TRANSCRIPT OF SPOKEN WORD IN SILENT CRANES

Testimonies of survivors, translations from Armenian by Taleen Babayan, and poem by David Barsamian, edited by Mary Kouyoumdjian

I. slave to your voice

II. you did not answer

Victoria: My name is Victoria Mellian. I’m born 1901, February 8. I’m born in the city of Antioch. It’s a part of Turkey That’s the city where they accepted Christianity. 1909, being Christian, we were massacred in one night in the month of Lent. My father had gone to church. When he came home, my cousin said, “Uncle, they’re going to kill us.” He said “We didn’t do no harm to nobody.” Meantime, they broke the door, and they jumped on my father. They killed him. They shot my father, but my uncle was knifed to death. Everything was broken down. They took everything. They ransacked the house. They broke down the window. In one night, I lost between 15 and 20 immediate family.

Hagop: In 1915, we didn’t know the nature of the war. We saw Fedayagan groups, they said there was a fight and we all have to escape.

Azniv: They came and held my dad and asked him where he was from. He said “Ourfa.” My father wasn’t afraid.

Haig: All the notable and able-bodied men, they were arresting them, putting them in prison – prior to getting the people out on deportation or what I call “death marches.”

Elise: The Turkish soldiers told us that it was for our safety to move us. Why we were so far away from the Russian border? I was very excited, because I had never had a train ride before. By the time we got to Balikesir, I had enough of it. The people were separated into two groups. One, some families had to go to Damascus, and the others went to Der Zor.

Nium: All those people were taken further out into the desert, and what happened to them from there seemed like everybody knew that they were dead. They were all killed. There were no survivors that I knew of.

Araxie: We deported in some city. Barefoot, nothing to eat. They took everything from us. They say, “We’ll put in a church. When you come back, we’ll give you back” – which is not true. So we went to some city. My aunt gave birth. She left her baby over there, and then we walked, walked, walked. No water. My mother used her handkerchief and, excuse me, horse urine and wiped our mouths. We were so dry.

Victoria: So my brother was four years old. As soon as my grandmother saw the Turks coming, she took my brother under her skirt, and the Turk said “Gawer, you have an Armenian under you.” She raised her hand and said, “Honest to God, there’s nobody,” and they cut her finger with the sword. The woman was bleeding.

Azniv: I was born in ’14. I had a very beautiful mother. I lost my mother young. She was beautiful. They killed her. That’s why I am in pain. That beautiful woman, they killed her.

III. [with blood-soaked feathers]

Elise: We were at the top of the mountain. Nobody was talking. They were all silent. Dead bodies all around us. They won’t let us bury our dear ones. I saw with my eyes a pregnant woman among us, and because she was lagging, you know. The Turkish soldiers put the sword on her stomach, and the baby came out of her, and the mother died there too, right there. Nobody was there to bury her.

Nium: When we went back to the desert, all we see is bodies lying on the ground. No shade, no blankets. Nothing but sand all around there. People like they were dead or something, they couldn’t even move. Some of them didn’t even feel like human beings. They’re crying out for food, for water, for water, food. Nobody could help them. We’d walk around and it’s just the same thing. Mothers are holding their babies to their breast, they couldn’t feed them. It’s a tragic thing of what we saw. It was sickening.

Araxie: They took all the men in a field, they tied their hands and they shoot them – killed them. Every one of them. I remember they collected only 15 year old boys, just like this they were sitting, their hands were tied back, and they took in a field, and they shoot them too. Nothing left. Only women and small children.

Haig: Seeing so much tragedy everyday – women jumping in the water to drown themselves because they don’t want to be dishonored, people being killed left and right, and bodies here and there – so much tragedy, you almost become shell-shocked, you become numb. Day after day, day after day, the same thing is being repeated.

Aghavnie: The two children hid from their fear when the Turks entered. They saw them beating me, and they yelled “Morak Aghavni!” The Turk took and cut his head off because the child loved me so much and he didn’t want the Turks to see me hurt. They cut off his head so he would stop yelling. I took his head and wanted to glue it but what was the point because he was already dead. My sister is crying, all my relatives are crying and the child is in the middle of a room like a chicken, his head on one side and his body on another.

