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

we used to visit them, there were regular contacts between our families; we were just friends, but wewere quite close. When we were visiting them, they used to speak Turkish at home. We didn’t speakTurkish. Their children... up to this day, they speak Turkish well, because they spoke Turkish at home.Well... there was a reason for this... In their village, where they came from, there were Turks, they didn’tlet them speak Armenian... They came to Armenia, but they didn’t speak Armenian well. They learnt Armenianwhile they were in Armenia. Therefore they used to speak Turkish at home. My father was prohibitingmy mother - by no chance – well, my mother spoke [Turkish], because her parents used to speakTurkish. He said “Not a single word spoken in Turkish in our house, only Armenian...” My father always[told] us about the Genocide, we... knew about that before since our early years. . At home, well... [he]was telling about the deportation... how terrible it was, the children were thirsty, hungry, suffering fromthe fear that they may come, may attack them... My father... us... I remember this... Yes, he was telling...well, there was too much fear then, during the Stalin period. I know this well, there was too muchfear. Therefore they weren’t [talking] in the presence of strangers... There was a family in our neighborhood, their son... he was a musician in Kirovakan... He was teaching at the Pedagogical Institute and atthe Conservatory. I had also taken his lessons. Look, how just a simple thing can... Well, the man was ina bread line at night and the whole day , the whole night he stood in the line. [His name was] KaplanyanDanel...you see, he was also a good tailor this guy... so, in the morning he came from taht line saying“what is this like, I stood in the line the whole night, I’ve got a single loaf of bread in the morning, Ibrought it over, it was all water in there, the dough wasn’t baked well, useless stuff inside, we had to cutthe crust to eat it ”. By that time there were many traitors, they informed on him, on the same day theycame after him ... they exiled him. On the very same day. Just exiled him... Well, there was someonenamed Yesayi Momjyan... he... was a scientist... He was from France; when he came, he was teachingFrench at school. The school director ... I don’t remember his surname – he didn’t pay his salary for sixmonths. He was taking the money and keeping to himself, never giving it to him. Just spending moneyon himself. So, the man went there and told “I cannot stand this anymore. I do not have sufficient moneyeven for my dayly bread. I will have to go and complain. I want to get my salary, just to live”. Well,this person made it so that the poor guy be exiled as a spy. ...when he came back... well, his wife couldhave stayed, only he was exiled , but his wife said she would go wherever her husband goes. They didn’thave children. They came back... his wife was very ill. Her... what do they call it...her trigeminal nerve ...it was frostbitten...there, inflamed, she had severe pain, she was always in pain.Once I happened to fined a picture in the street. It was Stalin’s picture, it was made very beautifully, incolor. Stalin was ugly, but he was very beautiful on that picture. I was a kid, so I took it, and I brought ithome... If I had thought about it a little... that our family was afraid... I knew ... of course, that talking wasdangerous, but, well... I brought it home. By some chance, that Momjyan man was there. He jumped likea tiger... Hurting me, he was holding my arms like this; he took this picture away from me, forgetting everything...It was a piece of cardboard, it was a picture, a picture made on a cardboard, and he tore it intotiny pieces, like this. Then he approached me, hit me, telling “I shall never again see things like thatin your hands”. Well, there were so many people who suffered from Stalin’s [deeds].152