SPECIAL STORY-ALMA Spring 2010 Newsletter

Chalk Mold (no. 92-350a-b)
Featuring pianist Gegham Markarian

This ingenious mold to produce chalk sticks was the creation of Kirkor Ouzounian of Hussenig, a village on the outskirts of Kharpert. Although chalk had been used in the Near East since ancient times, the shape and fragility of natural chalk fragments makes its use awkward. A yougn entrepreneur, he developed a process to bake, crush, grind and sift limestone into a fine powder. The processed limestone powder was then poured into the mold’s empty tubes with a catalyst that would harden it into sticks. The mold would then be opened and the sticks removed for use.

This chalk mold has a remarkable connection to the Armenian Genocide.

During the Armenian Massacres (1894-1996) Ouzounian was spared by the Turkish troops after convincing them that his chalk production was vital to the Turkish Army as chalk was used to mark supplies, write directions, etc. After the massacres subsided he expanded his business by creating dozens of molds and erecting a chalk factory built by Armenians. The three-story building had a production plant on the first and second level and a residence for his family on the third level with a secret room used as an emergency refuge. His factory flourished for many years and he employed a large staff of skilled workers, primarily relatives.

In 1915 during the Armenian Genocide he hid his wife, family and employees in the secret room, but dared not hide himself. As a prominent a community member, his absence would have prompted an intensive search of the factory. He was subsequently arrested and murdered but his family survived in hiding. His family and employees emerged from hiding several months later after the killings abated and they exhausted the emergency supplies.

The wife convinced the Turkish Army that she and her employees could continue the chalk production for the government and they were issued a taskara (“government permit”) exempting them from deportation. They survived World War I by their continued production. After the war the widow and family immigrated to America, bringing a single mold as a keepsake and destroying the other molds. In 1992 her children, Ardashas Ouzounian and Armenouhi Knaian, gave the mold to ALMA.