Early Life, Family and Training Born Hovhannes Semerdjian in 1920 in Bursa, within the then Ottoman Empire, Jean Jansem’s early years were shaped by the movement of a family in flux. In 1922, his family fled to Greece, where he spent his formative childhood years in Thessaloniki. This period of displacement preceded a significant shift in his life when, at the age of 11, he arrived in the French suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. It was i…