Helen survives the 1915 exodus – in her own words
Posted By shirley on January 25, 2010
In 1979 my mother, Azad, interviewed my grandmother regarding her experience in the 1915 deportations in Eastern Turkey. This is the interview translated from Ottoman Turkish by Hande Taylon:
Helen: In 1915 they sent all of them as immigrants, they had to leave their homes and everything.
Azad: What did they say?
Helen: They said, “You have to go. You have to leave your homes and go.” So we left everything and left. They gave us a donkey each. How much can you put on one donkey. They gave us one or two donkeys each.
Azad: They gave each family two donkeys? What can you put on two donkeys? Nothing.
Helen: We put the stuff on the donkeys and walked on the roads. We rode trains. Sometimes we rode camels.
Azad: What did you do for money?
Helen: There was no money. They (the Red Cross was there under Clara Barton helping the Armenians) gave a piece of bread a day to the people who had no money. They gave some soup.
Azad: Oh, good, they gave something.
Helen: Once a day they gave soup.
Azad: What kind of soup?
Helen: What kind of soup?
Azad: (laughs) Could you eat it?
Helen: Yes. I had two children and when we arrived there I had another child. They both died.
Azad: Did you give them names? Did they have names?
Helen: There names were… one of them, the girl’s name was, Rehanuş.
Azad: That’s pretty.
Helen: The boy was born, there were no midwives, Papa delivered him (caught him in the bed) and that one was … unknowingly the child died. Then he died and my father-in-law died also.
Azad: Did they have to emigrate as well? Your father and your mother-in-law?
Helen: We went together.
Azad: Oh, you went together.
Helen: If it weren’t for them we could’ve gotten lost somewhere, because we had no luggage?
Azad: I see, you went slowly. What did your father do?
Helen: My father was in Antep. But then they also sent him away because he was helping the Armenians.
Helen: He was in Berecik. Near Urfa.
Azad: In Syria?
Helen: Near Urfa. Somebody came and looked for a bread maker, a baker. They were going to send the emigrants. So my brother heard this and said, “I will go.”
Azad: Which brother is that?
Helen: Nazar. He said, “I have a father.” The man said, “Where is your father?” Nazar said, “I will take him with me as a bread maker. I will not go alone.” So many people like that applied and he took them and saved twenty people like this. Twenty households..
Azad: You mean, twenty families.
Helen: They stayed there four years, they became partners with this man and made good money.
Azad: I didn’t understand very well, who did they make bread for? For the Turkish government?
Helen: For the people.
Azad: Oh, I thought that they were making bread for the Turks.
Helen: No, for the people of Urfa.
Helen: they wanted industrial work, for three months, he said, “No, I won’t go and register.” They went and had good things, we went and had a very hard time and were miserable.
Azad: And where did your father put his son?
Helen: Who? Oh, my younger brother. My father gave him to somebody and gave them some stuff and said, “I’ll send you money too, you nurse him.” That lady’s husband died or went to military service and the child was left alone. And they wrote to my father and explained the situation and a friend of theirs an Islamic person took the child and brought him to Antep. So we saved him too like that. Then he wanted to bring me too from Damascus. We were in Damascus. Papa was in military. We heard that my father was in Damascus. He sent somebody to bring me. I had a child in my arms. The man came and told me everything and said, “I will bring you as part of my wife’s family.” He could not have sent me. He brought me a head covering. I was going to dress like a Turkish woman to be able to go. They were working on getting me a passport and when the travel arrangements were being made. The son of the ruler was there and asked them if there were any Armenians in the group and they said, “There is one.” So they got very upset and I couldn’t go. Then they took papa to military. I was left with my child in my arms. I had nobody there.
Azad: To Turkish military?
Helen: There were Turks there too (Ottoman Empire, Syria was under Turkish rule).
Azad: I thought that if you were in Damascus, the government was different.
Helen: There are Christian Arabs too. But the Turks are there too. So I wrote to my father and explained the situation. My father sent another man to bring me to him. By that time I have heard that in Hama, Angel’s grandmother, and my sister-in-law and my father-in-law’s family. They are Guleserian. Angel, they are Baronyan. I heard that Kevork , were in Hama. There were men going to Hama and they said, “Let’s go together.” So I went with them and found them. Everybody got off when we were near Hama. I was the only one left. They gave me to a woman who had donkeys and this woman took me to Hama on a donkey. We had nothing. I had the child in my arms and the child’s necessities tied on my back. We came by a cemetery and the woman said, “I will not go in here.” She took me off of the donkey. She said, “I will be afraid to be in a cemetery. You do whatever you will.” I went by myself, I found a shop. I asked the man in the shop, “There is the Baronyan family living here, do you know them?” He said, “Yes, they went to Haleppo.”
Azad: Oohh.
Helen: I said, “There is Kevork Guleserian here.” He said, “Yes, they are here but their place is very far.” Then they locked the door. The child wanted some water, I gave him some water and I went sat by the store. And it got dark, it was evening. Then I saw my father-in-laws (grand)son, he later said that he would never walk the way I was sitting at, he would always go the other way. I lifted my head and saw him, Kevork. I was looking for them. He got very surprised and asked what had happened and I told him everything. He took me, the child was in my arms, he took the load I was carrying and took me to their home.
Azad: That’s good.
Helen: He knocked on the door, they opened the door, a month, or a month and a half. Papa’s brother’s wife was there.
Azad: She was Guleserian.
Helen: She was Guleserian as well. In about a month the child who was in my arms, died. I was devastated. Then papa came and asked, “Where is the boy?” I said, “May your soul live, you’ll have another one.” He was such a nice boy. They had asked to have him, “Give him to us, we’ll raise him up” in Damascus. I would not. How can you give your own child? We stayed in Hama for a while. I got pregnant for you in Hama. They told us that the English are there. People started to leave. The English were sending them. Papa wanted to go. My father had returned to Antep. I wanted to go too. The French helped us to go to Antep by train. And from Haleppo we got in a wagon. We got to Antep. There was nothing. Remember the dress I had on, .. in a picture. I had that dress on me, I had nothing else. There was a tent, I dyed it, and sewed it and put on. Everything was gone.
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