Shahen Derderian

Shahen Derderian was barely eight years old when the Ottoman Turkish government deported his family, along with the entire Armenian community of his native Sebastia (now Sivas). The uprooting was part of an elaborate Turkish plan to exterminate the Armenian population of Anatolia. In the ensuing forced marches, the Sebastia caravan - one among countless others - was subjected by the Turkish police and hired criminals to a systematic spree of murder, robbery, rape, and death by starvation and disease. Young Shahen Derderian survived the carnage through sheer miracle.