WEBVTT 00:00:16.302 --> 00:00:19.760 [MUSIC PLAYING] 00:00:28.700 --> 00:00:31.100 [SINGING IN NON-ENGLISH] 00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:37.798 [CHANTING IN NON-ENGLISH] 00:03:21.530 --> 00:03:30.950 ANNA DARDARIAN: In August of 1915, and they took them. 00:03:30.950 --> 00:03:34.140 they said they were going to take them to the army. 00:03:34.140 --> 00:03:37.530 Instead, they have taken them out in a field and shot them. 00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:44.030 Our Armenian people rebelled. 00:03:44.030 --> 00:03:45.000 They cried. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.160 They started complaining about the Army, the Turks, about it. 00:03:49.160 --> 00:03:51.550 Of course, no one listened to them. 00:03:56.010 --> 00:03:58.690 We were not allowed out at night anymore. 00:03:58.690 --> 00:04:02.700 We were not allowed to go out in the field and play. 00:04:02.700 --> 00:04:07.260 She grabbed the baby and ran into the river. 00:04:07.260 --> 00:04:11.760 She wanted to throw herself, but somebody caught her. 00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:13.740 They brought her back. 00:04:13.740 --> 00:04:18.060 Then our city was full of gendarmes, 00:04:18.060 --> 00:04:21.600 which Turkish soldiers. 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:26.010 They chased everybody in their homes. 00:04:26.010 --> 00:04:27.640 They beat many of them. 00:04:27.640 --> 00:04:30.210 They robbed many of them. 00:04:30.210 --> 00:04:35.920 They tied my grandmother onto a horse, with a rope. 00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:38.610 And they dragged her miles and miles 00:04:38.610 --> 00:04:42.450 around, or to make her an example to all 00:04:42.450 --> 00:04:47.940 the other villagers so they will not destroy the harvest. 00:04:47.940 --> 00:04:55.690 The wheat, barley, oats, hay, livestock 00:04:55.690 --> 00:04:58.923 could be left to the Turks. 00:04:58.923 --> 00:05:01.090 BETH WARREN: When my grandparents came to the United 00:05:01.090 --> 00:05:03.190 States, they came to-- 00:05:03.190 --> 00:05:05.810 they met actually, in Niagara Falls and got married. 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:09.730 And my grandfather owned this restaurant that became very well 00:05:09.730 --> 00:05:11.180 known, Louie's. 00:05:11.180 --> 00:05:13.755 And so that, I like a lot. 00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:22.690 I remember that this part right here is like a closet area. 00:05:22.690 --> 00:05:26.770 We had asked-- they had asked us about special places 00:05:26.770 --> 00:05:28.670 that we had in our house when we were little. 00:05:28.670 --> 00:05:31.570 And I used to go into my closet and read 00:05:31.570 --> 00:05:33.260 a book with my flashlight and whatever. 00:05:33.260 --> 00:05:35.710 So that's the idea there. 00:05:35.710 --> 00:05:40.240 The Statue of Liberty is an icon that's important and stands out 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:45.250 as an important story from my grandmother, 00:05:45.250 --> 00:05:47.480 retelling how she came to America. 00:05:47.480 --> 00:05:50.770 And so that's this symbol here, and I 00:05:50.770 --> 00:05:54.310 love what you did with that. 00:05:54.310 --> 00:06:01.630 And then this yellow is actually representative of a banana. 00:06:01.630 --> 00:06:06.620 And it was the question, I think, 00:06:06.620 --> 00:06:10.515 that you had asked was about heroes or something. 00:06:10.515 --> 00:06:12.015 DAVID FEINBERG: Yeah, who was your-- 00:06:12.015 --> 00:06:13.557 because everybody was a hero. 00:06:13.557 --> 00:06:17.480 BETH WARREN: And Jane Goodall was on my list of many. 00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:20.060 But she is a big standout for me growing up. 00:06:20.060 --> 00:06:23.505 And so the banana is a good symbol for that. 00:06:38.541 --> 00:06:42.072 DAVID FEINBERG: Probably number four is an expression. 00:06:42.072 --> 00:06:43.655 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Do we write it down? 00:06:43.655 --> 00:06:44.740 DAVID FEINBERG: No, then draw it. 00:06:44.740 --> 00:06:46.585 BETH WARREN: You mean like an emotion? 00:06:46.585 --> 00:06:47.702 DAVID FEINBERG: Yeah, there's that piece there. 00:06:47.702 --> 00:06:48.220 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Oh, a facial-- 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:49.990 I thought you meant trying to figure out 00:06:49.990 --> 00:06:51.110 how to draw it like that. 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:53.510 [LAUGHTER] 00:06:53.510 --> 00:06:54.856 Facial expression. 