Soghomon Tehlirian with his family, Erznka, 1908

The photograph was taken in 1908 in Erznka, in the Ottoman Empire. It shows Soghomon Tehlirian with his father, brothers and sisters. Soghomon, only 12 years old, stands on the left with a dagger in his hand. The father sits in the centre with 2 infants on his lap, and the other children stand and sit around him.

After 1915 almost no one from the large Tehlirian family survived; they became victims of the Armenian Genocide. On 15 March 1921, in Berlin, Soghomon Tehlirian shot Talaat Pasha, the chief organiser of the Genocide.