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

speak to each other. Questioned by their children, they either replied very laconically, or mainly spokeabout their participation in the Armenian freedom movement.Both subject and methods of delivering the memories by men and women were different also at a laterstage, when children-survivors had grown up. Having grown up, boys used to deliver in writing, ratherthan narrating. They used to write it “just for themselves.” On the one hand this can be explained by thefact that, while the subject was a forbidden issue, there were difficulties with distributing these writtenmaterials, with making them public; on the other hand, perhaps, by their motivation to write. Writingthings down is perhaps a way of partially getting rid of inwardly accumulated hardships.Girls, after growing up, were telling details about even the most inhumane events, while men preferredavoiding details. This phenomenon exists up to this day.In Ashnak village of Talin, Elya Davtyan recounted in detail the brutal story that happened to her aunt.The story was about how the young woman (Elya’s aunt) had run away with two kids after the massacreof all her other family members in Hosnut village of Talvorik. “Her name was Doureh. First her daughterdied from hunger on the exodus. Then she met askyars (soldiers), who hit her face with the butt ofthe riffle and her teeth were broken in her mouth. Then the askyars cut her abdomen making a crossand pulling out her intestines. They thought she was dead and left her. But she had just fainted. Thenshe recovered and saw that her son was pushing her. She found the strength in herself and put her intestinesback in her tummy, sewed her skin with the needle, tied up her son with her shirt and continuedto move forward, scrambling and pulling the son. Her son also died in a couple of days. She broughtback the corpse of her son and buried it next to her daughter, And then found strength in herself to keepmoving. Then she found her relatives. Her uncle was Hamze Ptshuk and she lived in his house. When Icame to this house as a bride, she was already very old and I was the one to take care of her. Every timewhen I was bathing her I carefully washed the wounds on her tummy.” Mrs. Elya was very excited whiletelling this unbelievable story, which as we found out was known by everybody in the village. Howeverher husband Derenik Kirakosyan, who was present at the time, was listening to what his wife was tellingwith a little frustration and left in the middle of the story.Among our narrators, women were inclined to tell the details, whereas men generalized. Women weretalking about those who extended a helping hand and in what situations, telling what words did they use,what clothes did they give them, what food did they provide, where and how did they conceal them, etc.,whereas men were generalizing, in a few words, using expressions like “Turks from the neighboring village”,“women making a racket”, “governmental orders”, etc. Based on the stories of their relatives womenwere remembering and telling about the cases of brutality, giving the details of sufferings, whereas menspoke of the general phenomenon and carefully avoided references to cruelty. Among our narrators VasakToroyan, for example, several times remembered certain particular events, started to tell them, butthen interrupted himself, saying “No, no, it is not appropriate to talk about this in the presence of youngpeople”, referring to the students who participated in the interview (A.Qeshishyan and S. Haroutunyan).129