Who She Left Behind by Victoria Atamian Waterman is a powerful exploration of the Armenian Genocide, blending historical facts with fictional storytelling. The narration of the audiobook by Dalita Getzoyan adds an emotional depth to the experience. The blend of history and personal narratives brings the characters to life.
Waterman, a second generation Armenian, grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. She has always been involved with the Armenian church. She is semi-retired from working with a nonprofit and is still involved with fundraising. She uses her free time to babysit her grandson, write books and enjoy quality time with her husband. She’s also a columnist for the Weekly.
Eight years ago on Memorial Day, Waterman was visiting her family’s graves and noticed flowers at her Aunt Vicky and Pesa’s gravesites. She wanted to write a book based on her family’s story of surviving the Armenian Genocide and accepted this as an inspirational sign of where to begin. She spent the next eight years researching and writing about who could have left those mysterious flowers.
The book is historically accurate with stories from her surviving relatives and plausible content to fill the gaps. Waterman had researched her family tree on her maternal side and recorded her mother’s stories before she passed. Her grandparents spoke about the Genocide but would stop at certain points. She understood the unspoken words and read between the lines. Waterman is named after her Aunt Vicky, who is the main character in the book.
“The doll piece was the most poignant. Lucy was the youngest daughter of the family, and the sisters would always talk about the dolls and gold they buried under the tree on their family’s property when they were forced to leave. Victoria and her cousins grew up with a strong message from their grandparents to go back and dig for the gold. However, for Victoria, the innocence of girls burying their dolls with the naive expectation of coming back to play with them draws a painful contrast to the adults they were soon to become,” Waterman said. She wanted to honor this moment in a meaningful way and wove the story of the dolls throughout the book.
One of the tools Waterman used for her extensive research for the book was the Armenian Genealogy page on Facebook. There she found Armenians from Gurin, her maternal ancestral village. Waterman and her cousins had heard about the Karadelians, a prominent family in Gurin whose house had marble floors and running water. Their house was converted into a Turkish hospital after the Genocide. Waterman was eager to learn about her family through the Facebook group, but to no avail. Her family had weekly Zoom meetings during the pandemic to talk about their family’s history, but no one knew of the Karadelians.
Finally, in a history book about Gurin, Luc Vartan Baronian found a mention of the Gharadelian and Choulidjian building, Waterman’s family building. She corroborated the stories that she and her cousins had heard all of their lives. Through Facebook she found Linda Choulidjian Takvorian, who also knew of the building. George Aghjayan, Getzoyan’s uncle, is a genealogy expert and added his expertise. He found the coordinates of the building on Google Earth. Waterman felt it was nothing short of a miracle.
Another duo that was instrumental in helping with research was Khatching Mouradian, who traced the train route included in the book, and Taner Akcam. Gary and Susan Lind-Sinanian from the Armenian Museum of America provided the detailed history of Armenian dolls and needlelace.
Waterman says her message is one of truth and hope. She aimed to honor the lesser-told stories of brave Armenian women and depict an empowered female protagonist who embodied resilience instead of victimhood. She wanted the voices of the lesser spoken-about women, the ones who were defiled and stigmatized with amot (shame), to be defined as who they truly were: resilient.
“Amot is in our DNA. I wanted Vicky to overcome that and to push through the amot. So many stories were lost to shame. So many women had to silence their voices to survive. They carried the baggage of shame,” Waterman said.
Waterman was also invested in the story of Danish missionary and social worker Karen Jeppe, who is mentioned in the book. Jeppe did an immense service for Armenian women, giving them the skills to be financially independent, Waterman says, and her work with widows and orphans was essential for the survival of so many.
Waterman’s next book will be about her grandfather Ardash, who grew up in an orphanage in Greece. His story is also filled with hope, resilience and miracles. At the age of four, he fought a dog for a bone and was rescued by an Armenian woman married to a Turkish officer. She hid him in a barn, baked him some bread and paid someone to take him to the orphanage. Ardash was later reunited with his father in Rhode Island thanks to the Near East Relief and an ad his father submitted to the Hairenik. Yet Waterman’s grandfather missed his mother and displayed a poster of an Armenian woman in his home who he said resembled his mother.
“My son, Arthur, is named after my grandfather Ardash. I remember once when Arthur was a baby, my grandfather went by his crib, tucking him in saying, you don’t know how lucky you are that you have a mommy,” Waterman said.
When it was time to record the audiobook, Waterman approached Getzoyan. “I wanted the book to be read by someone who had a connection to the culture and could authentically provide the necessary resources to enhance the book’s connection to the listener, and Dalita was a great choice,” Waterman said.
Getzoyan grew up in a household with four generations of Armenian women, including her Genocide survivor maternal great-grandmother, grandmother and mother. This unique experience molded her intense connection to her family. Born in Massachusetts to a second generation Armenian American mom and a Lebanese Armenian immigrant dad, Getzoyan thrived at performing. Her parents enrolled her in dance at the age of two, and when she was four, she insisted on taking lessons with the older students as they were more focused on learning. During this time, Getzoyan also went to auditions in New York for commercials and other roles.
At the age of six, the family moved to North Providence, Rhode Island, where she was exposed to different genres of music, from Komitas to church hymns and popular Armenian singers. Getzoyan fondly remembers performing at the annual church Christmas pageant, AYF talent shows and more.
In 2011, Getzoyan began voice-over work and did a 15-minute video for The Genocide Education Project. She received her bachelor of music degree in flute performance from the University of Rhode Island, followed by her master’s in mental health counseling with a specialization in music therapy from Lesley University. Her thesis focused on music and its therapeutic benefits related to intergenerational trauma and the Armenian Genocide. Getzoyan currently works as a music therapist with hospice patients.
Getzoyan moved to New York in 2021 and has continued her career in acting and theater. Among her latest projects was narrating the audiobook for Who She Left Behind.
“I was very excited to read the book. It hit close to home,” Getzoyan said. “I know the neighborhoods described in the story. As an actor and storyteller, I’ve always remained close to my culture, carrying the responsibility of doing justice to our people’s history. It was a beautiful experience to read the story, but it was also hard, because I would become emotional. I had to stop a few times and rerecord. It was in those moments where I had to incorporate breaks and breathe,” she said.
“Arts are so important and a tool for our survival,” Getzoyan said. “Our souls are represented in the arts.”
Talar Keoseyan
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