The memoir begins with descriptions of life in the town of Gürün , in modern-day Turkey . Panian describes his large family and the idyllic childhood he spent in his hometown , where his grandfather owned vast orchards . When Panian was only five years old , World War I began , quickly followed by the beginning of the Armenian Genocide . Deportations from Armenian towns and villages began , and soon , it was the turn of Panian and his family in Gürün . Panian describes the deportation and his family 's experience as they made their way , through the Syrian desert , to refugee camps in the Syrian cities of Homs and Hama . In Hama , Panian 's family has its first casualties , and soon , his mother dies . His grandparents , in order to save him , decide to hand him over to an orphanage outside the refugee camp . Then , from there , the Ottoman authorities move Panian and other boys to the Collège Saint Joseph – Antoura , in Antoura , Lebanon . At the time , the College was a monastery that had been taken over by the Ottoman forces . The orphanage , which was the brainchild of Ottoman Minister of Navy Djemal Pasha and was at least partly administered by the famous Turkish feminist Halide Edib Adıvar , was , in fact , another project of the Armenian Genocide : its purpose was to Turkify the hundreds of Armenian children who were virtually prisoners in the institution . Panian narrates how he and his fellow orphans often stubbornly resisted Turkification , despite appalling beatings and starvation rations . Often , he and his friends snuck out into the neighboring fields to steal fruits and vegetables to satiate their hunger . Panian even tells of boys crushing the bones of their peers who had died and had been buried in shallow graves outside the gates , and then mixing the powdered bones with water and drinking the concoction . Eventually , Panian and a few boys escaped the orphanage and sought shelter in a cave in the nearby mountains . After a few weeks of living on the run , the boys decided to return to the orphanage , only to discover that the war was over , their Turkish teachers and caretakers had left , and the orphans left unsupervised . Soon , French and Armenian soldiers ( the latter serving with the French forces ) arrived , and rescued the children
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Goodbye, Antoura