As the world remembers the victims of the Holocaust, a new book sharing the experiences of an Armenian in the French Resistance who survived three Nazi death camps provides graphic evidence of the dangers of fascism and the power of the written word to bring diverse voices and stories to wider audiences.
Mihran Mavian was a French-Armenian communist and resistance fighter, working as a liaison agent for the Workers International Movement against Nazi occupation in Paris before his arrest by the Gestapo in 1944. He survived torture, starvation and Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Flossenbürg extermination camps.
As a survivor of the Armenian Genocide and the Nazi concentration camps, he bears witness to some of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century.
Bringing his story to a wider audience
Mihran Mavian compiled his handwritten memoir in Armenian with the intention of honouring those who resisted Nazism, often at the cost of their lives. His daughter Alice translated the book into French to honour her father, deliver his evidence to those compatriots in France who no longer knew the Armenian language, and to ensure that his anti-fascist message would be heard by a younger generation.
She approached her friend Mike Jempson, a journalist, professor, former director of MediaWise Trust, and media trainer who has worked with MDI, to translate the memoir into English, opening up Mihran Mavian’s testimony to an even wider English-speaking community in the UK and America.
“Those who have heard of Andre Agassi, Andy Serkis, Charles Aznavour, Cher, David Dickinson, and the Kardashians may not be aware of their Armenian origins, and know little about the Armenian Genocide which Mavian survived, the Nazi occupation of France, or the Resistance,” Jempson said.
“The copious footnotes I have added to his story are designed to provide more context about the culture and politics of 80 years ago.”
Lessons for today
The book is being published in January, coinciding with International Holocaust Remembrance Day which calls for action to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.
Jempson told MDI that Mavian’s story is “a timely reminder of the depravity to which the Nazis sank” especially with “the spectre of fascism haunting the streets of Europe and America today”.
He spoke of the dangers of the atomisation of public opinion through social media and the efforts of ‘influencers’ to rewrite history and deny the evidence of fascism’s crimes.
“The uncritical support of the rich and powerful is a slippery slope. Our role as journalists is to hold them to account. We must call out the signs of fascism, fact-check the claims of the tyrants, and give voice to those who oppose tyranny.”
He criticised the actions of ICE agents who are implementing President Trump’s immigration crackdown in cities across the US. In Minnesota, they have shot and killed two citizens in recent weeks, sparking protests and outrage.
Jempson said we should take hope from the resistance shown by thousands of citizens in Los Angeles and Minnesota who have taken to the streets to oppose Trump, and the many thousands more around the world who continue to have defend Palestinian rights in the face of a genocide perpetrated by Israel and its supporters.
“We must also be prepared to organise against those who seek to divide us. MDI continues to play an important role in building networks that unite.”
Time to act
Jempson says it is appropriate that the English version of ‘Beyond the Darkness’ is published on Holocaust Memorial Day with the theme ‘Bridging Generations’. “It is exactly what Mihran, Alice and I set out to do.”
With a report by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) indicating 70 per cent of the world’s Holocaust survivors will be gone in the next 10 years, there is a renewed urgency to bring first-hand stories and testimonies from survivors into the public domain.
“As the generation who survived World War II pass away, it is up to those who came later to amplify their evidence however grim,” Jempson said.
Beyond the Darkness : Crimes of another era by Mihran Mavian, translated from the French by Mike Jempson is Published by the Gomidas Institute.