00:07:09.260 --> 00:07:10.940 BETH WARNER: What brought this story out 00:07:10.940 --> 00:07:13.560 was that I was drawing my grandmother's bracelet, 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:18.297 and there were these little disks that linked all together 00:07:18.297 --> 00:07:20.130 and made this chain, and she always wore it. 00:07:20.130 --> 00:07:25.100 And the little disks were actually little octagonals, 00:07:25.100 --> 00:07:27.150 like a honeycomb. 00:07:27.150 --> 00:07:31.305 And that reminded me that my-- 00:07:31.305 --> 00:07:33.720 her family name was Aleksanyan. 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:36.560 And that was a very-- 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:42.750 how I understand it, was a very well known name to the Turks, 00:07:42.750 --> 00:07:46.310 and it was on the A-list of families 00:07:46.310 --> 00:07:50.740 that they were looking for and would like to remove. 00:07:50.740 --> 00:07:54.750 There were a number of leaders in the Aleksanyan family 00:07:54.750 --> 00:07:58.270 that opposed what was going on. 00:07:58.270 --> 00:08:00.910 And so they were sought out. 00:08:00.910 --> 00:08:05.580 And so my grandfather told my-- or my great grandfather 00:08:05.580 --> 00:08:08.980 told his family that they would no longer be Aleksanyans. 00:08:08.980 --> 00:08:12.870 They would be [? Bolimians. ?] So [? bolimian ?] means 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:13.990 beekeeper. 00:08:13.990 --> 00:08:19.050 And then you link back to the octagonal shapes 00:08:19.050 --> 00:08:21.070 in my grandmother's bracelet. 00:08:21.070 --> 00:08:22.815 So that was [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. 00:08:22.815 --> 00:08:25.000 That was cool. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.730 And then the idea that we were talking about, with the torch, 00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:33.870 was that perhaps in order to gain their freedom, rather 00:08:33.870 --> 00:08:38.230 than a flame, it was actually a bee, one of those things. 00:08:38.230 --> 00:08:43.690 Those bee keeps as a symbol instead of the flame. 00:08:43.690 --> 00:08:44.997 And that maybe that could be-- 00:08:44.997 --> 00:08:46.830 DAVID FEINBERG: The Statue of Liberty's hand 00:08:46.830 --> 00:08:48.640 with a beehive on it. 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:51.760 BETH WARNER: Holding that up instead of the torch, so that's 00:08:51.760 --> 00:08:53.200 the idea that came out. 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:55.030 DAVID FEINBERG: And she wants to do this. 00:08:55.030 --> 00:08:57.050 We're going to do it through Photoshop, with photographs, 00:08:57.050 --> 00:08:57.860 not by drawing. 00:08:57.860 --> 00:09:00.010 We're going to put a beehive onto the real Statue 00:09:00.010 --> 00:09:01.888 of Liberty's torch. 00:09:01.888 --> 00:09:03.430 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Different families 00:09:03.430 --> 00:09:04.820 come at it in different ways. 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:06.500 Some families talked a lot about it. 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:08.810 Some families didn't talk at all about it. 00:09:08.810 --> 00:09:14.440 And families that were survivors, typically 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.760 did not know the big picture of what happened. 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:19.360 They knew bits and pieces of what 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:24.130 happened to their own family as it was told to them. 00:09:24.130 --> 00:09:27.500 But it's not like you can start from saying, 00:09:27.500 --> 00:09:28.960 well, there was this plan, and then 00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:30.877 the plan was carried out in the following way, 00:09:30.877 --> 00:09:32.780 and then you tell it top down. 00:09:32.780 --> 00:09:36.170 It's more like, if you try to tell it from the grassroots up, 00:09:36.170 --> 00:09:38.750 you have a certain person's experience, 00:09:38.750 --> 00:09:41.900 which has to do with, we went here, we went there. 00:09:41.900 --> 00:09:43.940 There was-- terrible things happened. 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:44.930 We survived somehow. 00:09:44.930 --> 00:09:47.720 But it's all chaotic because it was a chaotic experience 00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:49.460 to be in. 00:09:49.460 --> 00:09:55.250 And then you have the effort of translating and communicating 00:09:55.250 --> 00:09:57.680 all of that to maybe somebody who 00:09:57.680 --> 00:09:59.690 can be a sympathetic audience but has 00:09:59.690 --> 00:10:01.230 no idea of the background. 