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

Massacre, Slaughters, Stampede, Exodus,Deportation, Yeghern, 1 GenocideWhen giving descriptive narratives of their parents or grandparents our respondents usually used thewords “genocide”, “massacre”, “massacres”, “stampede”, “deportation”, “refugees”, and very rarely –words like “exile” during the interviews. When describing particular situations they used “slaughtered”,sometimes “killed”, “incinerated”, “stubbed”: “Arshak’s family was slaughtered during the genocide, therewere large-scale massacres in Baghlou”(Mushegh Gevorgyan, Dashtadem); “when the genocide started, Turkstook his daughter and son, they were very beautiful - my grandma’s uncle’s wife was a very beautiful woman,and her one son and one daughter were slaughtered in front of her very eyes” - from the story told by (EleonoraGhazaryan, Ashnak); “my grandma used to tell that forty people lived in one house in Mshgegh, of these forty shewas the only one left alive, all in her father’s family were incinerated, slaughtered” (Vazgren Goukasyan, Ashnak);”My parents were Armenians who were deported from Turkey, so to say, my father was from Pontic Amasia,and my mother was from the very center of Caesarea – from the Caesarea city. ... My father left Caesarea duringthe first massacres... well, so he left during the first massacre...”(Nairi Tajiryan, Yerevan); “During the 1915 massacrethey first took my grandpa, my grandma always used to say they stabbed him” (Nairi Tajiryan,Yerevan);”There was such stampede, slaughter, slaughter...”, “Aunt Elmast went to America during the stampede”, “Finally,when grandpa saw this, it was already too much of a massacre...”, “It was during the stampede, yes, on the road”( Anahit Bardakchyan, Yerevan ); “... when they killed my grandpa ... then started the stampede ... during thestampede my grandma, she was too beautiful ...” (from Albert Mamikonyan’s story, Yerevan); ”... after they didthe first slaughter ... the third slaughter was in the Der Zor desert, they drove these people far away from inhabitedareas and slaughtered them there” ( from the story of Eleonora Ghazaryan, Ashnak); ”Before these massacres,before the massacres of 1915... yes, during the stampede too he was with Aghavnik. Aghavnik was some sortof relative to us. When coming with Aghavnik during this stampede...” (from Vardan Hakobyan’s story, Norakert);”... then during the deportation he came to Armenia” (from Artak Hovsepyan’s story, Norakert), etc.Sometimes they also use the words “fight”, “war” – “they died of war or what, the Turks fought, and they ranaway during the fight, but died on the way”. When asked what kind of war she means, surprised by thisquestion, the narrator, said “the Armenian-Turkish fight; there was a war between Armenians and Turks, youdidn’t know this?” (from Tamar Poghosyan’s story, Gyumri). The words “Genocide”, “massacre”, “massacres”,“stampede”, “deportation”, “refugees”, “slaughtered”, “killed”, “incinerated”, “and stabbed” aremost probably the words that were used by survivors when telling these stories to their children or toeach other.1 “Yeghern” is the term used in Armenian language to define the Armenian Genocide.120