Vahan Kenderian's Forgotten Fire

According to The New York Times, the Armenian Genocide killed upwards of 1.5 million innocent Armenians. Forgotten Fire is a fictional book about a character named Vahan Kenderian and his journey through the Armenian genocide. His journey is very closely aligned with those of real life genocide survivors who have lived to tell their stories and even those who have not. Fictional character Vahan Kenderian shared a similar journey with Loung Ung as they both survived a genocide at a very young age.

Vahan and Loung are very similar in that they both suffered through a genocide at a very young age. They were both so young when it started that they did not really understand what was going on. At the very beginning of the book Vahan mentioned “I

didn’t know very much about the Turks in 1951.

I knew that we were taught their language in school; I knew that we went to different churches, but I did not know that we were enemies” (Bagdasarian 9). Loung had a very similar experience at the beginning of her book, First They Killed My Father, where she was asking her dad many questions about what was going on since she did not even know that there was a war at the age of five. Each child had times where they struggled because they were so young during these tough times. Five-year-old, Loung even had trouble in her sleep because of the war she told the reader, “The nights when I do not dream of family, I have nightmares of something or someone trying to kill me” (Ung 140). She is so young that being separated from her family is having some very negative effects and causing her to worry greatly about them and fear that she will be killed in the brutal ways that they were killed. Fictional character Vahan is also very worried in his youth that they will kill him as they killed his father, or his brother, or his grandmother. No one should have to fear this, especially these young children who live with this fear for the rest of their lives. Because of the genocides, both of them lost many friends and family members; this made it so that they had to become more independent than the average child.

Vahan often had to find his own place to sleep and told the reader, “That night I sat against the back wall of the general store as though I had been sitting there all my life” (Bagdasarian 103-104). He had to be independent in finding his own place to sleep and acquiring his own necessities. Luckily, Loung did not quite have this same kind of trouble as she usually had enough food to survive and a place to sleep at night, however she has to mature as she was forced into labor despite her young age. The genocides effected both Loung and Vahan because they were so young, they had a hard time understanding what was going on, they suffered emotionally, and they were forced to mature when they were far too young.
Both Vahan and Loung were constantly on the move throughout their journeys in order to save themselves from these terrible wars.

Vahan was forced to move many times and find many different places to go as he could not be discovered by the gendarmes. The first time he had to move his mother told Sisak, “‘When it gets dark,’ my mother said to Sisak, ‘I want you and Vahan to run away’” (Bagdasarian 50). All male Armenians in Turkey were constantly at risk of being found and killed, even young boys like Vahan and his brother Sisak. These terrible situations made it so that Vahan had to stay on the move to avoid being caught and killed by the Turkish army. Someone would relate this to Loung as she was also being forced to change her location quite a few times to avoid being caught by the Khmer Rouge as someone who used to live in Phnom Penh. They both have to be separated from family and friends at different times throughout their journey in order to protect themselves and their families. Loung’s mother told her children, “‘If we stay together, we die together,’ she says quietly, ‘but if they cannot find us, they cannot kill us’” (Ung 121). This is the moment when Loung's mother told her that she and her siblings that they had to all split up so that if one of them had gotten caught they would have had no way to find the other ones. Sadly, since the majority of his family had already been found in the beginning, he did not quite have the problem of having his family found out,

but he did have to split away from his family so that he was not also killed in the very beginning. Loung had to move around to multiple camps and even change her name in order to protect her family from being tracked down. Her mother told her, “‘Change your name; don't even tell each other your new names. Don't let people know who you are.’ Ma's voice grows stronger with determination as the words pour out” (Ung 122). It was so important that Loung did not get her or her family caught that she had to go to extreme lengths even when she moved hours away from her other family members. Fortunately, Vahan never had to change his name but did have to move every time he thought he might get hurt or killed. One similarity is that Vahan, like Loung, had to move constantly to avoid being killed for his family's background, they both went to extreme lengths for survival. 
 Loung was lucky enough to have family by her side throughout her entire journey, Vahan was not so lucky. A good example of this would be when Kim announced his plan to steal corn. He told his mother, “‘Ma, I am going to go get us some corn tonight.’ With a determined look, Kim has made his decision” (Ung 114). She may not have been able to survive if she had not had her brother to provide her with food, she was not strong enough to go get this corn for herself and may have gotten herself very hurt if she had come in the way of the soldiers the way her brother did. Unfortunately, Vahan did not have this kind of support through most of the book as the majority of his family was separated from him or killed in the very beginning. When he lost his last family member he told the reader, “I looked behind me, saw that I had not been followed, then ran across the street and crouched behind a butcher shop, looking up and down the street for Sisak” (Bagdasarian 64). Vahan was only able to stay with any of his family members for the very beginning of his journey. This made it hard for him as he was forced to fend for himself at the very young age of twelve. On the other hand, Loung got to stay with at least one member of her family for the entire first half of her journey and was reunited with her family after only a short while of being separated. However, both of them were able to be reunited with at least one family member in the end of their journey and were able to find refuge to leave their home country that was overtaken by genocide. The epilogue of Forgotten Fire let the reader know: “On September 4, 1920, Vahan and Oskina Kenderian were reunited by Father Ohanian outside the church of St. Gregory's Orphanage” (Bagdasarian 272). In the end Vahan finally found a family member and reunited himself with her as they have both moved onto a country that was at peace. Meng, Loung’s brother, helped her to have a similar experience when he took her to America. She had her family at her side to support her through the entire process of the genocide, Vahan was not so lucky and was forced to fend for himself for the majority of his journey but was later reunited with his sister.
Vahan Kenderian and Loung Ung had very similar journeys through genocide when they are very young. Even though Vahan was a fictional character his story was very similar to real life people. Readers need to look into these stories and see the real effects of genocide on innocent people so that they may do everything in their power to avoid this history repeating itself. Although genocides may not be able to be avoided overall there are definitely ways people can help. Without doing too much work someone could send materials to the countries taking in refugees or could even travel to help these refugees to make sure the most people can survive the genocide