Next week the story of two Armenian women surviving the horrific genocide of Armenians in Turkey will be presented on stage in Boston due to the efforts and persistence of one particular man who tried to keep history alive, The Boston Globe reports.

Shrewsbury dentist Martin Deranian, 89, lost his mother when he was less than 7-years-old and throughout his life he tried to find out what had happened to his mother and all the other heroic women during the 1915 Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

“Deported: a dream play,’’ by Elliot Norton Award-winning Newton playwright Joyce Van Dyke is based on the story of her grandmother Elmas Sarajian and Deranian’s mother Varter Nazarian.

The women moved to America after they had lost everything including their husbands and children during the Armenian Genocide. 

When Van Dyke was a child she often asked her grandmother what had happened to her then, but she would never fully tell her story.

“I only know parts of the story because the family never talked about the genocide,” Van Dyke says, whose play is to be presented at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, beginning Thursday.