Belgium somewhere and kept him there for a couple of, the weekend before the things passed, and then they flew him back.
28:37 - 28:43
RH: Did the KGB do this undercover, covertly? Because Belgium was not a communist country.
28:43 - 29:26
DM: No, it wasn't. Well, no, I mean, they tried to do it covertly. But sometimes, you know, it was overtly you know, they, and I know one time one story a quick story. My father said that they did round up like 10-15 Armenians, they took them to the embassy. And then they, with this man, they talked to a priest, a Belgian-Armenian priest, and he they prepared baptism papers say all these were all baptized here. So the Belgian police, that thing, and they brought all those guys back since he sent the papers there from here. It was just anyway to, but the fear in my father was just immense, and he never felt safe in Belgium.
29:28 - 30:24
DM: It was a loving family, he could've married one of the daughters, you'd be all set, you know? But he always thought that he could, wanted to come to the United States. Wanted to come somewhere else, you know. Just get out of that, you know, pressure situation. I think the Hairenik Association and they helped bring my father to this country. They brought him here with a visa. And he went to New York, and New York to Boston and he went to the Hairenik Building, because that was his first stop.
30:24 - 30:55
DM: He goes there to 212 Stuart Street, Boston, and he looks in the window. And they're having a meeting group and Ruben Darbinian was very much involved and my father knew he was coming but only he knew. And when he saw my father, they all jumped up and they took him to stay at the Statler Hilton, they put him, he was two days there in the hotel in Boston. And then they assigned him to an Armenian family inWatertown that didn't have any children that would take in people like my father.
30:56 - 31:34
DM: So, my father was in Watertown. Even then, he wouldn't even go out, during the day. He was scared to go, that someone would come after him still. He still had that fright, maybe less so, and then as you know, as you live, it got less and less. But he stayed with an Armenian family. And he loved dancing,  folk dancing, my father. And he always went to the dances that the Hairenik had, and other groups had and used to have all the dances at the Hairenik Building of Boston, the second floor.
31:34 - 31:46
DM: That's where he met my mother. So, my mother was from Newton, American, Armenian. My mother was there and they each other and they got married.
31:47
RH: When did you father arrive in America?
31:48
DM: 1946.
31:50
RH: He met your mother in. . .
31:52 - 32:20
DM: '46, probably the same year. Yeah, you remember 46, 47. And then they got married and they moved to my mother's. After all the triple-deckers, they finally got a house in Newton Highlands, and that's where they moved to and that's where my father came with my mother to her mother's house. In Newton.
32:24 - 32:50
DM: That's where he lived and worked. He got a job at Paine Furniture company in Boston. There are many Armenians working in the rug department who want my godfather Vahe Aghababian, Uncle Vahe. He helped my father tremendously to be able to establish here in this country. Then a couple of years later, my father started his own rug business. Merian Carpet Service.
32:53 - 33:30
DM: My father's name was Aziz Muguerdichian. His name in America is Haig Merian. The reason my father's name “Aziz” means “dear”. A lot of Armenians in the villages could have Arab names, Turkish names, and think…they just did that. They didn’t have this animosity like we do. We would never consider that, but over there, it was just accepted you know and so.
33:31 - 34:43
DM: His name was that and he his last name was Muguerdichian. You say how did he get, but that's not his father's last name. My grandfather was named Davidian. When my father was born in 1918, you took your grandfather, in the village you took your grandfather's first name and put an IAN on it. That's how we got Muguerdichian, his grandfather was Muguerdich. So his father was named? Because his grandfather's name, Davidian. So anyway, so that's just in the village. They don't do that anymore. But that's why he was Muguerdichian. But he changed his name to Merian over here and his name to Haig which is my middle name. So, and that's how he arrived. Of course, it's a lot of stories, but you know, I can only tell you so many with the time we have. My father did an oral history with Roger (Hagopian) a number of years ago, so we have that on DVD.
