“Those damned days” by Sigrid Lupieri

Almost a century after the Armenian genocide, younger generations are still searching for closure with their violent past.

 

The First Generation

The stillness seemed almost oppressive, as the shadows lengthened across the cobblestone streets of Istanbul. In the wavering light, the city appeared to hesitate and hold its breath before darkness engulfed the houses and its inhabitants. The smell of spices and of the summer heat still wafted through the open window, as Krikor Mirijanian leaned back into his armchair and turned on the TV. He shifted uneasily. The week had been difficult, trying to coax the laborers at his clothes factory to return to work after their strike. The unstable political situation in Turkey and the frequent collapse of the government only made matters worse. Especially for the Armenian minority. He glanced around restlessly. His mother-in-law sat in a corner of the room, knitting. He could still hear the klick-klicking of her needles echo in his ears when the gun went off and a bullet lodged itself into the wall, inches above his head. That evening, in 1976, he decided to leave the country.

“I decided that money is secondary compared to our lives and our kids,” he says, sitting at his kitchen table in Morton Grove, Ill., while the rain and wind lash against the window panes. His wife sits next to him and listens, but hardly says a word. Mirijanian, now 77, says life in Istanbul was never easy for Armenians. Under the Ottoman Empire Christians and Jews were considered second-class citizens to the Muslim majority. Though they were free to practice their religion, they could not testify against Muslims in court, ride a horse, or carry weapons. When Armenians began protesting for equal rights and a better treatment under the Ottoman Empire toward the end of the 19^th century, Sultan Abdul Hamid massacred their communities, killing as many as 300,000 people of all ages. But the most brutal chapter of Armenian history was still to come. By the beginning of the First World War, in 1915, the new government of Young Turks ruthlessly planned the first genocide of the 20^th century. After accusing Armenians of colluding with the Soviet Union, Talaat Bey, Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha, ordered Turkish troops to capture and slaughter all Armenian men and boys above the age of five. They then led the women and children to the desert in death marches of hundreds of miles, where they watched them perish of thirst and starvation. By the end of the war, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians had been killed.

Since the genocide, generations of Armenians have fled to other countries, where they continue to seek international recognition for their history of bloodshed. But a sense of closure with the past does not appear any nearer, as Turkey refuses to take responsibility for its role in the genocide. Almost 100 years after the massacres, witnesses of the events are rapidly disappearing and many Armenians fear their cultural identity and sense of community may also fall apart. From Krikor Mirijanian to his grandson Shant Alexanian, however, little has changed over time. From the first to the third generation of Armenian immigrants in the U.S., the tales of their ancestors of death and suffering, but also of rebirth and courage, have not been forgotten.  Thousands of miles away from Istanbul, in their community in Glenview, Ill., their past continues to haunt them, as they prepare for the commemoration of the genocide victims on April 24^th. As the day of remembrance draws nearer, the three generations spin the tales of the present and of their past.

Krikor Mirijanian’s mother and grandmother were genocide survivors. In 1915, when the Turkish militia burst into their homes in the small village of Debrek, in the northeastern provinces of the country, they made a break for the mountains. For almost a year they lived among the craggy and inhospitable cliffs of the Pontic Mountain Range, fighting starvation and exhaustion. Months later, when they hoped the storm had passed, they trudged back to their homes. But they soon discovered there were no homes to return to. Turkish settlers had taken over the houses and the rest of the village was destroyed. Of all the women and children who had marched into the desert, no one ever returned. The grandmother and her small granddaughter then moved to Istanbul, hoping that the international characteristic of the city would offer them protection from Turkish persecution.

***

Dicranouhi Ekizian and her grandmother, Manam Mateosian.  When Dicranouhi passed away on Memorial Day 2008 in New Jersey at the age of 95, she was the last known survivor of the village of Chomaklou, whose descendents included a substantial number in the Evanston community.

Dicranouhi Ekizian wrote a journal about the years of the genocide. Though she was five years old when the deportations began, she remembered the hardship and suffering as she marched with her grandmother and her paraplegic uncle through the desert. Her simple words recount the horrors of her past, but also the compassion and humanity she encountered along the endless trail, where most of her family disappeared.

 

“I remember a little of 1916. My grandmother had suffered greatly while trying to care for her paraplegic son, Isahag. She carried him on her back to take him from place to place along the march. (He had to be 15 or 16 at the time, with his legs feeling heavy, like dead weight.) There was no water in Ehmeh. In the mountains, there were little ditches into which water trickled. Our people carried leather decanters on their backs which they filled with water from these oases, then carried these back for drinking and for dampening cloths which they used to wipe themselves so their bodies would not smell. There was nothing to eat, sometimes just a handful of wheat or flour, when available. Putting flour in water, people made soup to eat something hot so that they would not get sick. My grandmother used to grind wheat for Arabs so that, in return, they would give her a handful of flour which she used to keep us alive and healthy. ...My poor grandmother worked 24 hours a day to keep us alive. She would return to our campsite parched with thirst and hungry, barely making it through the door before she collapsed and cried. She would raise and lower her arms repeatedly, saying, “Vay, what kind of life is this?!” My Uncle Isahag would cook our soup so we could eat. I remember that when he made soup with flour, he would add more water to the remainder so that we could again have food for the next day. In this way, we passed our difficult days.

