Tweet
These Eyes Have Seen Genocide
xxx
xxx
-
-
Memories Of Eyewitness-survivors Of The Armenian Genocide
Great Posts guys .... I'll add one.
MEMORIES OF EYEWITNESS-SURVIVORS OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDEComment
-
Ermenİ Soykirimi'ndan Kurtulan GÖrgÜ Taniklarinin Hatiralari
And here's the same page in TurkishOriginally posted by maral_m79
ERMENİ SOYKIRIMI'NDAN KURTULAN GÖRGÜ TANIKLARININ HATIRALARIComment
-
I wish I could add my great grandma's memories to this thread... I have it on a CD. It's like an hour long. Can I upload it on a site that has realplayer or something? Any help?Comment
-
xxxComment
-
"All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)Comment
-
xxxComment
-
Mary’s Story: “The call of the blood . . .”
xxxComment
-
A Boy From Baberd
Baberd is a city and a region in the Erzerum Vilayet of Western Armenia. In 1915, despite mandatory Islamization, the influx of Turks and Curds, and forced emigration, residing in Baberd and environment were scores of thousands of Armenians. Among them was the family of Kojoians. Nikogos, a noted merchant in the city, beside a big cloth store, owned silver mines in the neighboring Giumushkhan. When all the Kojoians sat to table, their total household counted 23 people. One of the youngest was the 5-y ear-old Masis, son of Nikogos and Agapi.
Father
In may 1915 father and many other Armenians were arrested. Masis and Mother went to the prison for a meeting. The policeman checked if the infidels wanted to smuggle in weapons, carefully searched the little boy.
The parents were whispering something hurriedly. Hollow-cheeked, wasted, unrecognizable father tried to calm down mother, but could not. She was crying all the way back. Late in the night they again went out with mother, came to the bank of the Khorokh and cast the weapons into water. Perhaps by Father’s advice. That however did not relieve the fate of the family.
With no shelter
In a few days the order on deporting the Armenians came. No armloads were allowed, all was in haste. They said it was a temporary resettlement, and everyone would come back soon. Some bedclothes and utensils were loaded on a cart with two oxen, the people trailing behind. 22 Kojoyans left Baberd, never to see it again.
On the road
In a day or two, nothing was left of the belongings or jewelry. The caravan was attacked by bandits armed with whatever you will, even scythes. The policemen did not interfere. The bandits took away anything that was of value. The 20-year-old Vagarshak was the first of the Kojoyans to get killed: brother tried to disobey the robbers. The women and children were trudging along with a lost look. They became fewer each day, the food stocks finished, and even water to drink was rarely found.
Many had not reached Erznk, a city on the Euphrates. While crossing the river, Masis’ cousin threw herself into the river with a baby. There were other Christians near the bridge, beside those under deportation. They talked German, curiously viewing the doomed crowd.
When cousin jumped into the water, one of the women aimed a camera at the drowning people, showing with her finger to another and laughing. The mother in the water took pity on the child, held it higher, and stayed on the surface for some time, while the women went on laughing and clicking her camera. Masis never forgot this laugh and his cousin’s hands lifting the baby...
The caravan was trudging on. The leap into the Euphrates was a surprise only for the inquisitive European. Later there will have been established an approximate (minimal) number of Armenians drowned in the Euphrates in 1915 - 55-60 thousand. In June 1915 the mass of drowned people made the river burst its banks. But the caravans were going on and on, the living envied the dead.
Market a la Turk
Walking side by side with the Kojoyans were their neighbors, also a large family. At Erznk there remained only two of them left, the two brothers, 14 and 15 years old. The boys were very exhausted. The elder brother got ill and could not walk. The younger wanted to stay with the brother, but they were forced to walk with kicks. At a halt the brothers beseeched the Turk for a great favor, to let them alone and shoot them.
- That’s what they want, grinned the escort. - And who will pay for the bullets? Let’s see your money...
The brothers had no money left. They managed to find some small change.
- It is only for one bullet, - said the soldier pocketing the money. Not enough.
They searched for the second one but in vain.
- Well, all right, - yielded the Turk. Let it be your way. Come, stand one behind the other. One bullet will do.
He said and did the good deed with a single bullet. Just as a Turk should.
Mother
Beyond Erznk they met a familiar Greek, a doctor from Baberd. He wept seeing his neighbors and pleaded with Agapi to entrust the last of her 3 daughters, the 13-year-old Deghdzanik, to his care Agapi put the sign of the cross on the girl and gave her to the Greek. She went on with the remaining sons.
Over Erznk they saw a huge field from above. Agapi understood why the Greek wept and why he took away her daughter. Before the night fell, they were attacked by yet another gang of dregs. There was nothing more to loot, they took children. Agapi did not want to let go her last heritage: Masis and Martyros. The Turk slashed her from above, from the saddle, with a saber, and mother dropped with her face flooded with blood. The Turks took away the crying brothers, then they parted them, all that Agapi di d not see any more.