34:46 - 34:54
RH: It was a very touching story and your father, what impressed me about him, was that he had a sense of gratitude… for life.
34:54 - 35:31
DM: Very much so. He appreciated every day he was in this country, loved every day. He was more American than American and really pleased, because he suffered. He knew what it was to be in a different way. And under tutelage, and he never wanted that. And also, my father 54 years he never saw his family. After independence, 2001, 2002 (actually 1993) he went back to Armenia. He had two sisters living at that time.
35:31 - 36:05
DM: And they were 300 people at the airport, greeting him throwing flowers and everything and. My mother's side that was in Egypt, they went, in 1948 there was a big repatriation to the homeland, because they lost a lot of soldiers during the war in Armenia. They needed to populate Armenia. So they told people around the world, Armenians come back to the homeland. So my grandmother's family in Egypt at that time went back, her mother, brothers, and a sister went to Armenia.
36:07 - 37:06
DM: Their descendants, that's where they stayed where my father and mother went to Armenia. They stayed the first night in Yerevan at their house, and then they went to the village, to my father's village near Lake Sevan. Two miles before they got to the village, there were people lined up on the road on both sides. And just, you know, just waving and they got to the outskirts of the village, it's dirt. Now it's paved, but at that time was dirt and they had the car. When the car stopped, they put a rug down. So, he'd walk onto the rug and he walked into his village and all the people, his friends from childhood, were still living where they met him. He stayed there seven weeks, that visit. But he did finally see his family after 54 years. And I still have 16 first cousins today, in Armenia. All my father's family is in Armenia or Russia because they go there to work.
37:09 - 37:33
RH: Do you have any questions you'd like to ask about? That would have asked or you wish you asked your grandparents or your father, your mother, about their experiences that there may be a gap in the family history that you're curious about.
37:33 - 38:08
DM: There's a lot of gaps. I mean, especially, I don't have a lot of pictures or tracing you know. They didn't bring a lot, you know. It would be interesting to see how they, how they do it. We grew up in a culture now that is so pampered and you know, we always complain but they had to go through so much. Survival. What gave them the fortitude or maybe it's that's something you just, you don't think of, you know, you just do just to survive.
38:09 - 39:04
Just survival instinct, you know, and it just amazes me, after all the things that happened. For example, we talk about hidden Armenians in Turkey, my grandfather's sister remember I said it was a baby? Well, the Turkish family took her. One brother was in Italy. They found out she was still alive in World War II. And my grandfather's brother went to his Bayberd, near northern Erzurum, and found his sister and took his sister back to Italy to visit with him. He tried to have her stay, no, she's has a family. She has kids.
39:05 -
RH: How old would she have been?
39:08 - 39:57
DM: You’re talking…she was born around, she was a baby in 1915. So, 20 years later, sort of her mid-40s or early 50s, maybe. But she has her family. You know, it was sad. She knows she's Armenian knows, has a brother. And it's just, he took her back and into her village. So that's just one story. There are many millions, probably Armenians that are half-Armenian, and half whatever. Kurds and everything. So, it's sad but that's a lot of people have stories.
39:57
RH: Like there will always be questions
40:01 - 40:41
DM: So, a question. Yeah. How do you feel about that? It was hard. But, they were survivors. They survived. My grandfather had a tough, I would have liked to meet him. He had a tough life in America. He did, you know, it wasn't easy. But I'm proud he did it for his kids and he worked. After the factory closed during the Depression, the Sherman paper mill closed. So, what did they do? A lot of the workers went to the Arsenal(in Watertown), or went to Whitinsville.
40:41 - 41:20
DM: And as we're here. My grandfather did go a short time to Whitinsville, I think to work and there were many Armenians so there was a lot of Armenians that did come here. When the Garabedians from Newton Upper Falls, Garabedians. He used to come visit his brother on “D” Street. He used to work in the Whitin machine works. And he used to stay during the week and go home on the weekend. And then the kids would come and stay in the summer. They would go back and forth but I do know that for a fact that people did go so I have a little tie briefly anyway.
