IN MEMORY OF THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES OF 1915

As a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian artist Armiss, who escaped to France, created the following interpretation of his eyewitness of one of the most criminal acts of the last century. Following his visual interpretations is his literary rendition.

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AN ALTAR IN THE DESERT

The blazing sun spread its searing flames over the immense wilderness of Deir-el-Zor, the abominable graveyard of the Armenians, having been forced there by the genocidal Turks.
That appalling tent-city sheltered some forty thousand deportees, remnants of an immolated people. Who in that multitude would be spared?
The terrors of daily life and the tormented picture of the unknown morrow brought their daily agonies and obsessed the souls of this horrible mass.
As I watched with unutterable grief, no precise form fixed my attention. An aggregation of tents hanging in tufts sheltering vanished loves, burnt hopes and martyred faith made mountains of ashes.
Over the wreckage stood a priest. In his look, one could seen the endless sufferings of a martyred nation. Missal in hand, he was praying for the souls of the Armenian calvary. The gnawing words he uttered echoed the myriad sighs of pain-afflicted souls.
Some mourning grandmothers and skeletons of children standing in a circle of ghostly shadows were the only ones attending this service.
The breath of the monstrous Turk had blown out the candles, overthrown the altar and smashed the cross. Nevertheless, the Armenian soul kept on in Holy Communion, for the divine chant was in its veins and the mass in its blood. Now more than ever before shone the ardent Star of the Illuminator above Holy Etchmiadzin, symbol of the indestructible soul of Armenia.
"Dervoghormia", God have mercy on us!
This chant, woven with bitter tears, flooded the Altar ot the Desert and shook the denuded bones.
The course of life has sunk many of my paintings into oblivion, and alas! Sunlight bleached their glowing hues which I had extracted from my soul. For how long my passions and inspiration shall find idealized expression through lines and forms, I cannot say! Yet, the one picture that will ever live in my heart is the Altar of the Desert, powerfully impressive, triumphant, ineffaceable!

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