“Your name is Sabit!”
Masis got into a family of Hasan, with two growing girls. He was taught to do the Muslim prayer, and once he got thrashed for facing the wrong side.
They called the boy Sabit. He grazed a cow and slept clinging to her side in the shed. There were no other close creatures until late Autumn 1915, when the other brother Martyros appeared who grazed the cattle in a neighboring village. The 10-year-old Martyros promised to come again.
- I will sure come in spring, - he repeated. - Then I’ll convince my boss to take you to our village. He is a wealthy man. He will pay. And you never forget your name. And our parents. You are Masis! Remember!
Hitting the road
In spring 1916 the situation on the Caucasus front changed. The Russians advanced again, returning with them were the surviving Armenians, while the Turks were not too eager to meet those whom they had so pitilessly slaughtered. The family of Hasan, collecting their belongings, were thinking, what to do with the infidel. The elder daughter suggested that he should be thrown into the well. Still they decided to take them along, all the more so that the cow had been used to the shepherd boy and obeyed him.
On the very first day the master’s daughter died, the parents bustled about, the column of Turks hurried on, and in this mess Masis lost his master.
He was driving a cow with two calves. Of food, there was none. He was feeding on the cow milk, sucking on the warm udder like a calf. Incidentally, the cow fed him more willingly than the voracious calves. A month went by like that.
Sebastia. The Orphanage
Masis stepped into Sebasia in the status of a Turkish orphan. The cow was recognized as his property, and with this dowry his was given to a Turkish family. Then he got into another one, to regular ragamuffins. Two winters passed. In the spring of 1918 Masis was again brought to Sebasia and threw him up into a Turkish orphanage.
By that time Masis had forgotten the language. He remembered only that he was born Armenian, remembered the name of his parents and that “ooth” was “eight” in Armenia. That was it.
Americans visited the orphanage, asked if there were Armenians. He got scared. Perhaps not only him. The orphanage was cold and dirty. Typhoid was raging killing children. The living were transferred to military barracks, gave old soldiers rags. In the blouse Masis found a needle. It was salvation. Masis started to give the needle out for hire, and from time to time so he got a piece of bread solicited by the orphans from the passers-by. The orphans begged from morning till night, often fought for the booty, and at nights, forgotten by all, they slept and dreamt about another life. And then, once upon a time...
Degh-dza-nik!
No. What happened was not a dream. In the street, someone called the boy by name: “Masis!” Without turning back, Masis rushed to the orphanage and was trembling with fear all day. He recalled the field beyond Erznk. An enormous green field with...
Towards night, his sister came to the orphanage. The same Deghdzanik whom mother gave to the Greek doctor. The Greek did not deceive, he saved her, and now Dekhdzanik was a servant in the household of a prosperous Sebastian. Deghdzanik at once recognized her brother, a Turkish neighbor from Baberd had told her about him, having seen him in the street. The orphanage leaders arranged an examination, the boy gave the names of his parents and was released. Masis walked in the city, looking frowningly at De ghdzanik, who had changed and become lovely at her 16 years of age. When they came home, a woman was waiting for them in the room, very much like his sister, but much older.
Her face was strikingly familiar. No, it was so dear. Masis saw a scar on forehead, remembered, recognized and wept. They wept all together, the tree of them, mother, daughter and son. The three surviving Kojoyan out of 23. They mourned the others and their city, the ancient Armenian city Baberd upon the Korokh, grown with mighty poplars. Farewell, Baberd..
Hallo, the new Armenia!
In 1925 the Kojoyans moved to Yerevan via Batum. Masis graduated from school, vocational college, Institute in Moscow, and was building all his lifetime, building ports, factories, tunnels, houses. To every nation their own. Masis, as is due to the Armenians, was building. Also built a family: with the betrothed Emma brought up 2 daughters, successfully married them off, sat at wedding tables with his in-laws, father-in-law of his elder daughter Jacob Zarobian, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia, lived to see his 5 grandchildren whom he dotes upon.
In the summerhouse of his courtyard it is spring, April has come too hot. Masis Kojoyan (fie, to put off the evil eye!) looks good for his virtually 90 years. His memory is good, particularly on what happened in his childhood. And he remembers, it is sufficient to close the eyes, remembers that...
...field
The same spring field beyond Erznka, strewn with naked bodies of men, women and children. When they were passing by, mother was covering his eyes with her palm. But the bodies of the martyrs were still seen. And sprouting among them in green islands were flowers. The Spring flowers on the undug Armenian graves. The Armenians were walking past their destiny, hoping to overcome it. Some succeeded.
They remember well, at what price. All of us, we have remembered it too well, for good.
Alexander TOVMASIAN"All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)Comment
-
Comment