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

Adil is not the only one marked by the memories of Armenians in this village once full of them. Hisgrandfather mentioned a man called Hüseyin who spoke to him at the end of his life: “He said ‘Werounded up all the Armenians from the villages around midnight. There is a very deep cliff at Eskar. Wetook them there, and threw them down the cliff one by one. I can no longer sleep. Whenever I close myeyes, the children I threw off that cliff take hold of my hands and pull me towards the cliff.’”The priest’s fieldAdil recounts the history that made Sosi cry and Hüseyin feel guilty as if he himself has lived it: “Thereis a sense of guilt. I mean it. We were living together, we didn’t interfere with each other, then I don’tknow what happened, but we seized their property. For example, much of our land used to belong to Armenians.My grandfather spent fifty years with court cases. He ended up getting all the land, yet manyof the fields in our village have Armenian names. Rıcın, Dize, Elvi, Keşiş [priest] for example. ‘The priest’sfield.’ It is quite obvious. For example there are rumors that an ancient Armenian king lived in Dize. Ourgrandfather spent much of his life searching for gold in Dize. I remember my father making fun of mygrandfather saying, ‘you spent twenty to thirty years but found three Ottoman coins. There is this beliefthat the Armenians who were deported want to come back. This is why they buried their gold here. Allover Kulp people are digging, looking for gold.”The villagers fear that the Armenians will return some day: “When the PKK emerged, I remember verywell, I was a high school student. Three guerillas were killed. They laid them out naked in front of thehospital. People said, ‘They aren’t circumcised, they’re Armenians, they’ll come to take what they’veleft behind.’ There’s a place we used to go with our herds. Our village guard said to the guerillas there,‘We know what you’re after, you’re all Armenians, you’re going to take the land from us.’ This is exactlywhat he said. And you can be sure that this is one of the reasons why people become village guards.”Under changing conditions, the game is similar, but the players are different. Sultan Abdulhamid’stroops of Ottoman times are replaced by the village guards, and the Kurds, who remember the Armenianmassacres with guilt, have themselves become victims: “Our village was very lively before the villageguards. Violence began to increase because of events related to security. Those who refused to becomevillage guards migrated elsewhere. Those who became village guards remained in the village.”One of Adil’s cousins chose to become a village guard while another joined the PKK: “They had landwhere he built a wonderful house for himself over five years. It was one of the most luxurious houses atthat time. He moved into his house in the summer. When a conflict took place in the autumn, they pressuredeverybody to become a village guard. Our cousin resisted. He said, ‘I built this house in five years, Iwon’t leave. I’ll stay no matter what and I’ll become a village guard if necessary.’ Another cousin of oursmade a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia; he didn’t come back for one or two years. Then it was understoodthat he had joined the PKK.” The one who kills Adil’s cousin on a windy August night by mistaking him36