It is often argued that the collective memory of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is central to the construction of Armenian identity. These kinds of traumatic experiences are not confined to their own time, but rather “travel” through generations. Using the concept of transgenerational trauma and based on 18 in-depth interviews with Syrian Armenian refugees in Canada, who are at the same time third- and fourth-generation Armenian Genocide survivors, my paper discusses the following questions: how a historical event becomes central to the collective identity of a group both in the homeland and outside of it; how this trauma is maintained and transmitted through generations; finally, what happens when a transgenerational trauma “meets” a lived traumatic experience such as war and forced migration. The main historical and social background against which I present my work is that in the last century, the Syrian Armenians have had to live with, manage, and negotiate two levels of reality. The first comprised their everyday actualities, economic opportunities and limitations, the political situation, the geography, their relations with other groups, and with other Armenian communities in Armenia and in the Diaspora worldwide. The second included the memories and the trauma of the Genocide which are still omnipresent in their lives and maintained through specific practices, as well as the challenges they faced as a minority group during the last century in Syria. These two levels of reality have interacted and influenced one another, informing the choices and the position of the Armenians during the Syrian war. One of my main arguments is that past trauma becomes an interpretive lens through which individuals make sense of their present traumatic experiences. In its turn, the new traumatic experience becomes a space, along with storytelling and ritualized practices, for the transgenerational trauma to be reactivated. Thus the Syrian Armenians fleeing the Syrian war often describe their experiences as a continuation of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, and their becoming refugees as a shared experience with their ancestors.