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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Nafina work as in Aleppo, before emigrating to the United States?

2. According to the quote from Ambassador Morgenthau, for how many days did the 18,000 Armenians march, before arriving in Aleppo during an early death march?

3. What is a hamal?

4. At what age were young boys forcibly conscripted as Janissaries for the Ottoman Empire?

5. In what year was Nersesian College founded?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Balakian feel about claims that the Turkish denials fall under free speech?

2. How does genocide denial affect the survivors and their descendants?

3. Why did Balakian eventually come to see his family's silence about the genocide as a gift?

4. How was the Armenian-Lebanese town of Anjar settled?

5. What was the deeper significance of the way in which Dovey's father was killed?

6. How has the Turkish government used its influence to prevent honest discussion of the Armenian genocide over the years?

7. How did Balakian's aunts justify the family's inability to talk about the genocide when he was a child?

8. Why did Balakian take the bones from the memorial site at Der Zor?

9. According to Aunt Gladys, why did the Armenians in America never talk about the genocide?

10. Why did Aunt Anna likely embrace surrealism rather than realism in literature?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Balakian did not learn about the Armenian genocide or his own family's experiences until he sought out that information as an adult. Even then, some family members questioned what he was doing. Did his family do him a disservice by hiding the truth from him for so many years? Would knowing the past have enabled him to have a different, deeper understanding of the ways his family members lived their lives in America? Or did keeping the truth from him enable him to have a normal American childhood before delving into the past on his own? Did his family's "protection" of him give him a solid ground on which to stand while confronting the horrific events of the past?

Essay Topic 2

Peter's Aunt Anna was convinced that surrealism was the only legitimate form of writing because it represented the only legitimate way of responding to human events. How did her experiences in the Armenian genocide influence her feelings? Could surrealism be a healthy response to horrific events? Did the surrealism admired by Anna provide her with a health way of processing her emotions? Can surrealism speak to horrific historical events? Or does it serve to obscure the past and make it more difficult for people to come to terms with their sufferings? Are there some events that are so horrific they must be remembered with straightforward descriptions in order to teach future generations?

Essay Topic 3

At least some of Balakian's relatives would appear to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of their sufferings. Nafina, in particular, seemed to suffer as evidenced by her breakdown when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. How did her suppression of her memories affect her over the long term? Had she been more open about the genocide, would she have been spared the breakdown in 1941? Why did she continue to suppress the memories after recovering from the breakdown? Can this suppression ever be healthy or does it inevitably lead to PTSD? Would the survivors of the Armenian genocide have had a different post-war experience if the genocide had occurred after PTSD became a well-known malady?

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