“A cipher telegram from the War Office sent to all the commanding officers on the army:

Feb. 27, 1918. -In view of present circumstances the Imperial Government has issued an order for the extermination of the whole Armenian race. The following operations are to be made with regard to them:-

1)                  All the Armenians in the country who are Ottoman subjects, from five years of age upwards, are to be taken out of the towns and slaughtered.

2)                  All the Armenians serving in the Imperial Armies are to be separated from their divisions without making any disturbance; they are to be taken into solitary places away from the public eye, and shot. […] Representative of the High Command and Minister of War, Enver.”

 

***

 Dn Krikor Mirijianian and his wife, Nadia, in their Morton Grove home. 

In 1932 Krikor Mirijanian was born in Istanbul, among the haunted souls of the survivors. And yet his grandmother never spoke of her pain. “Those damned days, let them go and never come back again,” she would say. Though the massacres were over, Armenians were never free from persecution in a land that viewed their Christian faith and their prosperous communities as a threat to the nation. Under the government of Mustafa Kemal, also called Ataturk –Father of the Turks-, minorities were still not welcome. Though Kemal encouraged modernization in the country as well as a form of democracy, many Armenians emigrated to Syria and Lebanon for fear of being mistreated, yet again. During the 1930s, he ordered all Armenians to shed their typical Armenian family names ending in “ian” in favor of new Turkish names. Krikor’s family was lucky, as a distracted clerk changed their last name “Papasian” to the Armenian name “Mirijanian,” which already ran in the family. “We were afraid,” Mirijanian says, as he remembers growing up in Istanbul. Especially at school he had to be very careful, as Turkey’s venerated leader was depicted on the cover of every textbook and the smallest rip could be interpreted as a sign of disrespect. One day, his little sister scribbled upon the cover of one of the books. His family secretly burned the textbook and replaced it with a new one for fear of reprisals.

Years later, when Mirijanian was engaged to a seamstress in the 1950s, he opened a small business of ready-to-wear clothing, which was quite innovative at the time. After starting out with $10 worth of Turkish money and two yards of cloth, his industry grew to become a factory with 125 employees. Political turmoil and persecution, however, always lurked around the corner. In September 1955 a pogrom in Istanbul destroyed the homes and stores of Armenian, Jewish and Greek minorities, while two coup d’états in 1960 and 1971 brought the country on the brink of civil war. Finally in 1976, Mirijanian dislodged the bullet from the wall and decided he had had enough.

Thirty-two years later, he still lives with his wife close to the Armenian community in Glenview, while his son and daughter have families of their own in the U.S. Now retired, he translates texts on the genocide from Armenian into English and collects books on the past splendor of Armenian culture. His grief is almost tangible as he leafs through the yellowed pages of books of Armenian art and architecture, of churches and monuments that have been desecrated or burned to the ground. “Of course I’m angry,” he says. Not even the graveyards have survived to mourn his ancestors. Almost nothing remains of a once prosperous community, apart from the bones of 1.5 million people, brittle and dry in the Der-el-Zor desert. His wife shakes her head disapprovingly. She prefers not to dwell upon the past. “I’m not interested,” she says. “It is a sad story.”

***

“From the filth (because there was no water to keep clean), my eyes were shut and I could not see. They were bloodied and hurt terribly. One day, a lady from Giurun said to my grandmother, “If there was only an egg and some soap, I could heal your granddaughter.” One of the Arabs gave my Uncle Isahag an egg. My grandmother would ask, “Where can we get some soap?” She would walk, crying, “Oh, most almighty God, from my family is left only my one little granddaughter who I pray to keep alive for her father who is in the army. I beseech you to give me strength, and the ability to find soap from someone so that her eyes may be opened.” While walking, something hit her foot. She saw a piece of soap which she thought was a stone. She took it, and while rubbing it, realized that it was a piece of soap. Crying tears of joy and thanksgiving, she took it to the Giuruntsi woman, with me at her side... Whatever the woman did, she made a paste and applied it to my eyes. After she did this a few times, it was a miracle -- I could begin to see a little, to discern figures walking toward me or beside me.”

 

“To the Government of Aleppo.

Sept. 21, 1915. –There is no need for an orphanage. It is not the time to give way to sentiment and feed the orphans, prolonging their lives. Send them away to the desert and inform us.

Minister of the Interior, Talaat.”

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The Second Generation

Shaun Alexanian, 46, is Krikor Mirijanian’s son-in-law. He owns a small construction company in Chicago. As a second generation Armenian living in the U.S., he feels that his strong sense of community is tied to the genocide. Though three of his grandparents were survivors, they spoke very little of the horrors they endured, and he learned about the genocide within the Armenian community. “When I was a kid, the genocide was not taught at school,” he says. Schools in the Chicago suburbs taught young adults that the first genocide of the 20^th century involved the Jews during the Second World War. Alexanian knew better, but he could hardly speak up in class. “You could still get a ruler to your hand,” he says. “You didn’t stand up and tell your teachers they were wrong.”

