Dubai: In the early hours of April 24 1915, Armenian families living under Ottoman rule heard a rapping on their doors. A prosaic opening to what would be a grand orchestration of inhumanity. One that would claim the lives of 1.5 million Armenians. The rapping was a prefatory sound, marking the dawn of the Ottoman Empire’s attempt of defacing a nation that traces back to the Bronze Age.
For the next 100 years, Armenians all across the globe, strewn by the massacre, would lobby for its recognition as a genocide — a term that is still contentious and repudiated by Turkey to this day.
Like heart-rending heirlooms of memory, stories of the genocide have been passed down through generations of Armenians. These stories insist a resolute act of remembrance and elucidate the nightmarish incident that led to the dispersal of the Armenian people. For most, tales of April 24 have ossified into the modern Armenian identity and responsibility.
The colour of pomegranate vinegar
Margo Guzelian, 82, said she’s often told the story to her two children of how her mother and aunt were separated during the death march across the Syrian desert of Deir Al Zor. The two sisters were reunited some 60 years later, after a Kurdish soldier came into Margo’s house in the Syrian town of Kessab looking for pomegranate vinegar.
“They were separated during the death march,” Margo said, speaking to Gulf News over the phone from Syria. “My mother, aunt and grandmother were forced out of their home in Sepastia in Western Armenia, what is now Turkey. They were taken with countless other Armenian families into the Syrian desert. They had no food, no water, no shelter.”
During the death march, Ottoman soldiers deported Armenians from their home and into the Syrian deserts. Skeleton remains of the victims can still be found sifting out of the sands.
“I’ve retold this story innumerable times,” she said, “to forget how we became a dispersed nation is to forget one of the seminal components of what it is to be an Armenian today.”
According to Margo, a Kurdish Syrian soldier named Yassin, who spoke broken Armenian had asked the townsfolk at a Kessab cafe where he could find good pomegranate vinegar. The townsfolk had directed the young soldier to the Guzelian house.
“I was in my early twenties then. The man who brought Yassin to our house said the soldier had struck up a conversation with him at a local cafe and even began singing traditional Armenian songs with the townsfolk there. Yassin told them he had learnt the songs from his mother,” Margo said.
“The person who brought Yassin to us joked at how my brother, Nishan, and him looked alike,” she said, “soon after, Yassin noticed a picture of a woman hanging from our wall and demanded to know why we had his mother’s picture. My brother told him it wasn’t his mother and the picture was given to them by a family friend in Aleppo. The family friend had stumbled on the picture by chance and had mailed it to my mother saying she might be her long-lost sister. We didn’t take it too seriously but my mother insisted we hang the picture on our wall.”
It was then that Margo’s mother, Verjin, entered the living room.
“Yassin turned pale when he saw my mother,” Margo said, “he kept repeating that she looked exactly like his own mother, Rafiqa.”
According to Margo, Yassin then claimed that Verjin was the long-lost aunt he had been told about.
“My mother asked Yassin to sit down and repeat what his mother had told him about his aunt.”
Yassin then began narrating the plight of his mother’s family, who were forced out of Sepastia and into the death march across the Syrian desert.
“Yassin told us how Ottoman soldiers had killed the men in his mother’s family when she was just eight years old. Her mother and three-year-old sister then were taken with thousands of other Armenians to the Syrian desert. Rafiqa had told Yassin of the murder and rape she had witnessed during the death march.”
On the verge of death, Rafiqa’s mother tosses her three year-old daughter, who was later determined to be Verjin, over the short walls of a gated house, hoping she would stand a chance of survival.
“Rafiqa’s mother died soon after,” Margo told Gulf News, “Rafiqa was then taken by a Kurdish family in a nearby village, and raised as their own. She converted to Islam and renamed Rafiqa. But even after she married and mothered Yassin, she never forgot her Armenian roots and would teach Yassin the songs she had learnt from her own mother.”
Margo’s sister, Sona, 72, said it was then that their mother confirmed she was indeed Yassin’s aunt.
