Nothing is known of Bera Sargis except that it is believed he was born in Persia (now Iran) in 1887. Some time before the Great War, he had emigrated to the United States of America and settled in Gary, Indiana. Once there, he obtained work as a labourer and became a respected member of the local Persian community.
By the spring of 1915, however, he and some of his fellow Persian nationals in America had heard rumours that the Turkish rulers in Persia had massacred many of their relatives. As a result, fifteen of them, nine of whom were resident in Chicago Illinois, decided to return to their homeland to investigate the allegations.
Accordingly, at the end of April 1915, Bera Sargis left Indiana and travelled to New
York, where he had booked third cabin passage on the Lusitania for England, on the first part of his journey. Presumably, he met up with the others once he had boarded the vessel at Pier 54 in New York harbour, on the morning of 1st May.
The liner’s departure was delayed until the early afternoon to embark crew, passengers and cargo from the requisitioned liner Cameronia and just before 12.30 p.m. she slipped into the North River and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Six days later the liner was torpedoed and sunk by Kapitänleutnant Schwieger’s submarine U-20, within sight of the southern Irish coast and only hours away from her Liverpool destination.
Bera Sargis was killed as a result of the sinking and never again saw his ancestral home or ever returned to his new one. As his body was never recovered and identified after the sinking, he has no known grave. He was aged 28 years.
Cunard Records, Tragedy of the Lusitania, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.