Long before the great Parisian shoemaker Sarkis Der Balian was making beautiful footwear for the likes of Marie Curie, Salvador Dali, Greta Garbo, and Jean Anouilh, he watched his sister die of foot gangrene from walking unshod on a forced march in Cilicia in 1915-1916. His family’s story within the larger story of the Armenian genocide could have led Sarkis down other career paths – perhaps as a surgeon after watching a brother die of a bowel obstruction from swallowing gold pieces on the same forced march, or as a microbiologist after seeing his parents die of typhus during the same ordeal. The survival of six-year-old Sarkis, another sister and his eldest brother is the gripping story told in Mémoires d’un survivant du génocide des Arméniens: d’Adana à Mossoul (“Memoirs of a Survivor of the Armenian Genocide: From Adana to Mossul”).
On the back cover of the book, we see Sarkis and his surviving sister, Aznive, as healthy, smiling adults. Next to them is a short, balding man who is...
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