“My mother, Verjin, said she was the three year-old tossed over the wall,” Sona said, “she was also taken in by a Kurdish family, who kept her hidden in straw bales whenever Ottoman soldiers patrolled the villages looking for Armenian survivors. They wanted to ensure no Armenian survived as their intention was to exterminate our people from the face of the planet.”
According to Sona, Verjin lived in the Kurdish village until she was about six years old.
“American and English organisations then came to take Armenian infants to an orphanage in Aleppo. The orphanage was specifically built for Armenian survivors. My mother lived there until she married and moved to Kessab.”
After the Guzelians’ encounter with Yassin, Verjin, and Rafiga started visiting each other often, rebuilding a severed communication that saw them grow apart in two different cultures.
Baron Ballian
In 1915, Iraqi-Armenian Evon Vartanian’s grandfather, Kevork Ballian, was a fur tailor who had made a considerable fortune, as well as friends in notable Ottoman positions due to his profession.
“My grandfather Kevork made his fortune from a fur factory. He had a palace in Antab in Western Armenia [now Turkey],” Evon, who is in her early sixties, told Gulf News via Skype from Jordan.
“When the Turks began gathering Armenians, executing the men and deporting the women and children, my grandfather was warned to leave by some of his acquaintances at the Ottoman government.”
However, Kevork insisted that his factory workers, who were also Armenian, be allowed to escape with him.
“He paid his way to Mosul, Iraq,” Evon said. “His wife [not Evon’s mother] and some of his employees died on the way there. He had hidden gold coins and lira in my aunt’s stash, which he would use to bribe Ottoman officers who spotted them along the way.”
Kevork made a life for himself and his family in Mosul, where he met Evon’s grandmother who was an orphaned 18 year old at the time.
“My grandmother, Zabelle Ohaness, was only eight years old at the time of the genocide,” Evon said, “she had witnessed the murder of four of her brothers and had managed to escape Adana with her eldest brother, mother and younger brother.”
Zabelle’s mother had died during their journey to Lebanon. Her youngest brother was lost and she had become partially blind.
“By the time they reached Lebanon, it was just Zabelle and her eldest brother,” Evon said, “they lived with a relative there and were invested in finding their lost sibling. Years later, they received news that he was living in Mosul. Abel’s brother was too weak to make the journey and Zabelle herself went, almost having lost all of her vision.”
Upon reaching Mosul, Zabelle found that her younger brother had married and his new wife refused to have her live with them.
“She was only 18 at the time. She was heartbroken and had nowhere to go. She eventually found refuge in a church,” Evon said.
The church’s priest introduced Zabelle to Kevork Ballian, who was then 52 years old.
“The priest convinced my grandfather to marry Zabelle,” Evon said, “they gave birth to one child, my mother. My grandmother taught me Turkish and used to tell me this story at least once a week. I, in turn, have told it to my two children at least two dozen times.”
A Krikor for a Kevork
Zvart Bedrossian’s father, Krikor, was forced out of an orphanage in Sasun, Turkey, by Ottoman soldiers. Zvart’s grandfather, a travelling merchant, found him wandering aimlessly with the other orphans along the streets of the town.
“My father, Krikor approached the merchant asking him to adopt him and take him home,” Zvart, 74, told Gulf News via Skype from California, US.
“Up until then, my father and the other orphans were scouring the earth looking for wheat grains,” she said, “my grandfather took him and brought him home to his wife. Their 15-day-old baby, Kevork, had recently died. My grandfather told his wife ‘your kevork died so I brought you a Krikor’.”
The family then managed to elude the clutches of Ottoman forces and escaped to Tal Abyad, Syria.
“My mother, Anoosh, had a harder journey,” Zvart said, “She, along with her mother and baby sister travelled with the death march procession. My maternal grandmother was forced to give her baby away to an Arab family, hoping she would secure a better life than the death and indigence that followed the procession.”