41:21 - 41:51
DM: My grandfather I know he did for a little while. But he stayed in Newton worked for the town, the city of Newton. It was tough. I think, also what we're talking about, survival and how the Armenians survived, but my father had to survive through the prison camp and the question I would ask him would be to, how did you do it? How do you make it where was that will to survive?
41:51 - 42:27
DM: One thing my father had, it was tremendous will. I think he would answer that, you know, he just, you know, he always used to say to me here, you know, I died. I died before I was reborn, not in the religious, this was my rebirth, you know, coming to the United States. And he just survived. He just had a constitution that you know, was very strong and lived until 90, almost 95. Among all the hardship in his life.
42:28
RH: He was an amazing man. A very kind man
42:32 - 43:01
DM: My mother was very supportive and helped him. She, after she worked at the library, a couple of years. My father, they started having children and she was a housewife, but ran everything you know. That wasn't easy, raising three girls and me. But my grandmother would come and visit. Her eldest daughter, Arshalooys that came from Egypt went to marry someone from California. They had a farm.
43:03 - 43:50
DM: So, she was to visit, stay with us a year and then go then over there in California one year. She would go back and forth. A lot of times, stayed with us. So, it was my memory that my grandmother influenced, back to Newton. Armenian schools, it was far to go to Watertown. In the beginning elementary school, so my grandmother taught in Armenian course in elementary school in Newton Highlands. But as we got older, we went to, I went to St. Stephen's Saturday school, St. Stephen's Sunday School in Watertown. And went to that church for a number of years. My father was extremely active in founding St. Stephen's and on the first board of trustees. It was built in 1956.
43:53 - 44:45
DM: I was baptized at St. James and went to St. Stephen's my whole life, until Framingham. We moved to Framingham. So, I grew up in Newton. My young years were in Newton, not a lot of Armenians but surrounded by Armenians. They'd come to the house every Sunday for dinner and the priest used to come. They used to talk about their stories. And I got interested, I think in history, my major at Northeastern was history. And this is what interests me and I got more interested and more interested about my culture, and wanted to learn the language and dances and almost everything and joined AYF as a junior in Watertown chapter.
44:46 - 45:51
DM: As a senior, I became educational director and love to teach Armenian history to the kids in the youth group, because a lot of them are very American oriented. We don't have the same thing that I had. Because they came from, their parents, both parents were born here. It was my whole life from probably thirteen on, it was the Armenian community in Watertown. Probably spent three days a week there on things. It was just constant and then, as I got older and into college, to UMass, Northeastern two years, UMass, graduated '78. And, and everything was in Armenian struggles. All my history papers, I wrote around Armenian issues, Armenian genocide.
45:51 - 46:56
DM: Even though my grandfather my grandmother suffered, they got out in time, but they do have their stories, but they weren't on any deportations and such, you know, but they got out a little bit before. But their families suffered of course. It was always omnipresent in whenever people came over and talked about their stories, I said, all these stories how they do, gave me this feeling of very complete being Armenian. I felt very much at home because I always had a struggle on myself, between my American-ness and Armenian-ness this. I wasn't like my typical American friends in Newton. They really didn't associate with any of their cultural background. You know, they’re just Americans. I had a much more identities, so it was hard to relate to even the people that were not Armenian. For me.
46:56
RH: With the genocide, because of the loss we had. And coming to a new land, and rebuilding communities right, and it had a strong hold on us.
47:08 - 48:04
DM: Yeah. And, I really felt, the Armenian cause, it was very important to us in the late 70s and demonstrations in New York and all my inspiration, people, Armenians, they really, it felt at home, even though I never. I went to Armenia in 1972, my first trip when I was 16. That made a big impression on me, going there that early, because I didn't know much Armenian at that time and then I came back with this desire to learn Armenian, much better than I could speak. I did everything I could to enact that and I did achieve that and I just felt more at home, being on the Armenian side rather than the American side, even though I'm born here and raised here.
