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Show wX X eX 4CXiX .A t ' ' v Aj ' " ' A& YX P X'W' . AX.- X-V" X " X X ''' ' r ! r r M 4 k . f s- ' , -1 VLJ tH ? 4 i V ' ''.V', Crucifixion of Armenian Chris-' , LCI K? Is 4? I ' 1 " 'f- tians As Shown in the Remark- t ' H-l UJ I '' " -V"' able Film Story of Little k hn ft) f- & J.'t , .o'OrA Aurora Mardiganian's Experi- , , A,y W H," tH ' r .".-;':- -v .j ences with the Cruel Turks, fv i 1 Li... - 4. :l - i f f' W 4 "V Vom "Ravished Armenia," the Motion Picture Bein g Exhibited by the American Committee for Relief in J 1 the Near East in Their Drive for $30,000,000 to Save the Perishing Armenians. Hoiv Little Aurora, the Rescued Waif, I Helped to Raise the 'Armenian Relief. Fund to Save the Remnants of Her ,'NTO the ballroom of the Hotel Plaza the other day came a little figure which strangely contrasted ' with all ss-ssiat surrounded it. She hesitated at the 3or; a tear glistened in her eyes. It was urora Mardiganian the little waif who as rescued from the clutches of the Turks r the American Committee for Armenian -v elief. ' ,J U Instead of the bright lights of that New :prk ballroom, she 'remembered the dark-slTAL dark-slTAL !sa ot tll(J te,lt3 of bestial Kurds, who yid possessed her not so many months to. Tho music of the orchestra was strangely Cerent from the rayle of the Turkish urns which beat a call to Bummot an ;ecution squad. The warmth of the ballroom recalled, by otrast the cold nights on the Armenian iSerL v Her own dress, though simple, and tho ening gowns of the fashionable women 'Out her so different from the bare feet Lid rags of herself and her companions Irj iring the two and a half years of wan- M.rings in desolated Armenia. ifjo And, strangest of all, tq' stand now a i iitive between the kindly protecting flg-L flg-L res of Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Mrs. ij. Vorgo w. Vanderbilt this girl, who had SScn held captive in tho harems of the .o'ialtliy Turks, had been dragged to the its of wild Kurdish chiefs, who had FOR.sn carried off into captivity slung on the D0,ldlo of an Arab raider, who had been sgrehased by a slave dealer and sold on 3fy ) auction block to the highest bidder. iVlth a helping hand Mrs. Harriman as- 1 teu the little waif to a chair, tor the U--ies of Aurora's left foot have been 1 n fully crushed. Although rescued by v I Armenian Relief Committee from the telties of the Turks and Kurds, yet the 1 is literally still suffering for Armenia. d gladly suffering. , .10 readers of this page are alrendy l Y niliar witli the story of Aurora ftlnr- Bnian's sufferings at the hands of her senuers. TIipv have read of the de-1 de-1 lction before her eyes of her father, her N. 'her, her brAthers, her sisters, all her Hives, all the residents of her native V ' And it was the heartrending story h this rescued waif which (lie American Vimitteo for Relief in tho Near Kast de-tO de-tO ,0 P"' in(o a vivid motion picture to "1m 'St in 1,8 "ampaisn to raise $30,000,000 f 0 the perishing remnants of ravished v lenia. atiirally. -the girl herself in re-enacting ;e terrible scenes was a central figure 'no film. And in playing her part in A episode she met a mishap. p ae scene being taken was the repro-f repro-f of Aurora's escano from the hareiu iadji Ghafour, the Turkish Holy Man X'eulick. Aurora and Jliss Graham, an lish missionary, who was young and pretty, and who voluntarily had joined the Armenian exiles, had been stolen by the Kurds from their party in the midst of the desert. The Kurdish chief, struck by the attractiveness of the two girls, had carried them on his horse to Geulick, where Hadji Ghafour bargained for them and eventually purchased them. While she was waiting for her '"betrothal" '"be-trothal" at the hands of Hadji Chafour (when one of his new girls was summoned in the evening to the Hadji's apartments it was her "betrothal"), Aurora saw one Armenian girl captive hung by her heels from a window-sill outside the haremlik until she died, and she saw another girl who refused to accept Mohammed beaten to death by the Hadji's negro slaves. Aurora determined to escape and to brave death on the desert rather than remain re-main for a "betrothal." With Miss Graham Gra-ham she made a rope of rugs and slid to freedom out of a haremlik window. Then she wandered in the desert until she found sanctuary in a forgotten monastery on the road to Diarbekir. This was an actual experience. In the motion picture it is told just as Aurora remembered it. When the scene was being staged before the camera the director explained ex-plained to her that she must "do now just as she did when she ran away from Hadji Ghafour." Quickly the little girl tied together the corners of two rugs until they reached from a balcony to the ground twenty feet below. When the director called -"Ready, Aurora," she flung the makeshift rope out tho window and over the balcony rail. "Come down." tho director cried, "just as you did at Geulick." Quickly Aurora leaped to the balcony rail and, with the memory of her actual escape envisioned in her mind, she threw her hotly over until her feet dangled free and