Zvart said Anoosh and her mother eventually made it to Aleppo, where they lived in a shelter.
“Eventually, they made it to Aleppo. My mother learnt how to make doilies and other handicrafts at the orphanage there. She would bring her daily earnings and put them under her mother’s pillow. Some years later, she met my father, Krikor, and the two were married.”
The couple gave birth to five daughters, who are now residing in the US, the UAE, Kuwait and France.
Zvart’s mother-in-law, Aroosiag, lived in Tigranakert (one of the four historic Armenian cities, now located in the Diyarbakir province of Turkey) with her six brothers, who were fighting Ottoman forces during the time of the genocide.
“The brothers were imprisoned after an Ottoman informant reported their location,” Zvart said, “Most of them were beaten to death.”
Zvart’s mother-in-law, Aroosiag, learnt how to make her way to the prison via the rooftops.
“She would toss food down at her brothers from the rooftop’s openings. The brothers would drink their own urine in an effort to live” Zvart said, “however only her brother, Hovahnnes managed to survive. He feigned death and was tossed outside the prison by the guards.”
The two managed to escape to Aleppo where Aroosiag married despite not reaching the age of puberty.
“Aroosiag was a very beautiful young girl. The family found it necessary to give her hand in marriage to avoid her being taken by Turks. She slept in her mother’s bed until she reached puberty.”
Foraging anthills for spare grains
Emma Kelejian’s father, Karnig, refused to leave Tigranakert with his family after the Turks knocked on their door.
“As the family was piling provisions on a mule, my father ran to his grandmother, who lived nearby,” she said, “he asked his grandmother to come along. When she refused he insisted on staying with her.”
Emma said her father’s entire family died during the death march. Karnig and his grandmother stayed in Tigranakert, bribing their Turkish neighbours so they wouldn’t report them to Ottoman authorities.
“They stayed there until 1920. After that they made their way to Qammishli, Syria. My father would often tell us how they traversed the Syrian deserts without food or water. He’d say it was a miracle they reached Qammishli.”
Emma told Gulf News of the stories she heard from husband, Diran Khatchadurian, whose father’s family lived in Tigranakert as well. The family had hid in a stable to avoid being taken to the death march.
However, Ottoman soldiers soon found them after hearing the infants’ crying coming from the stable.
“The officer in charge kicks my grandfather to the ground,” she said, “as he was kicking him, the officer felt a hard object in my husband’s grandfather’s pocket. Thinking it was silver, he reached for it but found out it was only a dry piece of bread. The officer must have felt remorse, compassion or something of the sort and he spared them, advising them to flee.”
“However, they had heard of the atrocities committed by the Ottomans and the fate common to those who chose to flee. They figured they’d stay in Tigranakert and try their luck there,” she said.
Diran, who died last year, had said the children were often sent out to collect wheat grains from the nearby town, after returning from one such trip, Diran’s father found his whole family slaughtered.
“Diran’s father often told him of the feeling of victory he felt coming back to the stable that day,” Emma said, “as he had collected more wheat grains that any other child. The three children returned to the stable to find their family gutted and mercilessly killed.”
Diran’s father and the other two children then concealed their Armenian identity with Arab names.
“They decided to make their way to Qammishli,” she said, “along the way they’d follow the ant trails and scour anthills for wheat grains.”
Road to Palestine and back
Asdghig Manjikian’s mother, Kalilia, was only seven years old when Ottoman soldiers forced her family out of Kessab.
“Most of my family died during the massacre,” Asdghig, who now lives in the UAE, said. “My mother’s siblings and her walked all the way to Palestine,” she said, “they wore rags, had no water nor food. They cut through Hamma and Homs. My mother would often say she could never forget that arduous journey.”
When Kalilia and her siblings reached Palestine, they resorted to a life of begging.
“They had no choice but to beg,” Asdghig said, “no one would hire them so it was the only way for them to secure a living. They continued to beg until the end of the First World War, after which they returned to Kessab.”