Aurora Mardiganian was the daughter of a prosperous Armenian family living in Chmshgatsak (Çemişgezek), in the Ottoman Empire's province of Mamuret-ül Aziz.

She witnessed the deaths of her family members and was forced to march over 1,400 mi (2,300 km), during which she was kidnapped and sold into the slave markets of Anatolia.

Mardiganian escaped to Tiflis (modern Tbilisi, Georgia), then to St. Petersburg, from where she traveled to Oslo and finally, with the help of Near East Relief, to New York City.

The first New York performance of the silent film, entitled Ravished Armenia took place on February 16, 1919, in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, with society leaders, Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Mrs. George W. Vanderbilt, serving as co-hostesses on behalf of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.

[3]Mardiganian was referred to in the press as the Joan of Arc of Armenia, describing her role as the spokesperson for the victims of the horrors that were then taking place in Turkey and the catalyst for the humanist movement in America.