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

“I don’t know why, but my grandfather leaves that evening. He is afraid. But he learns that his sisteris in Afşın. Why is his sister there? Now the convoy leaves Gürün but some are massacred there. Theyset the women off on the road. While the women are on the way, Lieutenant Mehmet sees Nikyar andtakes her as a bride for his son. He has a son called Osman. He marries our aunt to Osman. After Nikyaris married she becomes Nuran. This is Osman’s third wife; he already has two wives. He takes her as athird wife because she’s a beautiful Armenian girl. When he learns about this, my grandfather comesto Afşın. His brother-in-law takes care of him when he arrives. You know, he doesn’t let him in the city,they are afraid something might happen. He sends my grandfather to work in the fields. A relative of hisbrother-in-law, a man called Hasan the Tall is at home. They call him doçdrej in Kurdish, which meanssomebody tall, I guess. He asks, ‘What is your profession, my boy?’ And my grandfather says, ‘I’m a tinsmith.’‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’ll take you to our village then. There are forty, forty-five Armenians in our village.We hide them in a cave, they’re all safe from the seferberlik. Because they might kill you here if theysee you.’ While going to the village, Hasan the Tall buys him copper, ammonium and a ventilator. Hegives him 22 liras. He says, ‘you do your job in the village and then you’ll pay me the money back.’ Mygrandfather goes to the village. Since our village is an Alevi Kurdish village, it is against the state. Andthat’s why they hid our people.”MarişaveThey call our people ‘night people’ or marişave in Kurdish. They are called this because our people appearat night; they are afraid during the day because the gendarme can capture them. The villagers bringfood from the village to the cave for the entire time they are there. One day the gendarme comes to thevillage to search for fugitive soldiers. He captures a soldier, because there are many fugitive soldiers inthose days, you know it’s a time of war. He captures one of the Kurds. Upon this, the fugitive says to thelieutenant, ‘Take us away and then our wives will be left to the gavurs.’ He asks, ‘What gavur?’ The gendarmethen captures both the fugitives and the Armenians. Then Hasan the Tall says ‘I won’t hand overany of the Armenians.’ He gives the lieutenant a bribe of a hundred lira. A hundred lira is a lot of money.He says to the fugitive soldiers, ‘You will all give five lira each.’ He takes five lira from each, and ten lirafrom the one who informed the lieutenant. He gets his hundred lira back and saves our people.”“My grandfather grows up to be a young man. And it is now peaceful in Turkey, things settle down.Hasan the Tall gets all the Armenians together and says, ‘It’s peaceful now, get out of the cave.’ Beforehe was married, my grandfather loved a Kurdish girl there. Hasan the Tall says ‘No, we brought you hereso that you could remain Armenian, there’s an Armenian girl in Kerevin, let’s get her for you, Bozo.’ Theycall him Bozo because he’s blond. My grandmother’s name is Baydzar, they take her and marry her tomy grandfather.”“I saw that cave, we walked there from our village in two hours. That cave used to be in a forest backthen. It is not a hidden place anymore. I couldn’t enter because they built a wall in the mouth of the cave.73