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

Recalling MemoriesOral history differs from family memories to some extent, especially if these are memories of the secondor third generation about specific events. Although this book is called “Oral history”, in reality, the materialsare actually family memories. Family history becomes oral history from the moment when the storytellerbecomes a participant or even an actor in the given events. At least partially, the memory of thefamily’s past is “socialized” history: it bears the sign of the social past and life experience of those wholived the history, and of course, the storyteller. When we started collecting materials related to Armenian-Turkishrelations in Armenia and employed the oral history method for that, we understood thatthe long term absence of such relationships does not allow us to view these stories as classic oral histories.More than ninety percent of the Armenian population has not seen Turks in the last eighty-ninetyyears, so they have no personal biographical memories about them. When we started collection of materialswe in fact partially tried to collect “memories about memories”, and partially to record individualviews and feelings about Turkey and Turks, as well as generalized social memories among people havingsecondary memories of Turks. In fact, according to the collected materials, next to quite minimalexperience of personal views and relationships, “memories about memories of specific stories”, we receivedand witnessed exciting personal and sensitively rich material, which is almost “not burdened” bythe pressure of collective memories. “I saw how my mother cried every time she remembered her lostsister”, or “My grandma did not rejoice in anything in her life. She died in pain and repeatedly said thatit is pay back for her sin: she left her small daughter on the road... I don’t know, it is a very sad story, inthe middle of the road they couldn’t find food to feed. They had four children, this one was a baby girl,she cried all the time. A Turkish soldier was coming and hitting her all the time, saying “be quick, don’tlag behind”. She told that her grandfather said; “let us leave this child here on the road and go, at least,we will be able to rescue the three boys... (The storyteller gets upset, silent, tries to collect his thoughts...). It took a long time for my grandma to die. She would open her eyes and say “I suffer for that childthat I left behind”. Until the very last moment of her life she has never forgiven herself... (the storytellergets upset, her voice mumbling, eyes filled with tears) that she left her on the road” (From the story ofAnahit Hovanisyan). Or “my mother was fourteen years old. Her mother was killed in front of her and inthe morning she saw how wolfs or dogs gnawed her mother’s stomach and ate her entrails. My motherdied when she was eighty years old and left this world with that pain in her. You wouldn’t believeit, but every day I tell this story and cry” (from the story of Almast Harutyunyan); or “my father alwaystalked about Turks with hate” (From the story of Vard Abajyan), “All things my father talked about weretheir houses, their birthplaces, their hopes, until his death. For example, my father’s dreams were aboutthose places and that life. Whoever met him and asked, “Where are you going” he would say (singing),“my only desire, only dream is there”. Whomever he met, in any street, in any place, if asked, he would84