Many American schools now teach the Armenian genocide as part of the curriculum. But Alexanian still worries about the future. Tensions between Turkey and the small country of Armenia may yet lead to compromises that might never serve justice to the Armenian population. “[Recognition of the genocide] would be the first step to closure or healing,” he says. “I don’t believe that any healing has happened at all.” As a second step, he hopes that someday the land and homes of the deportees might be restored to their rightful owners. Every April 24, he marches with other members of the community in front of the Turkish consulate in Chicago. Though the demonstrations are usually met by indifference and silence, he says they create a sense of identity and belonging he wishes to share with his two children.

Alexanian says the Armenian communities in the Chicago area are strengthening. In the 70s, he says, many members preferred to forget their past and wanted to fully immerse themselves in their new culture. Today, however, the communities have pulled together and are successfully attracting younger generations within their organizations. Armenian schools also help the children learn their language and shared history. Though Alexanian has never been to Armenia, he speaks a mixture of English and Armenian at home to his kids. “It would be a dream come true,” he says about visiting his ancestor’s homeland.

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Of the 1,600 villagers of Chomaklou, only about 360 survived the death marches. The bodies of the dead littered the path in the heart of the desert and were eaten by the animals. Dicranouhi and her only two surviving relatives reached the refugee camps, where they barely lived on a handful of flour or grains. For years they wandered from one camp to the next, often harassed by the Turks. Her grandmother carried Dicranouhi along the dusty roads, before she retraced her steps to pick up and carry her son.

“Throughout our journeys, my uncle always carried two things – his flute (ghaval in Turkish) and is razor for shaving. Just then he took out his flute and, while crying, alternately sang and played his flute. The song went like this (in Turkish),

 “Atmah, annam benee, budaglara, annam yanar beneem derdeemeh.

Keem seler yan maz beneem derdeemeh.”

“Dearest mother don’t leave me in these mountains without someone to care for me. You, my precious mother, it is only you who cares for me…”

***

 

The third generation

Shaun Alexanian’s son, Shant, is 18 years old and is finishing his last year of high school. He feels extremely involved in the community, though he worries about losing his cultural identity. “In the way I was brought up it’s my responsibility to make sure that the communities continue to grow and don’t dissociate [or disappear] into American culture.” He worries that many members of the community no longer read and write Armenian and sometimes even have difficulty speaking the language fluently. He says those who are not very involved become detached and the genocide becomes a monotonous theme. For the rest, fighting for recognition becomes a goal.

Shant is a member of the Armenian Youth Federation, of the Armenian Revolutionaty Federation as well as of the Armenian National Committee of America. Every year since he was in 6^th grade, he marches along with the rest of his family in front of the Turkish consulate in Chicago. This year, he hopes to be able to go to the bigger protest march in New York. “I don’t think there is any actual political impact,” he says about their demonstrations. “But we do get our name out there and there are some people who ask questions as they walk by. So even if it serves as nothing more than a tool to open people’s eyes, it’s served a purpose.” Someday, he hopes Armenians will obtain international recognition for their past as well as reparation for the lands and the homes they lost.

***

Dicranouhi escaped to Lebanon with her grandmother in 1922. At the age of 17, she married a cousin almost twice her age, who had escaped to the U.S. Today, less than a year after her death, one of her grandsons, Gary Rejebian, is a third generation Armenian living in Chicago. He says she hardly ever spoke of the horrors she witnessed, where the men were hanged and beheaded and the women threw their infants into the river rather than watch them die of starvation in the desert. The journals are the only testimony he has of her past. “I cling to my heritage and culture so tenaciously because all my life I have known this woman who faced incredible hardship with dignity and grace and I have such incredible respect and admiration for her character,” he says. “She survived the genocide with her soul intact.” Rejebian tries to keep the language and culture alive with his two sons, but he realizes that at some point hanging on to one’s ethnicity becomes a matter of personal choice. “We take all that for granted and it never gets first priority,” he says of the difficulties juggling his children’s interests with their cultural heritage. “So all of a sudden 1700 years of history and culture go down the drain for a swim meet or a birthday party.”

***

 

At school, Shant teaches his classmates about Armenia and works with his teachers to raise awareness about the first genocide of the 20^th century. His great-grandmother, who survived the genocide as a little girl in the weather-beaten mountains of northeastern Turkey, passed away a few years ago. “The stories live on through the youth and through our parents,” he says.

Shant’s grandfather, Krikor Mirijanian, will also always remember his own grandmother, who preferred to drown her sorrows in a pool of silence. But she could not forget those months in the mountains. Sometimes, when he was little, she used to sit in front of the window, as the dusk gathered in Istanbul and the darkness crept into the corners of the room. And she would sing a very sad song and cry. Mirijanian remembers a single word from the song—Hayrenik. My country.