She was born in 1913 in Constantinople . During the Armenian Genocide she lost her parents and was taken , along with her elder sister , to a Protestant orphanage in Smyrne . Then she moved to Corinth , Greece . After 1926 she lived in Marseilles , France , where she learned Armenian and studied accounting . She met her future husband Missak Manouchian in 1934 . In 1935 she became secretary of the Armenian Relief Committee . She was in close contact with Charles Aznavour 's family . According to Aida Aznavour , the Manouchians " during the long years — and what years ! — played an outstanding role in the life of our family " . During the French Resistance she became a heroic companion to her husband . She " posed incognito at the scene of a guerilla attack to observe carefully the movements of each actor and note the results of the operation and the reaction of the public " . From the early 1940s she regularly made , copied and distributed forbidden anti-fascist literature . When Missak was arrested for the first time , she asked Micha Aznavourian to take her to the camp at Compiègne on his bicycle . She succeeded in passing some food to her husband ( the prisoner No351 ) and even visited him for a second
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Mélinée Manouchian