On 22 May, at the Conference Hall of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute the presentation of the book “One in Million: Memories of young Boy from Zeytun; Witness of Genocide” took place. The book is published by “Zartonk” newspaper and edited by Dr. Andranik Dakessian. It is the first book of “Zartonk” series.

A welcome speech was delivered by the AGMI Director Harutyun Marutyan, who stressed the importance of such publications and expressed hope that through the cooperation with Lebanese partners it will be possible to publish still a number of unpublished memories of great value, kept at the AGMI archive collection.

“Each written memory contains secrets for the reader as well as for the researcher. Every memoir brings news and adds a molecule to the history of the Armenian Genocide. No matter how much we study this story, we see that there are many undisclosed pages, and most of these pages are not in the archives but in those written memories by the survivors. People who have seen the genocide have felt it on their skin, and at certain stages of their life they have decided to write about their sad experience,” mentioned the AGMI Director Harutyun Marutyan.

A speech was delivered also by the editor of “Zartonk” newspaper Sevak Hakobyan, who expressed gratitude to the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute for organizing the event and their support. Mr. Hakobyan handed to the AGMI archive collection the unique copy of the original manuscript of the memoir “One in Million” - three copybooks, written by a young Armenian boy who had survived the genocide. The editor also awarded one of the oldest readers of the newspaper. “Just a few months ago, the name of Harutyun Galajian was unknown to everyone. He was born in Zeytun, witnessed the Armenian Genocide and closed his eyes in Brazil. Thanks to the book, he became well-known among thousands of our readers. This is the secret purpose of “Zartonk” series,” stressed Sevak Hakobyan.

The key speech of the event was delivered by the AGMI researcher, AGMI Head of the Department of the Armenian Genocide Memoires, Documents and Press, philologist Mihran Minasian, who stressed the necessity of publicizing and publishing the memories of the Armenian Genocide survivors.

“These memories, even those written in the most salient narrative, are very important for studying the history of the Armenian Genocide. In each memory we can find seemingly unimportant information, such as a name, date, event, but then discover that a researcher has been looking for it for years. In addition, each memoir has multiple layers, which are equally important both for a historian, writer, psychologist, t sociologist, ethnographer, and economist. At the moment, about 1000 printed volumes are registered in different libraries of the world, but it is hard to say about unnamed memories kept in different archives and private collections, as almost every day new manuscripts are hand over to the museum.

I think, the first and foremost, an annotation based on the developed questionnaire of the unpublished memories should be prepared, which can greatly assist a researcher who will understand where and what to look for”.