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

member this well, they said, the elder one’s name was Mradi; they say their ancestors were Armenians, they tookcare of these families so nothing happened to them, they went to Mush. On the way his father – the father of my father– my grandpa, he was ill, they call it “shorba” – that is, typhoid... So my uncle (Vazgen Ghoukasyan’s father’sbrother- H.Kh.) died, they buried him and they also buried their father. He said Drnobabe – I don’t know where thisvillage or town is. So there he buried his father and then they went, they got away...” (from Vazgen Ghoukasyan’sstory).Besides this kind of stories, family also memoirs contain abundant recollections of the participation ofKurds in the massacres (Grish Badalyan, Anahit Hovsepyan, Almast Harutyunyan). Summarizing familystories and social memories of our respondents we found the following pattern: Kurds participated inmassacres “but it was Turks who hounded them” (Grish Badalyan); “... that territory, those villages where theylived, these were Kurdish villages, so naturally, the first strike was from the Kurds but, as they told it, in manycases Kurds even helped [Armenians]. That is, Kurds provided support to those who were directly acquainted withthem” (Artak Hovsepyan). There was even a dispute around this issue during a conversation between ourtwo narrators – Hrach Hovhannisyan and his nephew. We are providing this conversation below, in uneditedform and without any comments:Hrach Hovhannisyan – One is no better than the other, they are Muslims, both are Muslim nationsand I would like to repeat this once again, few Turks massacred us, they were mainly Kurds, thosewho did this. They took us, threw us out, being fooled by what Turks told them - as the historysays – “dear Kurds, you go, massacre Armenians, and we will give you self-determination, identity”-,but they lied to them, they didn’t give them self-determination...Nephew – No, I do not agree to my uncle on this issue, because this was nothing else but the successof Turkish policy. Even though realizing everything, they didn’t want to do the job with theirown hands, so they forced Kurds to do this. Kurds, also by grandpa’s telling - there were manypeople among Kurds who hid Armenians in their homes. My granny, sure, my granny will tell [thesame] now, because grandpa used to tell this a lot - that among Kurds there were many-many peoplewho hid Armenians in their houses, so that Turks would not slaughter them... I don’t know, nomatter how much they would like to convince me... well, indeed, there was a Kurdish army, theycooperated with Turks, yes, but Kurds helped us a lot, that’s 100% the truth.Evidently, this dispute has been influenced by extended discussion around Yeghern, issues covered inthe literature and the resulting socialized memories and personal experiences. In essence, this is verycharacteristic of the perception of the genocide by the Armenian society.our interlocutors.127