Hagop Asadourian confronts genocide and its denial
“I have to beg people to believe me”

In the summer of 1915 Turkish gendarmes forced all the Armenian residents of Çomakli (now in Turkey) to march 300 miles to Aleppo, Syria, with no food or water. Hagop Asadourian, then 12 years old, was among them. Here he reflects on how surviving in refugee camps and orphanages, and losing 11 family members, shaped his life.