Yenok Manougian’s first memory of the Genocide is of his mother’s tears as their house burned. That was in April 1915.

Soon after that, lead by Turkish gendarmes, his entire village, including his family, were formed into a caravan and deported. During the march, he remembers Turks and Kurds shooting at them from behind boulders, high on a ridge above them. They reached a town near the eastern border and rumors started to spread that the Russian army was nearby. The Turks fled and their entire village was liberated by the advancing Russian army and the Armenian volunteer army among whom was his uncle. That reunion was one of the happiest in his life.

Unable to return to Tek-Akhlat they continued eastward: to Igdir, where they slept under trees, and, then to Etchmiadzin where their lives were under the constant threat of typhus and cholera.

He remembers bodies being carted away, 50-60 at a time. And he remembers his mother’s use of garlic to ward off sickness.