Miami Herald: ‘Orphans of the Genocide’ recounts tragic story of Armenians in Turkey

“Orphans of the Genocide” documentary will air Thursday on American WPBT-PBS 2, the Miami Herald informs.

“Most Americans can’t even find Armenia on a map, much less recite any of its history. But it was in this tiny, tormented country that the blueprint for the most awful invention of the 20th century, genocide, was sketched out 100 years ago. Orphans of the Genocide, a documentary airing Thursday, is a melancholy recitation of a story that should be more widely known,” reads an article by Glenn Garvin.

“What’s clear is that, despite Turkish denials that continue to this day, they did start the slaughter, first wiping out the men who might have been capable of resistance, then, more leisurely, stamping out the women and children who survived. When it was all over, somewhere between half and three-quarters of Armenia’s population was composed of corpses. Their grisly legacy was the word genocide — literally the killing of an entire people, coined by historians to describe what the Turks did,” the article continues.

Orphans director Bared Maronian, a former staff producer at WPBT-PBS 2 and himself of Armenian descent, mostly avoids the political side of the equation. The language used to tell the stories is restrained.

“The most powerful single image is of an Armenian woman, nearing the end of her trek to Der Zore, one small child clinging to her skirts, another on her back, and a swaddled infant in her arms. Their eyes are hunted, and haunted, and they look unaccountably familiar,” the author writes.