00:10:01.230 --> 00:10:03.360 And then if you're removed about three generations, 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:05.490 you don't really know how to reconstruct it either. 00:10:05.490 --> 00:10:08.500 So it's more like telling somebody else's nightmare. 00:10:08.500 --> 00:10:12.750 [CHUCKLES] It's not necessarily a rational process. 00:10:12.750 --> 00:10:14.820 And even the scholars, let me tell you, 00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:16.770 when I talk to a lot of scholars about this, 00:10:16.770 --> 00:10:21.350 even the scholars are not always clear, because new sources are 00:10:21.350 --> 00:10:23.280 always coming out about this. 00:10:23.280 --> 00:10:26.930 They're still reconstructing the story depending 00:10:26.930 --> 00:10:28.470 on whose point of view it is. 00:10:28.470 --> 00:10:31.050 Is it the survivor point of view? 00:10:31.050 --> 00:10:32.970 Is it an American missionary point of view? 00:10:32.970 --> 00:10:34.260 Is it a Turkish point of view? 00:10:34.260 --> 00:10:35.610 Which Turkish point of view? 00:10:35.610 --> 00:10:40.860 Austria, Hungary, Germany, diplomats, missionaries. 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:43.440 That story is still being told at the macro level. 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:46.510 So we have here at the micro level, at the individual level. 00:10:46.510 --> 00:10:47.940 No wonder we're confused. 00:10:47.940 --> 00:10:50.125 [LAUGHS] 00:10:50.125 --> 00:10:52.560 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: And because of all the sexual violence, 00:10:52.560 --> 00:10:55.750 the women especially were not going to talk about that. 00:10:55.750 --> 00:11:03.990 And it's just-- and so it really did take time for the stories 00:11:03.990 --> 00:11:05.550 to come down. 00:11:05.550 --> 00:11:07.583 Not the shaming part, but the rest of it, 00:11:07.583 --> 00:11:09.000 that the importance of remembering 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:12.630 because the person who had lived through it because it 00:11:12.630 --> 00:11:15.180 was my great grandparents, and we didn't get those stories 00:11:15.180 --> 00:11:17.800 as directly as you did. 00:11:17.800 --> 00:11:21.320 It took a generation to start to percolate down. 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:27.580 I almost always wear an evil eye. 00:11:27.580 --> 00:11:29.083 That's another thing that is just-- 00:11:29.083 --> 00:11:29.625 I don't know. 00:11:29.625 --> 00:11:30.390 DAVID FEINBERG: What is an evil eye? 00:11:30.390 --> 00:11:31.640 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: It's toward. 00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:34.960 The idea is that it absorbs evil away from the wearer, 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:38.430 so it protects cars, whatever, anything that's valuable to you. 00:11:38.430 --> 00:11:40.680 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: You should draw what it looks like. 00:11:40.680 --> 00:11:41.890 It is so distinctive. 00:11:41.890 --> 00:11:43.640 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: There's so many of them. 00:11:43.640 --> 00:11:45.350 And they're not just for Armenians. 00:11:45.350 --> 00:11:46.820 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: I saw them all over Istanbul. 00:11:46.820 --> 00:11:47.210 That's for sure. 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:47.680 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: They're everywhere. 00:11:47.680 --> 00:11:48.955 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: They're everywhere. 00:11:48.955 --> 00:11:49.780 DAVID FEINBERG: Is there a conflict 00:11:49.780 --> 00:11:51.470 between Islam and Christianity? 00:11:51.470 --> 00:11:53.480 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Well, it's superstition. 00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:55.210 It's a pagan belief. 00:11:55.210 --> 00:12:00.080 But we had a really good friend of the family who was religious, 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:01.370 and she had them together. 00:12:01.370 --> 00:12:03.820 But if the priest was there, she'd take the eye 00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:07.310 and put it under her shirt and leave the cross. 