BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
D E D I C AT E D TO O U R G R A N D FAT H E R S A N D G R A N D M OT H E R S , OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
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A MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDERS OF 100 LIVES.
WE ARE HERE
We are here because one hundred years ago a group of wealthy Americans met in The Plaza Hotel in New York to raise money to help Armenians facing extinction. Their fundraising helped send volunteers, including doctors and nurses, to help Armenians in peril, families threatened with expulsion from their homes, with starvation and with death. The volunteers went to the aid of the Armenian people. Without those Americans, and the many other individuals and institutions who came to provide assistance, many more would have died in the Armenian Genocide. Being Armenian means we are survivors. But just as the will to survive runs through our veins, so too does the desire to thrive.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
As a project, 100 LIVES could not be more personal for us.
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS One hundred years after many Armenians were saved by the courage and humanity of others it is time to demonstrate the depth of our sense of gratitude.
Now, through 100 LIVES, we have the opportunity to express our gratitude and help others to do so. 100 LIVES is our way of giving back.
As a people who received help in our darkest hour, it is ‘Armenian’ to know that life is only truly full when there is room in it for others.
Vartan Gregorian, Noubar Afeyan and Ruben Vardanyan
We understand better than anyone that the key to a brighter future for those facing difficult times is in the hands of those who can offer help and hope. You don’t have to be from Armenia to be Armenian. This is something we can all believe in.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
ONE HUNDRED 2
YEARS
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
The Armenian Diaspora now spans the globe and we are proud of our many contributions to society.
There were over two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died between 1915 and 1923. An estimated 500,000 survived, many of whom were saved by the acts of strangers and subsequently found shelter abroad. The descendants of those who fled now make up the Diaspora of around 7 million people living across the world. Over the past 100 years, this diverse population has gone on to lead successful and fulfilling lives, contributing significantly to global culture and the arts, sports, science and business. This year, 2015, marks the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, allowing an opportunity to reflect on the success of the Armenians who survived, and the acts of humanity that make survival and revival possible.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
The Armenian Genocide began in the first months of 1915 and lasted until 1923. It is commemorated on April 24, the day when many Armenian intellectual, cultural and political leaders were arrested in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and were sent into exile or killed soon after.
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ABOUT 100 LIVES 100 LIVES is a new global initiative rooted in the events of the Armenian Genocide. A century on, 100 LIVES seeks to express gratitude, to share remarkable stories of survivors and their rescuers, and to celebrate the strength of the human spirit. The story of the humanity, the generosity, the strength and sacrifice of those saviors and survivors demands to be told. Now is the time to tell these stories and build on the lessons they teach not just Armenians, but people everywhere.
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BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
HUMANITY STRENGTH GENEROSITY
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100 LIVES is a new global initiative rooted in the events of the Armenian Genocide.
As part of its efforts, 100 LIVES intends to digitize the written record of the Armenian Genocide. This is a substantial undertaking, yet one which the founders believe can help safeguard the historical archive in perpetuity and ensure it can be accessed by anyone. 100 LIVES will be a lasting act of gratitude through its fundraising and grant program. The funding will be invested in Gratitude Projects relating to Armenia, countries with a strong
Armenian Diaspora, or countries with links to the people, families, institutions or communities that saved and helped Armenians. The ambition is to show gratitude and inspire others to give thanks to those people and organizations that act to protect humanity. It is our intention that 100 LIVES will generate global and local conversations about gratitude; about survivors and rescuers from any time and any place in the world; and about the “on the ground� humanitarian projects that make a lasting difference.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
100 LIVES is launching a global appeal for the descendants of both saviors and survivors to share their stories. We hope to tell many of these stories over the lifetime of the initiative and thus bring these personal stories to an international stage.
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THE AURORA PRIZE FOR AWAKENING HUMANITY The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is a new global humanitarian award that will be given to people who put themselves at risk to enable others to survive and thrive. Recipients will be recognized for the exceptional impact their actions have made either to preserving human life or advancing humanitarian causes, despite the challenges that they have overcome. A grant of $1 million will be given to the organization that the Prize recipient identifies as the inspiration for his or her actions.
