Our World (2007)
Remembering the Armenian Massacres
2015 • E13 Apr 25, 2015 30m
It has been 100 years since the massacres and mass deportation of Armenians who lived in the Ottoman Empire, now Turkey. Armenians say one and a half million people died, while the Turkish government says it was many fewer. The killings remain extremely controversial, with the Turkish government resisting Armenian calls to recognise them as genocide. They're rarely spoken of or taught in Turkish schools. BBC reporter Lara Petrossian's Armenian great-grandfather was one of the few who escaped and started a new life abroad. A century on, Lara visits her Armenian family's destroyed neighbourhood in Turkey. She is joined by BBC Turkish reporter Rengin Arslan, and together they discover how little remains of Armenian culture and community. As they discover their families' very different versions of the past, they try to understand why the story of the massacres continues to be so difficult to tell.