Haig: Later we learned from the stories the soldiers came and told to the people, how they took them to Kamach, a spot [by the] Euphrates River which is very treacherous, and dumped them there because they weren’t going to waste their bullets. The Turkish government evidently realized that these children were going to grow up and remember everything that happened to their parents and their families. So, they decided to kill and not save the children. And to spare their bullets, they were taking them to the Euphrates River and drowning them. As you proceeded day after day this march, you see bodies constantly. Sometimes it was horrible because they would evidently rob, evidently the villagers, Turkish villagers, Kurds, would come and rob their clothes and so forth, so that they were almost half naked under the sun. In a few days the bodies swell up, and it was horrible because of the stench and the horrible sight were just absolutely excruciating. We could see bodies sprawled everywhere. It was a common sight. Everywhere we were passing by, there were bodies. My gosh, sometimes I would see 6, 7 of them sprawled along the road. Turkish young arms for their pleasure would come and pick up the good-looking girls and take them screaming away for their pleasure of the night. My grandmother was complaining to the Turkish soldiers, “Why are you subjecting the children to such suffering? What have they done?” This young arm in his anger that “You dare to as much as complain against the Turkish government” – he pulled his dagger and right on her back, he began thrusting the dagger into her back. Just like a pincushion, he kept doing this several times. Each time my grandmother, this wiry little lady, she just kept cursing the Turkish government: “Curse on you and your government that you subject the children to such suffering.” And the more she cursed the government and so on, the more he kept stabbing her. And then he was exasperated because she wouldn’t die fast enough to suit him. A Turkish sergeant took of the Turkish army grabbed me by the hand and pulled it away from my mother and took me away. Weeks later, evidently the Turkish government had changed their mind, and a proclamation came around that they should not save the Armenian children. So they came, a policeman, Turkish police, knocked the door and took me away. They took me away to a vacant Armenian home. The Armenians had gone through this experience of deportation and killing and so on, so there were a lot of empty houses they had made into a prison. So there I met my sister, and there were a close to about 100 children. The very next day, they lined us up. They were going to take us to the Euphrates River.

Victoria: My aunt, they were after her, but her honor wouldn’t let her. She threw herself in the Asi River, that’s the biggest river that Antioch has. She drowned herself, not to give in to the Turks. I still remember. They shot him, he didn’t die, but when they poured kerosene over him – he was a big fella, I knew him – they poured kerosene over him. They killed him. Oh the blood was running, like a river. Here I am, my God, I have no father, no mother, no brother, my oldest brothers – they all are dead. It was a surprise. My father said “Daughter,” he said, “Why should they kill us? We lived always in harmony. We visited each other. You always played with them, with the children.” All of a sudden overnight... to this day I cannot understand why they did that. Why? We lived in harmony. If it was not an order from the high officers, they wouldn’t do that. There was somebody behind that.

Elise: I saw with my own eyes, a poor neighbor of ours from Bandirma. She couldn’t walk anymore, and they took hold of her and threw her into the burning fire. We had to walk on continually.

Araxie: My grandmother, they took her Der Zor. They killed so many Armenians over there. Most Armenians they killed in Der Zor. When we left, my family was 25 in the family. They took all the men folks, they asked my father, “Where’s your ammunition.” He says, “I sold it.” So he says, “Go get it.” So when he went into a town to get it, they beat him and they took all his clothes, and when he came back (this is my mother tells me this story), when he came back, he went in a jail, they cut his arms. “Where’s your ammunition.” He said, “I haven’t got it, they didn’t give it to me.” So he died in jail. Government says “take him to Dicle. and throw all these ladies in Dicle. Tigris River. So, I remember very well, it was a moon, and then jandarma came... police came he says “Government has forgiven them. Take them to a different city.” And we walked and night and night and night, and we came to a city that they were very well Turk. They were very well. Also my aunt saved me into the blanket so they would not capture me. And they gave us bread that was made from the hay. But we got to eat because we were hungry.

Azniv: Don’t remind me. Those were such important people. The Tajik’s kidnapped me.

Victoria: I was young, but I still remember.

Elise: We were in the outskirts of Damascus. In Syria, it hadn’t snowed for 40 years, and it was snowing that night. I had to go out, and I saw my father’s… the light of his cigarette in the dark, and he was meditating. He took me out, and then, he showed me a group of stars. He said, “Do you see the brightest one in the middle?” and he said, “You are the brightest star of them all.” I couldn’t imagine what he was saying, because I said “Under those circumstances, how could a father wish such a thing about his little girl?” Now every time I see those stars, I think of that night