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BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE. 9
THE AURORA PRIZE The Aurora Prize is rooted in the inspiring stories of courage and survival from events in Armenia one hundred years ago. Similar to 100 LIVES, it strives to pay tribute to, and thank, the individuals and institutions whose modern day actions are enabling others to survive and thrive.
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The inaugural Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity will be presented in April 2016 at a ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia.
Nominations for the Aurora Prize will open in June 2015.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
The name Aurora was chosen to honor the memory of Aurora Mardiganian who was a child during the Armenian Genocide. She suffered the indescribable loss of her father and brothers and went on to witness countless atrocities. Yet she survived against all odds and went on to provide humanitarian relief and raise awareness of the Armenian Genocide. The Prize is inspired by Aurora, and the thousands of untold stories during these events a century ago.
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BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
C R E AT I N G BRIGHTER TOMORROWS
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The Aurora Prize will make a tangible difference to the causes that motivate people to voluntarily risk their health, liberty, reputation, or livelihood and perform acts that enable others to survive.
We have gathered together an extraordinary group of people to be part of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee. Each is accomplished in a diverse range of fields, but all are united in their commitment to the principles of humanitarianism and social justice. Their individual achievements give them an excellent perspective on humanitarian endeavors that deserve global recognition. Selection Committee members include Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, humanitarian and Academy Award winner George Clooney and Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and one of the founders of the 100 LIVES initiative.
Nominations will open in June 2015. Members of the public will be able to nominate people who best represent the Prize criteria. The inaugural Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity will be presented in April 2016 at a ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
Aurora is also the Roman Goddess of Dawn and the Aurora Prize both shows gratitude for acts of humanity and also offers substantive support to those creating brighter tomorrows for people around the world.
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R E M A R K A B L E S TO R I E S O F S U R V I VA L A N D H U M A N I T Y AURORA MARDIGANIAN KAREN JEPPE
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BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
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AURORA MARDIGANIAN Aurora Mardiganian was born Arshaluys Martikian in 1901, the third of eight children of a prosperous farmer and silk manufacturer in the town of Chmshkatsag in Dersim province, which is now the Tunceli Province in modern day Turkey. She died at 92-yearsold in a California residential care facility after a life marred by the early loss and cruelty she endured, but also marked by a resilience and a desire to help others. Arshaluys witnessed the killing of her father and one brother, and was forced, with her mother and sisters, to become part of the mass deportation of Armenian women to the deserts of Syria. At one point, the Kurdish leader driving their forced march crucified 16 girls on a whim. Arshaluys, the 17th member of the group, escaped a horrific death.
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The Armenian commander General Andranik arranged Arshaluys’s journey to the United States via Tiflis (Tblisi) and Petrograd (St. Petersburg), where she narrowly escaped death again in a revolutionary skirmish. Adopted by an Armenian family in New York, she took out press advertisements in a bid to find her surviving brother Vahan who had moved to the U.S. before the massacres.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
Arshaluys was sold for the equivalent of 85 U.S. cents into the harem of a tribal leader. She escaped, was recaptured by slave traders and escaped again. After an 18-month trek over the Dersim Mountains, hiding in caves and woods, living off vegetation and roots, she arrived in Russian-occupied Erzerum – barefoot, half-naked and starving. Here, she received care from American missionaries. She also absorbed the generosity of spirit that later enabled her to care for hundreds of orphans.
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These attracted the attention of journalists. Arshaluys’ account of the Genocide was published in newspapers in New York and Los Angeles in late 1918, and released as a book, “Ravished Armenia,” in December 1918. She was featured on the cover in traditional Armenian dress. The book would be reprinted many times over the next two decades, selling an estimated 900,000 copies including editions in Spanish, Dutch and Polish. Before the end of 1918, a silent film, based on the book, was in preparation by the Selig Polyscope Company, directed by Oscar Apfel, and with Arshaluys, now renamed Aurora Mardiganian to protect her identity, playing the lead role. The film drew on other accounts of the Genocide, including the memoirs of Henry Morgenthau, former U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, who also appeared as himself onscreen. So committed was Aurora to telling her story that she insisted production continue even after she fractured her ankle falling from a rope during an escape scene.