began to slide down the rope of rues. Put the rugs were bulky. In her excitement excite-ment she lost her hold in their loose folds. She screamed and fell tumbled into a heap on the earth below. Her foot curved under her and her ankle was fractured. Physiciajis were called from the studio hospitai. Opiates eased her pain and she was carried to her apartments. The fracture frac-ture seemed, at first, to be slight, but she was ordered to remain in bed at rest for two or threo weeks. "But that will delay the making of my picture and the com-niiliee com-niiliee wants it quickly, that they may let all America see it," she cried. Aurora pleaded with the physicians and the directors. "See." she said, leaping out of bed and throwing all her weisht on the injured foot; "see. it is well already it does not hurt at all I can waik and do my picture all right now." She could not I e dissuaded. Sbe was carried back and forth from the studio, and only those Persecuted People scenes were then taken in which she could appear standing still or sitting without having to walk or throw her weight on her ankle. Gradually the hurt seemed to heal. She denied that it any longer pained her. When the directors were ready for the desert scenes the wild scenes with the Kurds and other savages raiding the refugee camps and riding away with the prettiest girls they could steal from their mothers' arms Aurora declared that her ankle was well and that she could do whatever was required of her. And so the picture was finished on time. Then, when the last scene was taken the picture of Aurora on the deck of the steamship reaching out her arms to the Statue of Liberty looming in the distance the Utile girl collapsed and fell. to the deck of the Ixiat moaning with pain. "It is all done now I have done my duty, and I cannot stand it any longer," she. cried in her native tongue. "My foot it has hurt me all the time a knife runs into me every time I step on it." Then the physicians took ex-ray pictures of the injured ankie, and found that the fracture was much more serious than had been supposed, and that, instead of bal-ag, bal-ag, it. constantly had been getting worse. Copyright, 1919, by Star Company. ';L ':.A.'y ' V-V. cmc ' - 1 , A : V :' X r v xH ' ' '$ 1 I ' " ,J:x 1 I ' .3, -v,;c rx?v- 'VK x . 'it' ' ' - . " J v" ' , . ' ' s .,v " ' A, r ' ' "3 - vv , -j-v;?f-'"v,t, -x,,-X" x i' w j X- f X;,x -Sf' L i ' ? K . ' - ..''.'..- ., s- . . ... - , i i i i , i i j One of the Armenian Relief Committee's Photographs of Rescued Little Ones. She must not use the foot for the present. The most skilled experts in New York are treating the hurt ankle each day. "The pain is going now it is not so bad S3 when I had to hide my sufferings," Aurora said to Mrs. Harriman. "but my heart would have hurt forever if I had not done my duty to Armenia and finished my picture on time." At the initial private exhibitions of the Relief Committee's picture in the Plaza ballroom Aurora met many of the personal friends of Mrs. Harriman and Mrs. Van-dprbilt, Van-dprbilt, who are managing the special exhibitions. ex-hibitions. Many who meet and learn to know Miss Mardiganian a.k those who know her best. "What are her memories her memories of the past she left behind in her Ravished Rav-ished Armenia?" Th-re is no better answer an-swer to these frequent queries than an incident in-cident which occurred in the gay dining room of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Fran-cisco. Cal., where Miss Aurora, eating her dinner in the midst of the brilliant assemblage, as-semblage, was the centre cf intere?t and frequently interrupted during her meal by fashionably gowned women and distinguished distin-guished men who crowded around her table to pay their respects. Miss Aurora seemed to be annoyed; sho "Great Britain Eights Keservod.' avoided ans"werin5 the questions put to her; she plainly evinced a desire to be, as she expressed it. "let alone." To those who pressed her for a word or two, that they might go away and say that they had "spoken to Aurora Marchnanian. the Joan of Arc ot Armenia,-' she refused re-fused to reply. When the meal was finished and she had retired to her apartments with her guardian, Miss Aurora Auro-ra was gently chided; she was told that in America young girls must always be mo.t gracious' in the pres- , . K - - x X ' v " 'it x . XC w I J ' . x ' X"-.' . A X ' r ' j n X H v ";. " i ' ' ' iJ L. ' ' , ' ' - - i 1 ' ' i i -' I " ' I i .1 f r, u -"A V. ' . X Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Aurora Mardi janian. The Girl's Crushed Foot Is Wianped in Surgical Bandages. (Above) Aurora Mardiganian in Nativo Armenian Costume. ence of their eiders; that in America little girls were not aiiowed the privilege of "moods" and moroseness in public. "Hut it, is not a mood or a naughty temper,'' tem-per,'' she pleaded. "I do not like to talk when I am eating. I cannot talk at such a time, because each times I tnl.e a mouthful of food 1 like always to wait, a minute before I swallow it. and sav in my mind a prayer to God that ho will send another mouthful of food, just like mine, to my poor starving Armenia." |