48:05 - 48:55
DM: There was always a battle within me, I think, and when I go to Armenia now to visit my cousins, I've been there five times. I feel, look at the mountains and the lake and, you know, I feel very much at home I thought this is this is it, you know, can be very comfortable. Within, I'm not saying I could do that life, farm and everything. But it's just a simple, people help each other. They're just they don't have much but they're happy, you know, they just grow with the, so I think that's what the, so those are some of the questions I would have asked, I guess.
48:57
RH: I don't have to ask what it means to you to be Armenian, because you pretty much described.
49:01
DM: Right, kind of, I went through it but that's what gave me that feeling of Armenian-ness. It's just my history, the songs, the folk songs, the culture. I gravitated to it and that gravitated to me.
49:20
RH: You touched upon this, but I was wondering if you could elaborate on how being Armenian influences your worldly view.
49:31 - 50:00
DM: Well, you're looking at things maybe in a perspective of knowing how we suffered and we can be understanding and sympathetic to people that are going through things, other people's situations, their own countries. And we can understand better by knowing what we went through and never forgetting that. You can't forget our past and what we went through and the discrimination we had in this country.
50:00 - 50:49
DM: It's coming as Armenians in Fresno and in all the places Armenians were living. It wasn't easy. And I think we're going to emphasize; we shouldn't forget that we were immigrants too. And, of course we became very successful people. A lot of people and it's not just taken for granted though. And I think you know, in my world, it shapes my world view because it's, it's your whole being again, you know, like, your Armenian-ness and how you look at things. Look at more understanding, I think.
50:50 - 51:18
RH: Can you elaborate even more. This a two-fold question. How do you think your Armenian identity has changed for you personally, but before that, how do you think Armenian identity has changed in general since the emigration from the 1890s to the 1920s, especially those were the big waves out of course was after the war.
51:20
DM: The first generation.
51:23
RH: Yes, and how their identity has changed. And then how you personally, have changed since you were younger? So, two-fold question.
51:34 - 52:17
DM: Well, I think the first generation from 1890s when they came, to the 1920s, they were all just coming here for safety. Some for economic, some came to work in factories, make some money go back to the old country, but that didn't happen. They got stuck here. They were separated by their families. But I think it was a tremendous psychological dilemma for many Armenians, because when they came here, they didn't have anything and we have to realize that not all Armenians were successful and they worked very hard to get that way.
52:19 - 52:51
DM: And they worked hard. A lot of them had problems, psychological problems of the trauma they felt during the genocide. And we can't forget the trauma that these people have taken with their family separated, killed in front of their eyes and coming here. It's so hard to see, you know, again, how did they do it? You know, it's just, they just threw themselves into being, strong and working and provide for their family and continuing. They couldn't have been, it's not an easy situation.
52:52 - 53:34
So, I think, that's the first generation, and I think identity has changed since the second and third generation, as you have assimilation. Things have gotten, I think the second generation, the first generation wanted the kids to know English, better than Americans. So, they could make it in the United States because they know they can't, they're not going to do that. So, a lot of Armenians in the second generation, their parents spoke Armenian, but they never learned it, really too well. And it because they became like I say they wanted to become more American, get education. Education was very important.
53:36
RH: The second generation also served in WWII.
53:39
DM: Exactly, right. True. They were second generation.
53:41
RH: They said, okay, we are now American, we validated ourselves.
53:49
DM: Exactly. And no one can tell us that we're an immigrant. We did it. We did our service. We did everything we were told to do, and we work hard. And we're good citizens of the United States.
54:00
RH: And they went on the GI Bill.