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This story has been verified by the 100 LIVES Research Team in cooperation with the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute and the National Archives of Armenia
It is for her extraordinary resilience and her ability to give back, in spite of the suffering she faced, that we remember Aurora Mardiganian.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
Ravished Armenia (known as “Auction of Souls” in some countries was first shown in Washington, DC, in January 1919 and had a huge society premiere at New York’s Plaza Hotel in February 1919. It went on to play in 23 states and internationally, with profits – estimated between $20 - $30 million – going to Armenian orphans through Near East Relief. Songs were composed about Aurora. She would speak to members of the great and good after each premiere, until the strain of recalling past events overcame her. She fainted following a screening in 1920 in Buffalo and never appeared in public again.
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KAREN JEPPE Karen Jeppe was born in late 19th century Denmark into a middle-class family. Raised by a schoolteacher and his wife, she enjoyed an unremarkable childhood in a quiet, rural parish called Gylling. In the tale of unrelenting horror that surrounded the Armenian Genocide, the story of Karen Jeppe stands out as an enduring testimony to what a single individual can achieve when inspired to put a lifetime’s effort into a fight for good. Karen Jeppe’s status in the Armenian Diaspora and within the Armenian nation itself is legendary. She is directly or indirectly responsible for the survival of thousands of Armenians who would otherwise have died in the Genocide.
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In all, Karen Jeppe was responsible for freeing some 2,000 women from slavery.
One year later, in 1903, despite initial opposition from her father she travelled to Urfa near the Syrian border to join the German Mission. It took her just a year to learn Armenian, Arabic and Turkish. The love she felt for the Armenians was profound and underpinned by a genuine desire to give them skills for independence, self-sufficiency and, above all, survival. She was indefatigable. She supervised the construction of workshops and weaving sheds. Then she raised money by sending Armenian needlework back to Denmark. In 1908, she returned home to deliver lectures, but new horrors were unfolding. Some 20,000 to 30,000 Armenians had been slaughtered. Karen Jeppe returned. An uneasy calm settled across the Ottoman Empire.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
Karen Jeppe was 13 when she was sent by her German father to his homeland to live with his family and learn the language. She picked it up within a year – a sign of linguistic abilities that would mean her eventual fluency in six languages. On her return from Germany, she was sent to boarding school in Copenhagen. One evening, the school’s headmaster read aloud a newspaper feature by the Missionary Aage Meyer Benedictsen. He had written about the pogroms of 1896 that had been instigated against the Armenians.
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Then the killings began again. Karen Jeppe stood against the tide. She organized food and water for the caravans of desperate Armenians driven through Urfa on their journey to certain death in the Syrian Desert. She stayed on despite the unfolding carnage, helping thousands flee by disguising them as Kurds and Arabs. By 1917 she had been sheltering Armenians in her cellar for nearly two years. Sick and on the point of nervous collapse she returned to Denmark. It took three years of rural tranquility to begin to wipe the images from her mind, but the strength and energy she had possessed in earlier years never came back. She said herself that something inside her had died. In 1921 she returned to Aleppo with the backing of the League of Nations to track down Armenian girls who had been trafficked as slaves during the Genocide. Between 1922 and 1923 she set up search and rescue stations in Aleppo. Using money she raised in Europe she managed to buy back many women and children from their Arab owners. In all, Karen Jeppe was responsible for freeing some 2,000 women from slavery.
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This story has been verified by the 100 LIVES Research Team in cooperation with the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute and the National Archives of Armenia
Karen Jeppe lived for just 59 years. Her life was short, but her achievements were great. She left a legacy for the people she loved – land, a living and a future.
BE ARMENIAN. BE ALIVE.
But one relationship with a Bedouin Arab was to prove a blessing. Hadjim Pasha owned a stretch of land east of the Euphrates. Remarkably, a determined Danish woman and a Bedouin Arab prepared to ignore tribal prejudices struck a deal founded on mutual warmth and respect. Karen Jeppe left the meeting with enough agricultural land to support 30 families.
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For further information on the Armenian Genocide and its commemoration, please visit the official website of the State Commission on Coordination for the Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at www.armeniangenocide100.org Images of Aurora kindly provided by The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute
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