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

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Gyozal Hovhannisyan was born on the road, during the second deportation: “My mother in law used to tellme, “my dear ... let me think ... my mother-in-law’s mother-in-law came to see what they were doing. They caughtthis poor woman, tondir was just burning, so they put this woman in the burning tondir, she was incinerated. Shesays that there were large pieces of her skirt left lying over the tondir. This was in front of my mother-in-law’seyes. They incinerated her mother in law. The same happened to her mother-in-law’s brother-in-law’s wife - Zimo’smother. They put her too in tondir and incinerated her. In her own house”.Elena Ardahanyan’s grandmother escaped incineration at the last moment, along with her three children,including Elena: “My mother told me her mother’s story. [By that time] my grandpa wasn’t with us anymore.They decapitated him. Turks had forced us with a group of other people into a church in Kars, poured somekerosene and were going to light it with a match. That very moment they received a message that these poor peoplecould be exchanged with Turkish prisoners of war. My grandma was from a well-to-do family, she was raiseddelicately, and she was very young and very beautiful. So, they brought all these people from that church – amongthem was also my grandma with her three children – to Akhalkalak. They stayed at Akhalkalak for some time,my mother was a kid but she remembers this very well. The people of Akhalkalak received them well, helped themvery much. Then they took them to Tbilisi. My mother tells, they were getting to the military posts on the way duringdeportation, asking for some food. My mother remembers it from her early childhood - never in her life she ateanything that tasted like that. She said “often they were giving us borsch with a lot of meat”. My mom does notremember it well, where their mother, that is our granny, disappeared. But she remembers that once she came tothem in Tbilisi, brought some cherries, and promised to come again. Later they found out that their mother haddied... (bursts in tears...), she is buried at the public graveyard... /bursts in tears/. She was so young, so beautiful...(bursts in tears)... 28 years old. She was from a well-to-do family, raised delicately. She couldn’t stand it”.“I am not sure whether my mother-in-law or my father-in-law was from Erzurum. They were from Kars and Erzurum,but which one was from where I am not sure”. She tells that during the stampede her father took her, Nargiz,and her elder brother, and ran away. He sent his wife away a few days before – she was pregnant – theycrossed the river, he took her to her mother – his mother-in-law. She tells: “When we came to the river, my fatherfirst took my elder brother, then came back and took me, wanted to go back after the third kid but then he saw thatTurks are coming, so he couldn’t take his daughter – had to leave Nargiz there. The river was flowing this way,we were waiting, then my father said “Oh, my. They slaughtered the child; the current is red with blood”. My fatherwent on his knees but he couldn’t do anything. Somehow we managed to stand on our feet and run. When wecame, we reached that place where he left his wife, it turned out that both my mother and the child died during delivery.So we were left orphaned in the hands of our father, and later our father also died, we went to orphanage”(From Anahit Bardakchyan’s story).“My maternal... My mother’s mother... when they fled, my mother’s mother – Rehan was her name, she alwaysused to tell – when they came and crossed the river, Kurds had taken her 14-year old sister. I didn’t understand it,whether they had thrown her into the water or took her with them. But she always used to tell this” (Anahit Hovsepyan).118
Many of our narrators mention the River Murad. On one side, [Turks] have drowned people in the river,on the other; the waters consumed many people, particularly children, in its waves. (There are many detailsabout this in Almast Harutyunyan’s story).In the narrations there are so many stories of people dying on the way during deportation, about childrenleft on the road, stampede and robberies. A concise description [of the horrors of] wandering waspresented by Anahit Bardakchyan. Her narration was very quiet, completely unaffectionate and almostindifferent: “I heard this story from the lips of the wife of my father’s uncle - Haykanush. She said “The situationwas such that we were walking over dead corpses, in the darkness. We walked - don’t get sick - the worms wereclimbing upon us, we had to do it this way /shows how carefully they had to look for a place to put their feet/ andwe walked. We were shaking the worms off ourselves and walking”.The most dreadful memories of the deportation also include descriptions of mental suffering. Vasak Toroyantells the story of a woman from Talvorik. Two boys were left on her – her son and her brother. “Shewasn’t able to carry two children, so she had to leave one of them. One was her brother, the other – her son. Herbrother was the only boy who was left alive in their family, if he did not survive, their family would have been exterminated.I don’t know how much this woman suffered but, in the end, she decided to leave her own son... Herbrother came, now he has sons, heirs... I am just telling the facts... This woman made this choice. Now they live inShgharshik village, our village”.119
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Published by:Institut für Internat
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ContentsForeword...................
