In 1980, Mosfilm, Mediterraneo Cine and Pro Dis Film jointly shot the famous movie Tehran 43 starring Alain Delon, Curd Jürgens, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Igor Kostolevsky, Natalya Belokhvostikova and others. Tehran 43, among other things, tells the story of Armenian Iranian Gevorg Vardanyan’s group. They were able to prevent the terrorist act planned to be committed during the meeting between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. According to the mass media, in November 2007, Celia Sandys, Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, came to Moscow for the 64th anniversary of the Tehran Conference and to personally thank intelligence agents Gevorg and Gohar Vardanyan for ensuring her grandfather’s security in Tehran in 1943.
Asya Poghosyan born in Iran who currently lives in Germany tells during a conversation with www.aravot.am that she was a 9-year-old girl when she saw with her own eyes the car, in which Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill were sitting. “We were children, we were students of a preliminary school. Our Armenian school was on Nadir Ave., in the center of Tehran, where there was an Armenian church, famous buildings…. I don’t remember, either they dismissed us from schools so that we stood and applauded those people, because there were a king and a queen at the time – when they were passing, we were applauding – or our classes were over, we just knew and were waiting. Suddenly, those cars appeared on Nadir Ave., we were sure they had left the English Embassy, because the English Embassy was behind Nadir Ave. and the Soviet Embassy was on Stalin Ave.
“The Persian people of the time were 50-50 in support of the Soviet Union, some people were against it. Armenians were in support of the Soviet Union, because Armenia was on the Soviet soil, my grandpa would always say that systems would come and go and our country will always remain, so we shouldn’t say anything bad about that country…. Basically, I saw the real characters of Tehran 43,” Ms. Asya recalls.
She thinks that instead of showing cowardly attitude today, one should show the best arguments of Armenians to the European and American presidents: “The couple, Gohar and Gevorg Vardanyan, rescued Europe and America at the time, they were Armenian Iranian anti-fascist intelligence agents. They prevented the car explosion, and people don’t know much about them now. When the Soviet Union became open, even Armenian Persians
learned about them, whereas many people might have known the couple personally. We always plead for our rights, we beg of presidents of Europe and the US, whereas we should talk about such things.”
Ms. Asya has been living in Germany for roughly 45 years, she is the head of the Armenian cultural center in Frankfurt, under which there is an Armenian Saturday school. She says that they get the books from Armenia, and all Armenian festivals are celebrated at the school. Her two grandchildren have visited Armenia within the framework of the project Come Home. She offered Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan to make it possible for children from Armenia to visit Armenian German families too.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
