Speaking to One Another - The International Raoul Wallenberg ...

lost this sister.” Later, another Turk wished to take another one of Anahit’s aunts, and her parents decidedto quickly marry her. “This aunt was very beautiful. My mother said dowry was laid down; they waited forthe bride to be taken. The wedding was planned for Saturday night, they woke up in the morning and saw that myaunt was dead (Ms. Anahit stopped, trying not to cry). She died from fear, because they said “we would takeyou anyway” (according to Ms. Anahit, the girl was afraid that she would be kidnapped during the wedding.This is the explanation of the young girl’s cause of death given by the family)... My mother said thatone day someone knocked on the door. Two horsemen and two armed men came; they tied her father’s hands andtook him. She, as a kid, followed them. My grandmother, my mother’s mother was inside crying. They went thereand saw that these men were demolishing the grave. They said “show us that she died.” Can you imagine that? Mymother said she could not forget that scene, she said, “I wonder how come I was not scared, I was a kid, she said, Ididn’t understand... Her third sister was also kidnapped and they never knew her destiny. At the end only two sistersout eight were left.” One of the most terrible memories of Anahit’s mother is the murder of one of hersisters. “After some time they slaughtered one of her sisters. They slaughtered her, she said, and lay down separatelyher head, her leg, - look this is Armenian honor < keeps silent, tiring not to burst into tears>... She said,‘there is no way’; they didn’t allow her father to come close to his child. Her father, my grandfather went and askedthe government; “it has ban for several days already that my child is in such a state, Turks did such a thing to her.”The government, she said, gave soldiers; they came with her father and helped him, took and gathered the dismemberedparts of this child and buried her.The first wife of Garegin Chugaszyan’s grandfather was kidnapped on the run. All kin and kinsmen ofChugaszyan’s except two kids died during the escape this or that way, one of them was seven years oldback then, he wrote later in great details about his memories: “The whole story of the genocide was the storyof escape, after we left Sebastia, halting, how many stops we had, what happened on every stop, and then, howthis 7 years old boy lost all of his relatives one after another, how people in front of him either died or disappeared,or ... thanks to him we know the destiny of my grandfather’s first family. My grandfather’s wife was very beautifuland when they hit the road they were very anxious that she will be one of the first victims. That’s why theytried to make her look little bit ugly so that she would not be kidnapped on the road, but unfortunately this is exactlywhat happened. The destiny of my grandfather’s first wife remained unknown. The mother of my grandfatheri.e. my great grandmother threw herself to the Euphrates”. G. Chugaszyan’s grandfather was in Americaduring that time. He tried to get back to Turkey to help his family. On his way home he learned aboutthe disappearance of his family and the death of his parents, upon which he joined the resistance forcesand later settled down in Iran.One of our respondents, Nairi Tajiryan, tells the story about one of her relatives: “Arsho was a relative frommy mother side, daughter of one of my mom’s aunts, she was married. She was kidnapped on the escape road. Herhusband survived. After years, he went by the same road to find his wife, but nothing was said about this, the husbandnever talked about this. He probably had found her, but he did not manage to bring her back. These talks alwaystook place in our family: It happens, doesn`t it, she was made a Turk and kept. She might also have children,she did not come”.110