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

the mill with his own father early one morning, a boy threw a stone at them and it hit my father’s head.‘That’s nothing yet’ says the kid, ‘We’re going to kill your father walking ahead of you.’ So the fear began.People were made to believe that if they waited one more day, the Armenians would kill all the Turks.”Concerning cruelty and violence, Necmi points to state officials, bandits, and local elites, attempting toexonerate ordinary people of modest means, who he suggests largely tried to save neighbors, co-workers,friends and even strangers: “The community found its solutions within itself. Those who attemptto intervene do very bad things. And official intervention without an understanding of the local can bedisastrous. Now, you can always find a murderer. There is nothing easier than finding an executioner.But Muslims never did wrong vis-à-vis Armenians in Divriği. Those who left took with them all their belongingsof value. Anatolia was full of bandits. All the fugitive soldiers were in the mountains. Arbitrarypractices were common. The head of an official bureau in one town may be cruel. But if there is someonemore humane in the next town he may act differently. As for the people, Turks tried hard to protectArmenians. Some became Muslims, some were married, some were hidden in homes. The man tried tosave his master from whom he learned his craft. Even if he couldn’t save his master, he tried to save thechildren left behind. At least he tried to provide them with bread. He saved and hid them if he could.”Necmi’s father became a jeweler because his own father saved an Armenian craftsman: “With the convoysarrived the lists. My grandfather was a clerk in the municipality. He saw a jeweler master’s nameon the list. He pulled the guy aside and said, ‘you’re going to an unknown land. I’ll untie you from thisconvoy if you will teach jewelry-making to my sons. Later on, his master said to my father, ‘you’ll teachall that you learned from me to a non-Muslim boy.’”41