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

in Kurdish villages, and helping them to relocate to Armenia). “My uncles are among those 20-25 persons inUjan who fled in 1915, fighting together with general Andranik; so they came and reached Ujan. My three uncles.They were from the Tsman village of Sasoun” /Village head of Ujan, Arakel/. Almast Haroutyunian’s father,too, was a member of Andranik’s group.Sometimes, however, they also remember particular cases. “... my maternal grandfather and his friend -my mother used to remember his name - she said, his name was Hakob... with Hakob they decided to enroll in theTurkish army. So they enroll as Turkish soldiers, but they kill Turks as much as they can, they slaughtered Turks,she used to tell... Turkish commanders noticed this, they said, those two are killing Turks, they are Armenians, getthem. My grandpa and that guy, Hakob - they ran to the [nearby] mountain, climbed it and then descended on theother side... they got away. And, my paternal grandfather – on their own, they formed a group, they went into themountains and they got over many Turks... To such an extent that they were prosecuted under law, he was caught,and they beheaded him...” (from Anahit Bardakchyan’s story).“French army entered Cilicia in 1918, and an Armenian legion was created within that French army; Armenian volunteerswent to fight in Cilicia. My father was one of them; he left his shop in Cairo, everything ... and went to fightin Cilicia. He has photos, it is written Tarsus on them, now it is called Tarson... he went there, he was there until1918; the French had to surrender Cilicia in the end of 1919 and these volunteers returned back” (from Nairi Tajirian’sstory).In the memoirs of our narrators it is not only and not so much that their personal family losses are prominent,but rather the cruelty due to which many people have died. When these memoirs are crossed withresponsive actions of the Armenians, usually a “cruelty ratio” of deeds is being compared. “...in what theydid the worst thing was their cruelty - they slaughtered our people, but ours didn’t slaughter, we just fought themback like with enemies. If you fight me, I have to fight back, right?” (from Anahit Bardakchyan’s story). As aresult, many respondents consider that Turks in general are very cruel and that they are capable of doingcruel things. Notably, further hardships of the life of survivors - famine, roving, spending their childhoodsat orphanages, all the difficulties of refugee life, problems adjusting to living in a foreign country,problems with finding jobs and earning for their living, having to live a lonely life at an old age, lostprospects, spoiled careers, repressions of the Soviet period, etc., all of which the survivors went through– these are not directly linked to Turkish recollections in the memoirs of our respondents. “Turkish recollections”of the survivors are mainly focused on the genocide period and perception of Turks through[the stories of] these survivors is quite widespread in Armenia. When questioned “what kind of emotionsdo you relate to the word Turk”, the following answers were given: “hatred” (Vard Abajyan, EleonoraGhazaryan); “hatred, revenge” (Mushegh Gevorgyan); “they are cruel, cruel” (Gyozal Hovhannisyan, ArpikShahinyan); “enmity” (almost everyone). When questioned “Have you ever seen a Turk in your life?” the answerswere mainly negative but sometimes they used to accompany the answers with their comments,like the following: “No, heaven forbid, there is so much hostility against Turks in our souls” (Eleonora Ghazaryan).During our research we came upon two women who had certain relations with Turkey and Turks.In general, their impressions were positive however, like one of them concluded, “I go to Turkey and come123