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

ody lived there, Turks were already gone, and Armenians hadn’t come yet. My father took an old rugon his shoulders and together with my mother they came from Ashtarak to Ujan, on foot. On the way,near Agarak, my mother’s labor pains started. My father took her to a derelict stable, it was cold – thiswas in December – and there I was born. Two hours later my mother took some of her clothes, wrappedme in them, and in two more hours they came to this village. I was the first kid who came to this village.I was born on December 24, 1920.In Ergir, my father with his mother went to Jerusalem on foot, it took them one month. The priests thereaspersed him, called him Mukhsi, his name was Simon. I was born on December 24, but my father sawthat there were six days left until 1921; in that time there were no birth certificates, nothing, he wrotethe names of all the children on the back cover of the gospel. So he wrote January 6 there.I graduated the seventh year 1 with honors, then I entered the normal school of Echmiadzin and studiedthere. On the day that I was going to get my diploma, we were eating with the girls at the dining room,[suddenly] they left their food and ran...I mean all of them... When we returned to the dormitory the radioannounced that Germany attacked us. On that very day I received my diploma. They forced me to goto the Talin district. They took all young men to the army. If you could have seen that ‘sborny punkt’ 2 ...I wish I had never seen that place... When I went out, I saw that Tiko’s father Mushegh from our village,and Azat, booted in charekhs 3 on bare foot, they came to Echmiadzin, to go to the army. Their feet wereall in wounds, they lay down, like this, along the dormitory wall... The country was in woe.Now, when I was working, every time I came home, my mother was telling me over and over again:“Dear Almast, write about us, please write how they massacred us”. I thought, I need to go to my uncle..He mentioned dozens of names of Kurds and Turks, relating a story to each one. So, when I wrote thisbook – when I had written four notebooks, I thought I should take it to my uncle, so that he would read it.I took it, my uncle read it, and then he said “You bloody bloater, you have only written about one part ofTurks and Kurds I have told about”. I said, “look, uncle, do you know in what conditions I have to write?I have to work.” I was writing during the breaks, and I also used to write during the lessons, when I gavea writing assignment to the students. I felt terrible. But when I brought it, my mother read it, she sobbedher heart out, and she wrote with pencil, with her own hand “Dearest Almast, I have suffered from allthe things you have written down ”, and that’s all she wrote. . So I took this to the print house, with mymother’s photo on the book [cover]. My mother was weeping day and night. You know, they killed hermother like that, and her father ... the whole family. They were very rich, they had so much, these Turksand Kurds took everything away from us ...HKh – Well, I will ask one more thing, Mrs. Almast, why do you think, these massacres happened?1 Seventh year of school education at that time was considered the first complete stage of education.2 Army recruitment agency.3 Homemade leather shoes, bast shoes.142