<\/p>\n

Tante Rose always insisted on celebrating Christmas on January 19^{th<\/sup>. In fact, Tante Rose celebrated Christmas three times: she celebrated with us on December 24th<\/sup>, and we went to her house on January 6th<\/sup> to celebrate the Lebanese Armenian Christmas, but she always left her Christmas tree up till January 19th<\/sup> to celebrate one last time with the Palestinian Armenians. Tante Rose grew up in Jerusalem\u2019s Haret al-Arman, the Armenian quarter, and was very proud of her Armenian heritage. She would tell me stories of her family\u2019s life in the Old City, her brother\u2019s piano lessons and how he always taught his class with a ruler in his hand, and about the day her sister got a small cross tattooed on her arm and engaged in other mischief. She always related these memories with a mournful smile on her face.<\/p>\n}

For Tante Rose could no longer go back to her beloved hometown. She lived in Beirut as a Palestinian refugee of Armenian descent. Later, she became a naturalized Lebanese, and later still, an American. I was lucky to have her as my neighbor and second mother. I loved going to her house, as I did almost on a daily basis. I loved her accent and the way she said words like clothes (awa\u2019i<\/em>) and shoes (kindara<\/em>) in the Palestinian dialect. I loved how we ate caramel candy together, and could not speak for a few moments as the caramel got stuck to our teeth. We would just look at each other and giggle while watching Mexican soap operas dubbed in Arabic. I loved her stories of a land far from and yet near to me. I loved her pride in her origins, that she was an original Armenian Jerusalemite. She always reminded me that her real name was not \u201cRose\u201d; it was Varnatoush, which meant \u201csweet rose\u201d in Armenian. Her maiden name ended with \u201cian,\u201d a sign of her Armenian roots, of which she was proud.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Beirut, I quickly understood the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, my history books at school mentioned nothing about the Armenian Genocide, which I first encountered in 2002, when the film Ararat <\/em>was released. Tante Rose\u2019s daughter invited us all to watch the movie. If I recall correctly, the film starts with an Armenian lullaby that accompanies a very violent scene of Ottoman soldiers forcing Armenian women to dance naked. I was shocked by the violence of the scene, but more importantly, and for the first time, I saw Tante Rose sob. This woman, whose history was full of forced displacement and wars, was shaking and in tears. The lullaby reminded her of her mother and grandmother, who used to sing it to her. Although Tante Rose was born and raised in Jerusalem, where her family had settled long before the Armenian Genocide, the pain she felt for her people was genuine and raw. Tante Rose knew the lullaby and its meaning, and it was the first time I heard her sing softly in Armenian.<\/p>\n

Young person that I was, I did not fully understand what I was witnessing. My history books spoke of the Ottoman Empire and its occupation of Greater Syria. They told us of some of the crimes the Ottoman soldiers committed in what is today Lebanon. However, I had not heard of the Armenian Genocide.<\/p>\n