Margarita Simonyan: my family survived the genocide and i need no other evidence

YEREVAN, April 24. / ARKA /. Well-known Russian journalist, editor in chief of Russia Today TV channel, Margarita Simonyan, placed a posting on her Twitter page about her ancestors who survived the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

"Today, like millions of other Armenians we remember our ancestors, who were tortured and killed in 1915 by the government of Turkey. As a child, I often stayed with my grandmother, who had survived the Genocide. Her brothers, sisters and parents were killed in front of her!" she wrote.

Her great-grandmother and her younger sister, Alice were not killed – Turks would take young beautiful girls into their families. At 16, her great-grandmother ran away.

"When the Turks took away my great-grandmother, her father gave her and her sister gold coins, which they had hidden in their cheek. Their father was stabbed to death on the same night. My great-grandmother escaped from a Turkish family and reached the Crimea. That was how our family came to Russia. We did not know what happened to my great grandmother’s sister Alice. Their eldest, married sister escaped rape – she jumped from high Trabzon shore into the Black Sea and drowned. My family survived the genocide and I do not need other evidence," she wrote.

The Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the twentieth century. Turkey has been denying it for decades. The Armenian genocide was recognized by tens of countries. The first was Uruguay that did so in 1965. Other nations are Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina, 42 U.S. states. The Armenian Genocide was recognized by the Vatican, the European Parliament, the World Council of Churches and other international organizations. -0-