00:12:07.310 --> 00:12:10.960 But you can buy crosses with an evil eye in the middle 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:12.400 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Seriously? 00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:12.500 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Yes. 00:12:12.500 --> 00:12:12.970 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Seriously? 00:12:12.970 --> 00:12:14.740 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Yes, they make them. 00:12:14.740 --> 00:12:16.850 You can't buy them from the church, 00:12:16.850 --> 00:12:19.910 but you just can't separate people from their beliefs. 00:12:19.910 --> 00:12:23.710 You can't legislate that people-- 00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:25.680 DAVID FEINBERG: 22 is a monument? 00:12:28.618 --> 00:12:29.785 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: That's it? 00:12:29.785 --> 00:12:30.520 DAVID FEINBERG: Yeah. 00:12:30.520 --> 00:12:31.150 That's all it says. 00:12:31.150 --> 00:12:32.090 They're not sentences. 00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:35.305 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Yeah, but this is a hard one to not be-- 00:12:35.305 --> 00:12:36.430 DAVID FEINBERG: A monument. 00:12:36.430 --> 00:12:38.097 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: --forcefully thinking. 00:12:38.097 --> 00:12:40.090 [WHISPERING] 00:12:40.090 --> 00:12:42.376 DAVID FEINBERG: Whatever comes to your mind first. 00:12:42.376 --> 00:12:50.940 But one of my friends, who I've known since 1971, he comes in. 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:53.630 He's not part of the team, but he comes in and makes moves 00:12:53.630 --> 00:12:55.490 on all my paintings. 00:12:55.490 --> 00:12:56.880 People don't know about him. 00:12:56.880 --> 00:12:59.550 [LAUGHTER] 00:13:00.890 --> 00:13:03.150 But his name appears in the catalogs and stuff. 00:13:03.150 --> 00:13:04.590 So you never met him. 00:13:04.590 --> 00:13:07.280 And he came in here and he said-- 00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:09.780 he saw that these things were part of the monument. 00:13:09.780 --> 00:13:14.330 And goes over, he says, let's put some in front of them. 00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:16.440 But when we decided to put them in front, 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:17.940 it would block off stuff. 00:13:17.940 --> 00:13:20.940 So he says, let's make this as a symbol of these things. 00:13:20.940 --> 00:13:22.910 So you feel like it's around. 00:13:22.910 --> 00:13:25.440 The red ones are in the back, the blue ones. 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:27.750 And so that was his idea to put those in. 00:13:27.750 --> 00:13:30.180 And he goes, do you have anything I can draw with? 00:13:30.180 --> 00:13:32.300 So I handed him the blue tape. 00:13:32.300 --> 00:13:34.350 And so he started to draw with the blue tape. 00:13:34.350 --> 00:13:37.658 And then he put them in, and they looked terrible. 00:13:37.658 --> 00:13:38.972 [LAUGHTER] 00:13:38.972 --> 00:13:40.940 And then I went over and I started to-- 00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:42.220 I didn't have the idea. 00:13:42.220 --> 00:13:44.610 But once I saw his idea, my eyes lit up, 00:13:44.610 --> 00:13:46.510 and then I started to manipulate it. 00:13:46.510 --> 00:13:48.460 Together, we got them into these positions. 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:50.918 And then when we were going to figure, what color should we 00:13:50.918 --> 00:13:52.782 make them, and the blue tape looked so good, 00:13:52.782 --> 00:13:54.365 we just matched the blue tape's color. 00:13:54.365 --> 00:13:55.050 [CHUCKLES] 00:13:55.050 --> 00:13:57.070 CHRIS KIBERIAN: But the circles are-- 00:13:57.070 --> 00:13:59.573 the pit where the flame is, I think there's a flame 00:13:59.573 --> 00:14:00.990 and then there's a separation area 00:14:00.990 --> 00:14:06.160 and then there's just almost like a subway platform. 00:14:06.160 --> 00:14:07.230 That's how. 00:14:07.230 --> 00:14:08.747 There it is. 00:14:08.747 --> 00:14:10.330 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: It's kind of a moat. 00:14:10.330 --> 00:14:11.640 CHRIS KIBERIAN: That's it. 00:14:11.640 --> 00:14:13.680 DAVID FEINBERG: So this point right here, 00:14:13.680 --> 00:14:14.728 how high would it be? 00:14:14.728 --> 00:14:16.020 CHRIS KIBERIAN: It was my dad-- 00:14:16.020 --> 00:14:19.200 the one story my dad told about, that his mother told him, 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:22.710 was when her father was being taken away, 00:14:22.710 --> 00:14:25.230 and the whole village was coming apart. 