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ForewordThe project “Adult Educat
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Aras, Yasin Aras, Welat Ay, Cenk Ce
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The main audience of this book is o
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“Wish they hadn’t left”:The B
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ed by 1915 and where memories of Ar
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1915 tends to be represented by int
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Yet to a large extent, Turkish inte
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this, we can’t. It’s impossible
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een very advanced in trade and craf
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How to Come to Terms with Phantom P
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It is always you who has to be nice
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to the way he was raised: “They f
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empathize with Armenians: “My aun
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Adil is not the only one marked by
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ness may be an attempt to overcome
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dernity and the oral transmission o
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A soup pot with spoons around itAt
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What if My Mother is Armenian?Ruhi
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If I were younger I’d get baptize
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with butter. We’ll serve the impo
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The time Salih and Gavrik are worki
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Turkey’s changing context is refr
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‘It was to be expected.’ And my
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against one another. The feet of th
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Fear of Losing a CityZübeyde was b
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half for me.’ But what do our Mus
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e discussed when the kids were arou
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possible by the difference in relig
Page 67 and 68: The Charm of AraratMehmet is a 62-y
Page 69 and 70: dogs protected the sheep against wo
Page 71 and 72: The Story of the “Night People”
Page 73 and 74: “I don’t know why, but my grand
Page 75: Research in Armenia:“Whom to Forg
Page 78 and 79: and can generally be located in Tur
Page 80 and 81: “Whom to Forgive? What to Forgive
Page 82 and 83: “Private Stories”After the esta
Page 84 and 85: Recalling MemoriesOral history diff
Page 86 and 87: In the village of Ujan, where the v
Page 88 and 89: The home-museum of Gevork Chaush in
Page 90 and 91: Memorial in the Ashnak village dedi
Page 92 and 93: other regions are entirely populate
Page 94 and 95: sources and materials for their mem
Page 96 and 97: Ergir’s Soil is Strong, Ergir’s
Page 98: Tatevik, the granddaughterof Mihran
Page 101 and 102: eral meanings in Armenian -”whole
Page 103 and 104: The Gospel with Golden Binding of S
Page 105 and 106: keeps a copper chalice that was bro
Page 107 and 108: In some families the passports of t
Page 109 and 110: at that time, Mustafa and Jamal, wh
Page 111 and 112: People were so frightened to lose g
Page 113 and 114: naked, they were decapitating every
Page 115 and 116: Water, Fire, Desert“There was an
Page 117: his mother dragged him behind her,
Page 121 and 122: In the word-stock of the survivors
Page 123 and 124: in Kurdish villages, and helping th
Page 125 and 126: “Well, They Are Human Too”Even
Page 127 and 128: member this well, they said, the el
Page 129 and 130: speak to each other. Questioned by
Page 131 and 132: Hamze Ptshuk, survived from Hosnut
Page 133 and 134: “I don’t Know...”Why did this
Page 135 and 136: “My Dear Almast, Write it Down, W
Page 137 and 138: took his rifle and ran. The dog fel
Page 139 and 140: she didn’t tell it to me. In the
Page 141 and 142: elder guy in this house died and hi
Page 143 and 144: AH - Turks always killed to get int
Page 145 and 146: “My Father used to Tell us at Hom
Page 147 and 148: person... I have never seen him, bu
Page 149 and 150: gotten what you knew”. So, out of
Page 151 and 152: a paid Adult Residential Facility,
Page 153 and 154: It was probably after 60s... My fat
Page 155 and 156: the Vardevar 1 day . Even if we mak
Page 157 and 158: that this wasn’t a dream... and..
Page 159 and 160: was our historical village. Nich, I
Page 161 and 162: just filming around myself with no
Page 163 and 164: that person whether I could take a
Page 165: [Turk. wife]”. In the morning I t
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4 Albert Mamikonyan,1953, in Kirova
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11 Almast Harutyunyan,1920, Ujan vi
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18 Eleonora Ghazaryan.1949, Ashnak
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26 Nairi Tajiryan,1936, Egypt (Cair
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33 Vazgen Ghukasyan,1933, Ashnak vi
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