54:08 - 55:10
DM: Yeah. But I think the Armenian identity slightly changed, from that time, the original generation to that generation. Definitely. And then their kids you know, again, you have another generation, the third generation that, knowing Armenian, it's less emphasized, and only if they wanted to really seek it out and learn and participate in community events and doing things we had Armenian Students Association, which was great. I was very active in that and it was a great to see because we got people, Armenians from all over, different sides, from all different (political) parties and all different churches were all together. It was a great thing. Catholic, Protestant.
55:11 - 55:33
RH: And which is what I liked about NAASR National Association of Armenian Studies and Research. That it was very important that they clarify that this will not be a political for all audience. We're all Armenians and we could pool the knowledge of all the Armenian intellectuals and get them together. And so, I think that that was an important step.
55:37 - 56:59
DM: Yeah, definitely. I think Armenian identity today is, it's difficult. I mean, it's you know, it's hard. You have another generation that is assimilating to a lot of intermarriages. Much more now, and it's, their Armenian-ness can be, some Armenian is for people is going to picnic once a year. Someone's having shish kebab. You know, someone's doing one dance, you know, but not everyone is going to be expected to, join an organization. Be active and every single thing going on in the community. It's dissipated a lot in the past years, and a lot of young people that go to camps and in (Camp) Haiastan or Camp Vartan in New York, the kids, you want them, once they get to college, which is normal. They go their way and then hopefully they'll come back. But at least you gave base, a structure for your children that they would be able to choose that, if they so choose, without forcing it down their throat.
57:00
RH: It's kind of a natural evolution, as you go.
57:03
DM: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
57:04 - 57:25
RH: No further interest to us to carry what I try to do by example through filming. And my kids are not, I mean they each have a tattoo. On had the Armenian khatchkar and the other one has 1915 or something that's about it. You know, they don't have the involvement.
57:27 - 58:14
DM: Yeah, I have two children, Alex and Anais. He went to Camp Haiastan and my daughter went to Camp Vartan and a short time at St. Stephen's Armenian school, day school, to second, third grade, and, you know, she got a good base. And she still remembers the songs, the church songs and, she identifies as still converses with her friends from camp and ACYOA and my son with AYF he was briefly in it, but he was busy with Armenian.
58:17 - 59:14
DM: That group, the Armenian group that there were kids in their 20s and 30s. I forgot what the group was called. But he was active in that. They had functions every month. We'd get together so that the young people will meet each other, other Armenians. That was very nice. So, they have a good exposure to it. But I think, but still, it's not the same the way we grew up or even our parents grew up. And hopefully the people will seek out and hopefully they'll be interested in the stories of their grandparents and great grandparents, and they can… it's so valuable that we be doing these oral histories to be able to give to our children and the next generation or anyone's children just the knowledge of Armenian history and culture.
59:15 - 59:38
RH: Did you elaborate on your settlement in Whitinsville because you've actually brought up in Newton about meeting Marina. You know, getting involved in the church before you move to. That process, this connection to Whitinsville and eventually being becoming a resident.
59:39 - 01:00:20
DM: Sure. I grew up in Newton and I used to go to all the picnics, you know, often I love folk dancing, so I used to go all the picnics. So I came to Whitinsville for a lot for the picnic with my parents. I was younger and I came later on with my friends. In 2001 I came to the Whitinsville picnic and my wife Marina, present wife, she was at the picnic and I was dancing, I like leading the line and she was behind the line.
01:00:21 - 01:00:58
DM: So, after the dance was over, I went over to her and I said, let's learn a few steps and do things and you know, to learn more about Armenian dance and to introduce myself. And I started talking to one of my best friend's sister and it turned out that she was my best friend's cousin, first cousin. But she lived in New York at that time, Marina, and with her twin sister and originally, she's from Worcester. That's where I met Marina at the picnic, at a dance.
