One little anecdote in the story of humanitarian assistance to the victims of the Armenian Genocide undertaken by the Near East Relief (NER) between 1915-1930 is the NER’s orphanage in Ghazir, Lebanon (then Syria), and its rug factory. Administered by Swiss missionary Jakob “Papa” Künzler, known as the “father of the Armenian orphans,” and his wife, Elizabeth “Mama” Künzler, over 1,400 orphan girls, mostly Armenian, were sheltered as early as 1922. In the mid-1920s, the Künzlers decided to have a rug woven by the orphan Armenian girls and presented to President Calvin Coolidge in the White House as an expression of the profound gratitude to the American people and government on behalf of the Armenian people.
This book tells the story of the Ghazir Rug, also known as the Coolidge Rug—a labor of love by the late Hagop M. Deranian dedicated to the memory of the Ghazir orphans and thousands of other orphans who perished.
