The thesis studies the experiences of the Syrian Armenian refugees of the Syrian war in Canada. What makes them different from other Syrian refugees is not just their religion and ethnicity, but also their history and the traumas they carry. Most Syrian Armenians are descendants of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. The trauma of the Genocide is central to Armenian identity, and its aftereffects haunt Armenians worldwide. The Syrian Armenian refugees that Canada accepted are therefore going through migration, trauma, and loss for a second time. The first is experienced through collective memory, the second is first-hand. The thesis studies the social organization of this trauma in the Syrian Armenian community and explores how it becomes a lens to make sense of war and forced migration and a resource to draw upon to remove oneself from a war zone and to bring oneself all the way to Canada’s safety. It argues that to understand refugee experiences and avoid generalizations that might lead to stereotypes, one needs to look beyond labels and take into account the biographies and histories of particular groups. Thus, this work joins scholarship that problematizes the mainstream definition of “refugee” as a passive victim in need of salvation by bringing to light the work Syrian Armenians did to be able to cross multiple borders and resettle in Canada. The overarching theoretical and methodological goal of the thesis is to empirically demonstrate how abstract notions such as transgenerational trauma, diaspora, refugeedom, political loyalty, and integration come to materialize in the everyday doings of ordinary people, and to show that they exist only in their actions, and inform their choices and their actualities. The investigation covers their experiences in Syria before and after the war, in other countries after leaving Syria, and finally in Canada. The research is located at the intersection of memory, trauma, diaspora, genocide, and refugee literature and is based on eighteen in-depth interviews, conducted in 2020 with Syrian Armenians in Quebec and Ontario.