01:00:59 - 01:01:57
DM: In fact, our parents were there and her stepmother and father were there from Springfield. She came with them that day. And I know my parents came that day. But it was a small world you know. We met in Whitinsville. Little do we know how many years later we'd be back here and the reason we came here, I was with Marina three years she lived in New York, we dated, and got married in 2004 in Newton at, my parent’s house in a ceremony by Joanne Haroutunian who did a beautiful ceremony. My mother was sick at the time. She couldn't make it to the church. So, they did it right in the living room. It was a beautiful, small ceremony, like 40 people, and we had a reception at Karoun restaurant after.
01:01:58 - 01:02:50
DM: It was very nice with a live Armenian band. And that was great. And so, after that we moved to, we were in Brookline for two years. Then we moved to Framingham. And we started going to the Framingham church, Armenian Church in Framingham. And after a number of years, maybe 2012, I was looking, I don't know why I didn't think of it. But my former Sunday school teacher, Aram Stepanian was the pastor and Whitinsville church. And I said, well, why don't we go there once and I went there and they were very welcoming.
01:02:50 - 01:03:55
DM: They were open arms, you know, the people used to come and greet me. And he was great. I love his sermon, and he was very articulate and inspired me and I said, why don't we go here and she came and she liked this service. And that's how we started coming to the town. Every Sunday. Well, not every Sunday, but Marina is a singer and she likes to sing so she joined the choir. And eventually, we've been coming most Sundays from Framingham here, and so we were 16 years in Framingham.

We had a nice house and but we said, we're looking to downsize and get something more comfortable and we were driving back from church and we saw this development, over 55 community, we drove up, we went on the model. We really liked how it looked. We could see ourselves being here one day, so we gave a deposit.
01:03:57 - 01:04:56
DM: And sure enough, a year later, we're here. Last October, we moved here, and we just love it. It's a great community. A great Der Hayr, Der Mikael Der Kosrofian, a great Der Hayr, young, a great Yeretsgin  and people I knew from AYF as a youth group. I met them again and it's really great to meet people that you saw, like 30, 40 years ago. Again, reacquainted again. And the Gigarjians, the Bedrosians. Yeah, it's really nice. And it's just like, people often say, oh, why did you leave the city, like a hick town out here. It's not, It's really nice. It's yes, it's much slower paced, but it's, you know, you drive a little bit you can go in the field and see horses and I love it.
01:04:56 - 01:05:43
DM: You know, it just, tones down everything. And I love that maybe because of my old village background from my father's. Yeah, so I just love it. I think the community is very impressive. The church is doing very well. We're getting a lot of people in church, averaging 50 people on a Sunday. You know, that's just very good for communities, I think. It's a nice community. I really like the small-town feel. And there's a lot of activities the church provides, the Bible study and you know, we have lunch in once a month, we got different things in church and things going on.
01:05:43 - 01:06:55
DM: But besides that, you have good friends, you can just visit each other. That's why I'm here and I'm very happy I moved in. I don't regret this decision at all. It's a great place. And my wife really likes it a lot too. Enjoys the choir, and the ladies guild, everything she's doing with the town. I mean, with the church and in the town itself. We're still learning things. We're still new here, but I’m a new Armenian but I think, you know, we continue the legacy from where you know, four or five thousand workers at Whitin Machine Works. And we still have Armenians here, much less, but they still make a contribution to the town and society as a whole. I want to be part of that as a new person in Whitinsville. And you know hopefully everything will continue, and just hopefully the young people will appreciate their background and want to come back to church and want to involve themselves more or whatever way they can. You can do that.
01:06:55 - 01:07:19
RH: Thank you, Daniel, for providing this wonderful story. Story of the trials and tribulations of all Armenians, as you pass on your family's experience. I think that this is something that will be a treasure for this community and future generations.
01:07:20 - 01:07:47
DM: Thank you, I enjoy this conversation. And you know, like I say I'm part and parcel of the community now. Really want to work to perpetuate the Whitinsville community and our Armenian identity in this town.

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