ack right now - well, I didn’t see any enmity there but, with every step, you always think that you are on your enemy’sterri<strong>to</strong>ry” (a woman from Gyumri). Accumulated social memories on Turkey and Turks are prevailingover present social experiences in Armenia.124
“Well, <strong>The</strong>y Are Human Too”Even in those families who had worst memories, they always love <strong>to</strong> remember and pass over the s<strong>to</strong>riesof support 1 , even though such support wasn’t received by members of their families and they knowabout these cases through a third party.Such is, for example, the following s<strong>to</strong>ry by Anahit Bardakchyan: “... I visited there as a <strong>to</strong>urist ... I got acquaintedwith some woman there, her name was Geghuhi, she spoke broken Armenian, and her man (husband)didn’t speak Armenian at all, they arrived from Turkey, from Istanbul or from somewhere... She said, “during thedeportation my father-in-law was a small kid, he was left in the fields during deportation. A Turkish person passingthere said “Oh my, this is the child of our neighbor such and such, they got away and the child is left here, theydidn’t have a chance <strong>to</strong> take him...” So he takes the child, brings him home; this Turk keeps the boy, keeps him,raises him. <strong>The</strong> brother of this Turk <strong>to</strong>ld him “listen, we raised this boy, it doesn’t matter that he is an Armenianchild, gyavur’s (Turk. unfaithful) child”, he tells, “let us wed him with my daughter, we know this boy very well.”And he had answered “no, I found this child in the fields and I said <strong>to</strong> myself - I will take him, raise him, raise himas an Armenian, and I will wed him with an Armenian girl”... so, finally, he does so, he weds him <strong>to</strong> an Armeniangirl, and then he sits and tells him the whole s<strong>to</strong>ry, so and so. “When I found this child amidst the fields, half-asleep,in tears, miserable, hungry and thirsty, he was trembling. So, I felt pity for him, I said <strong>to</strong> myself – I shall keep thisone and I shall wed him with an Armenian girl.” And, she said, he wedded him with an Armenian girl and this Geghuhi,she was married <strong>to</strong> the son of this boy’s son, so this boy was her father-in-law”.In the s<strong>to</strong>ries of our narra<strong>to</strong>rs the cases of support are usually linked <strong>to</strong> their memories of survival. Aswe already reported, the memories of support are significantly personalized, and very often, particularnames are remembered. <strong>The</strong>se memories usually end with a generalized conclusion, like: “Well, they arehuman <strong>to</strong>o”.Avetis Keshishian remembers from his father’s memoirs, how their “dost” [Turk. friend] helped his fatherand his brothers. “My parents also <strong>to</strong>ld other things about civilians, Turkish ‘not soldiers’ – more humane,more benevolent, amicable and intimate [things]. <strong>The</strong>re have been even cases of ours – they were four brothers –once they got away in<strong>to</strong> the mountains; they didn’t have food, and while the danger was still there, they couldn’tcome back <strong>to</strong> the village. Sometimes they used <strong>to</strong> come in the night, one-by-one, <strong>to</strong> take some water or food. So once,the house of their “dost” – dost means “friend” in Turkish – in one end of our Lapash village there lived some Turk,1 In this research any cases of support provided by Russians, Europeans or Americans are completely omitted since first, thesehave been schematized in the biographies of individuals and whole families and naturally, they are present in memoirsmainly concerning life in orphanages, and secondly, they are not related or at least, narra<strong>to</strong>rs do not relate them <strong>to</strong> “Turkishmemoirs” of Armenians.125
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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
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The Charm of AraratMehmet is a 62-y
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dogs protected the sheep against wo
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The Story of the “Night People”
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- Page 82 and 83: “Private Stories”After the esta
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- Page 165: [Turk. wife]”. In the morning I t
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26 Nairi Tajiryan,1936, Egypt (Cair
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33 Vazgen Ghukasyan,1933, Ashnak vi