A story of an immigrant!

Written by Markaritte Nazloomian
4th child and the only daughter of Nerses and Helen Nazloomian


Nerses M. Nazloomian was born the son of Martiros and Markaritte Nazloomian on September 5th, 1908, in Julfa, Isfahan. Julfa was a walled city built by Shah Abbas the Great in 1600’s for the Christian Armenian people whom he had brought from the old city of Julfa in Armenia. Armenians designed and built for the Shah a new capital city of Persia (Iran).

Nerses was always very proud of his family and their position in Julfa and surrounding communities. His ancestors were the descendants of Nazloom, a well respected and revered medicine woman in the community so much so that the family was named after her for the generations to come.

Nerses was the eldest of the four children. As a young boy Nerses was very high spirited and overactive. He liked to take risks and to bend the rules!. In 1918, the great influenza pandemic, which swept the world, reached Iran. It carried off both Nerses’ mother Markartitte and his younger sister Virginia. His father Martiros was devastated by their loss and never recovered from their deaths. The three remaining children: Nerses, Sophia and Galestan were left in the care of Markaritte’s mother, Takohee.

Takohee loved Nerses dearly but she found him to be quite a handful. At the age of twelve, Nerses was sent to an Anglo-Armenian Boarding School in Calcutta, India. He traveled the distance by camel across the Persian desert. Nerses was not to see his immediate family again for nearly the next thirty years.

Upon completion of his secondary schooling in Calcutta, Nerses worked for several years on plantations in India. Then he received an offer from his mother’s uncles to join their family import-export business in what was then the Dutch East Indies. On the island of Java he began work as a bookkeeper exporting shellac to the west. The Dutch East Indies were booming in the 1930’s and Nerses made money and enjoyed life to the fullest. Nerses was an avid sailor, he enjoyed swimming, boxing and socializing with other foreign nationals on the island. He learnt to speak Dutch from a Dutchman in exchange for teaching him how to box.

In late 1930’s, as Japanese influence spread towards the South Indies, Nerses got caught up with the events and interned and locked up by the Japanese together with many other foreign nationals. Other Armenians, including some of his own relatives were able to escape to Australia, to make new lives.

For the next five years, Nerses lived with starvation, disease, torture and the ever-present threat of death at the hands of Japanese army. Many people gave up hope but Nerses was a very determined man. He showed no fear to the enemy and they in turn respected this and he survived. Many others died in the camp before liberation took place at the end of the war. After the war, Nerses tried to pick up where he had left off but the world had changed. Independence came to the Dutch East Indies in the form of the new country of Indonesia. Nerses’ financial wealth became devalued over night leaving him devastated. He gathered what he had and bought gold jewelry and precious stones. He sewed these into the lining of his clothes and set out to return home to Julfa.

He reached Julfa in 1948. When he knocked on the door of his family home, his sister Sophia answered, but she did not recognized her brother. At first, family members thought that he was an imposter since they had thought that Nerses had perished in the prison camp. Finally, his grandmother, Takohee recognized her lost grandson and welcomed him back to the family with open arms.

Within the first year of his return to Iran, Nerses met and married Helen Vladica. Shortly after, they moved to Khuzestan in Southern Iran as Nerses now had a job with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).

In 1959, the family, with five children, Martiros, Theodore, Walter, Markaritte and Jean-Rene, moved to Tehran. In Tehran, Helen and Nerses started a small transport business managed by Helen.

Nerses’ working life was at times turbulent because he challenged attitudes such as unfair working practices and bribery. In 1967, Nerses was retired from the Oil Company after exposing a bribery scandal involving his own boss. Over the next few years, Nerses tried several business ventures including retailing and exporting Persian Carpet.

Finally in 1969, Nerses and Helen decided to migrate with their five children to Australia. The whole process took several years. Walter was the first to arrive, followed by the rest of the family. By 1973, Martiros and Theodore, the last two family members joined the rest of the family.

Even thought Nerses was near retirement age, upon arrival to Australia he found a job as a typewriter repair person. Shortly after he gain employment with the Westpac Bank as a Security person. Helen, also started working upon arriving Australia. Working together, Nerses and Helen provided for their five children’s education. They then went on to assist them financially to build their new lives and to provide security to their own future families in this new land. Nerses, finally retired just in time for the arrival of the first of his ten grandchildren.

Nerses, always had an interest in financial and business affairs. After migrating to Australia, he was able to help other members of the Armenian community with various financial matters. He continued to retain an active interest in these matters throughout his final years.

There is not an uncommon story among migrant families to Australia, but few would contain such suffering, personal loss, separation, high adventure and success as that of Nerses Martiros Nazloomian.