00:14:25.230 --> 00:14:26.730 And so the women were going one way, 00:14:26.730 --> 00:14:28.355 and the men were all going another way. 00:14:28.355 --> 00:14:30.580 And she went to go kiss her father, 00:14:30.580 --> 00:14:34.348 and she spit up cherry into his mouth because they were 00:14:34.348 --> 00:14:35.640 taking-- they were being taken. 00:14:35.640 --> 00:14:36.600 That's the last thing he was going 00:14:36.600 --> 00:14:39.300 to eat because they realized they were all going to get taken 00:14:39.300 --> 00:14:40.220 away to get killed. 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:41.350 And I can just-- 00:14:41.350 --> 00:14:44.898 it's this odd image of a daughter going to her father 00:14:44.898 --> 00:14:46.690 and kissing her and then literally spitting 00:14:46.690 --> 00:14:51.310 a cherry into his mouth, as if to say, it's our last. 00:14:51.310 --> 00:14:55.760 That was a very odd symbol, but it's weird. 00:14:59.937 --> 00:15:02.270 DAVID FEINBERG: Are there any photographs that you have? 00:15:02.270 --> 00:15:03.940 CHRIS KIBERIAN: I have a photograph. 00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:05.660 DAVID FEINBERG: Can you scan that and send it to us? 00:15:05.660 --> 00:15:07.250 BETH WARREN: And they're in front of a tree? 00:15:07.250 --> 00:15:09.375 CHRIS KIBERIAN: Well, there in front of this house. 00:15:09.375 --> 00:15:14.530 And it's the one image of all of her kids, all of her five kids 00:15:14.530 --> 00:15:16.540 and all of her grandkids. 00:15:16.540 --> 00:15:21.740 And that was the last photo of her with all of them. 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:26.160 But see, my dad, he would tell the story, he would get upset. 00:15:28.900 --> 00:15:29.810 It's so weird. 00:15:40.520 --> 00:15:45.270 BETH WARREN: Or there's that whole thing that came up for me, 00:15:45.270 --> 00:15:48.830 and then it was just like the ultimate generosity, 00:15:48.830 --> 00:15:53.060 when you have nothing and you give that last one thing, 00:15:53.060 --> 00:15:55.470 and you risk a lot by giving it. 00:15:55.470 --> 00:15:59.730 Because in my mind, how my grandmother described it, 00:15:59.730 --> 00:16:01.770 they just lined them up. 00:16:01.770 --> 00:16:04.550 And the soldiers had a tremendous number 00:16:04.550 --> 00:16:07.140 of weapons or whatever. 00:16:07.140 --> 00:16:13.140 And you do one thing wrong, and you're expended. 00:16:13.140 --> 00:16:18.530 And so that all, wrapped up into that one little action, 00:16:18.530 --> 00:16:19.975 is really powerful. 00:16:25.187 --> 00:16:27.020 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: But there were protesters 00:16:27.020 --> 00:16:30.080 in the street throwing eggs and tomatoes 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.230 and carrying scary signs and that kind of stuff. 00:16:33.230 --> 00:16:34.150 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Against the fact that people were-- 00:16:34.150 --> 00:16:35.370 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Against the conference, 00:16:35.370 --> 00:16:36.930 against the people in the conference. 00:16:36.930 --> 00:16:38.260 So that was 2005. 00:16:38.260 --> 00:16:40.540 So when I went, I was ready for anything. 00:16:40.540 --> 00:16:41.530 I had no idea. 00:16:41.530 --> 00:16:43.240 I had no idea how it was going to go. 00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:47.040 But it was almost anticlimactic, the fact that they could do it. 00:16:47.040 --> 00:16:50.470 But see, 2005 was before Herant Dink was murdered, 00:16:50.470 --> 00:16:53.710 and that was before the big 100,000-person demonstration. 00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:55.785 It was before a lot of things happened. 00:16:55.785 --> 00:16:58.202 DAVID FEINBERG: They didn't want to set off a spark again. 00:16:58.202 --> 00:17:01.770 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Well, I guess. 00:17:01.770 --> 00:17:04.349 Yeah, there could be a lot of reasons. 00:17:04.349 --> 00:17:05.109 BETH WARREN: What? 00:17:05.109 --> 00:17:07.540 That couldn't have possibly happened. 00:17:07.540 --> 00:17:09.700 They're making that up. 00:17:09.700 --> 00:17:13.150 But I don't know where I was going with that. 00:17:13.150 --> 00:17:17.560 But I don't think they could put it in perspective. 