Halvadzhyan Family Escaped Genocide to Create New Lives in Bulgaria But Soon Faced Communist Persecution

The establishment of the Communist regime impacted the Evangelical churches. The new authorities promoted policies of atheism on a state level. Halvadzhyan’s business also suffered detrimental changes.

“The communists took my grandfather’s business and arrested him because he was a capitalist. He ended up being put in a communist camp for three years,” Ahavni said, “They tortured people, and there was a lot of disease too. Many people died in these camps. Unfortunately, my grandmother also died at a young age because of stress when he was sent away.”

The loyal workers employed by Halvadzhyan’s business took a stand against Magarditch’s arrest. He had many Bulgarians on his side. “When he was arrested, the people that worked for him tried to testify for him and tell the police and communists that he was a good man and wasn’t exploiting them, but even that wasn’t enough.” she said.

Ahavni says that her grandfather didn’t like to talk about these kinds of past experiences because of the obstructions those three years created for all of the ensuing generations in the family.

“My grandfather’s arrest even changed my father’s chances of marriage,” Ahavni said. “When my dad married his first wife, her parents made her end the marriage only weeks afterwards because she couldn’t have a father-in-law who was considered ‘an enemy of the state’.”

The trickling effects of communism and the Genocide even still affect Ahavni to this day.

“The sad thing is that I have a lot of family in the [Ottoman] Empire and in the United States that I can’t trace. Little children in my family were left orphans, and everyone lost their connection. We can’t find records, especially from that time,” Ahavni said. “It is almost impossible to find someone now even if you have the time. Families are broken and lost.”