Shamiram Chilingirian, daughter of Rupen Sevag, dies at 102
Born in Istanbul on July 10, 1914, Chilingirian was the daughter of Rupen Sevag and Prussian Yanni Apell. She had an older brother named Levon. On April 24, 1915, three days after Shamiram's baptism ceremony in Surp Krikor Lusaroviç Church in Taksim, Rupen Sevag was arrested in their apartment. The police officers took the young doctor, saying that he has to see a patient. Rupen Sevag was sent to Çankırı, where the Armenian intellectuals arrested on April 24 were also sent. He was killed there on August 26, 1915.
After Sevag's death, Chilingirian family moved to Lausanne. Yanni Apell knew that Germans were accomplices to the Armenian Genocide, thus she tried to distance her children from German identity; she forbade them to speak German. Celebrating her 100th birthday in Nice two years ago, Shamiram Chilingirian died on October 17. Her funeral ceremony was held in the Armenian Church in Nice and she was buried next to his mother in the Armenian cemetery.
