Ravished Armenia; the Story of Aurora Mardiganian New Movie Trailer Introduced

YEREVAN — A documentary dedicated to the first Hollywood movie on Armenian Genocide shot in 1918 is in the process of production. The movie was based on the memoires of Aurora Mardiganian, who faced with all the horrors of Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide Museum­Institute has released the first official trailer of the upcoming movie on February 5. The movie will be completed by the end of the current year.

Ravished Armenia; the Story of Aurora Mardiganian, the Christian Girl, Who Survived the Great Massacres is a book written in 1918 by Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian about her experiences in the Armenian Genocide. A Hollywood film based on it was filmed in 1919 under the title Auction of Souls (which also became to be known as Ravished Armenia, based on the book it was adapted from).

The author Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian was born in the city of Çemisgezek, near Harput (Kharpert), (present­day Turkish province of Elâzig), Ottoman Empire. She was the daughter of an Armenian wealthy financier in the city. The story starts in 1915 when Arshaluys was 14 years old. She had personally witnessed the murder of her father, mother, brothers and sisters. She was taken to the harem of a number of Turkish pashas, but had remained attached to her Christian Armenian faith despite being tortured repeatedly on the hands of her captors.

She found refuge with an American doctor and missionary Frederick W. MacCallum who safely returned her to Erzurum which had come under Russian control. She later moved to Tbilisi in the Caucusus and through the mediation of General Andranik Ozanian and orders of the Russian military leadership in the Caucasus was sent to the United States for recovery and to bear witness to the sufferings of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.