00:17:17.560 --> 00:17:20.560 With all of the other burdens of trying to-- 00:17:20.560 --> 00:17:24.810 right away trying to create a whole new community 00:17:24.810 --> 00:17:27.630 in a foreign land and then try to feel 00:17:27.630 --> 00:17:31.560 like you're wearing a badge of courage 00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:34.560 or whatever, I think they were just in survival 00:17:34.560 --> 00:17:40.090 mode and post-traumatic stress, shame, all this stuff. 00:17:40.090 --> 00:17:43.320 There weren't a lot of therapies or anything for someone else 00:17:43.320 --> 00:17:46.150 to explain that it was normal. 00:17:46.150 --> 00:17:47.483 They just had to make their way. 00:17:47.483 --> 00:17:48.817 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Plus, it was-- 00:17:48.817 --> 00:17:51.150 my great grandparents were the ones who came over, 00:17:51.150 --> 00:17:52.450 and it was the Depression. 00:17:52.450 --> 00:17:54.850 They were raising three kids during the Depression. 00:17:54.850 --> 00:18:01.110 So again, just survival, just worked themselves 00:18:01.110 --> 00:18:03.210 to the bone every day. 00:18:03.210 --> 00:18:04.710 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Plus, it wasn't 00:18:04.710 --> 00:18:09.150 a time in American history, where people would talk 00:18:09.150 --> 00:18:11.280 about such personal things. 00:18:11.280 --> 00:18:14.790 There was not so much emphasis on self-disclosure, 00:18:14.790 --> 00:18:17.220 like we're doing right now. 00:18:17.220 --> 00:18:20.880 This kind of self-disclosure right here in front of a camera, 00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.820 where we don't know where it's going, is so against-- 00:18:23.820 --> 00:18:24.330 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: Armenian culture. 00:18:24.330 --> 00:18:25.510 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: --Armenian culture. 00:18:25.510 --> 00:18:26.290 I can't tell you. 00:18:26.290 --> 00:18:28.753 It really is, especially talking about this kind of stuff. 00:18:28.753 --> 00:18:30.420 BETH WARREN: It's kind of uncomfortable. 00:18:30.420 --> 00:18:31.780 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Don't you find that uncomfortable? 00:18:31.780 --> 00:18:32.580 I really do. 00:18:32.580 --> 00:18:33.248 I really do. 00:18:33.248 --> 00:18:35.290 ARIEL STRICHARTZ: I just feel guilty because it's 00:18:35.290 --> 00:18:36.950 so many generations removed. 00:18:36.950 --> 00:18:38.380 Who am I to talk about it? 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:40.600 It's like I have the luxury of talking about it now. 00:18:40.600 --> 00:18:41.900 LOU ANN MATOSSIAN: Who else is going to talk about it? 00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:42.715 Who else is left? 00:18:42.715 --> 00:18:48.610 [LAUGHS] 00:18:48.610 --> 00:18:55.570 But I also agree that to have enough emotional distance 00:18:55.570 --> 00:18:57.710 to talk about it to grandchildren, I think, 00:18:57.710 --> 00:18:58.970 is much easier. 00:18:58.970 --> 00:19:00.830 And they weren't in survival mode anymore. 00:19:00.830 --> 00:19:04.000 And also with grandchildren, maybe it's 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.130 less of a burden for the grandchildren to hear it. 00:19:07.130 --> 00:19:10.420 And the grandchildren are also growing up at a different time, 00:19:10.420 --> 00:19:13.280 where there's a framework for hearing this sort of thing. 00:19:13.280 --> 00:19:14.600 There's a way to process it. 00:19:14.600 --> 00:19:18.100 You can process it as, wow, look what my grandmother lived 00:19:18.100 --> 00:19:19.250 through, and she survived. 00:19:19.250 --> 00:19:21.250 The whole heroic thing. 00:19:21.250 --> 00:19:23.920 The Civil Rights movement had happened. 00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:26.960 Ethnic pride had happened for a lot of groups. 00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:30.700 There's so much more that made it possible 00:19:30.700 --> 00:19:35.190 for there to be an opening. 00:19:35.190 --> 00:19:36.400 And what else? 00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:39.708 After 1965, that was the 50th anniversary of the genocide. 00:19:39.708 --> 00:19:41.250 Armenians all over the world came out 00:19:41.250 --> 00:19:43.350 of the closet about the genocide. 00:19:43.350 --> 00:19:49.510 But before that, it was as though the culture was dead. 00:19:49.510 --> 00:19:50.290 Memory was dead. 00:19:50.290 --> 00:19:53.260 And it was a good thing that memory was good, 00:19:53.260 --> 00:19:55.740 because why relive it? 00:19:55.740 --> 00:19:57.660 What are you going to do about it? 00:19:57.660 --> 00:20:03.570 So a lot of things had to happen before that could be ready. 00:20:03.570 --> 00:20:06.920 [MUSIC PLAYING]