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<\/a>In 1905, Josephine Mangasarian\u2019s father, Achod Amassian, accepted a transfer from his post at the Diyarbakir telegraph office at the mysterious urging of the telegraph office\u2019s director and relocated his young family there \u2014 roughly a 15-day journey. Her family was in Aleppo at the time of the Genocide and deportations and she watched as countless relatives came to Aleppo seeking refuge and rebuilding. At one time, 20 people were living in her family home, many of whom were friends and family who had fled the massacres.<\/p>\n
Josephine Mangasarian wrote of how she collected these stories, saying, \u201cThe events that I have described in this family memoir are all true. The account of these incidents was related to me by the survivors who took refuge in my family\u2019s home in Aleppo.\u201d Her father\u2019s position at the telegraph office afforded her access to secret messages that he decoded corroborating the mass killings and much of what she learned was confirmed by eyewitness accounts from family members.<\/p>\n
The publication of\u00a0Diyarbakir Exodus<\/em>\u00a0itself was a family endeavor. Josephine Mangasarian began the work with three detailed genealogical charts completed in her late 80s. From there, she wrote 270 pages by hand about her family and the events during this time period.<\/p>\n Josephine Mangasarian died in 2002 before she could complete the section on the 35 years of her life spent in Baghdad, Iraq after they left Syria. Her son, John Mangasarian, had already begun aiding his mother in her endeavor by transcribing and typing her handwritten pages. Upon her death, he continued editing and assembling the materials for the book until he passed the torch to his sister-in-law, Claire Mangasarian, in 2010. In 2011, John Mangasarian died and she continued editing and assembling the manuscript. Claire Mangasarian, a painter, had experience assembling memoirs after she had put together and published her own grandfather\u2019s memoir,\u00a0Farewell Kharpert: The Autobiography of Boghos Jafarian<\/em>, years prior to her work as editor on the Mangasarian text.<\/p>\n Josephine Amassian Mangasarian<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Claire Mangasarian described her mother-in-law as a \u201cvery generous and very confident in her own ability,\u201d who had spent years of her life working with charitable organizations in Baghdad. According to Claire Mangasarian, Josephine was known for her \u201csharp mind\u201d and spoke five languages.<\/p>\n Unlike many memoirs centered on Genocide survival, \u201chers shows the day-to-day life and situation of a young Armenian woman and the experiences of these families that fled during turbulent times and started to rebuild,\u201d said Claire Mangasarian.<\/p>\n In addition to the three family histories \u2014 that of the Amassians, Kurkgys and Mangasarians \u2014\u00a0Diyarbakir Exodus<\/em>\u00a0includes several rare photographs offering a visual perspective into these stories.<\/p>\n