Nubar Grigoryan, a woman who fought for her people

The photograph shows Nubar Grigoryan. She was born in 1883 in the town of Archesh (Erciş) in the province of Van. During the Van massacres her father and 4 brothers were killed before her eyes. Armed Turks locked Armenian men, among them her first husband, in a barn and set it on fire. At night Nubar secretly went in, dressed her half-alive husband in women's clothes and took him home, but the Turks found out and killed him on the threshold of the house.

Nubar fled to Kars, where she married the soldier Shabo Yekmalyan. On 16 May 1918, when Turkish troops entered the village of Soghyutlu, she fought alongside the men and, according to testimonies, struck down advancing enemies with accurate fire.

In the portrait she wears a light headscarf and dark clothing.