PREVIOUSLY we left Daniel dragging his mum after being beaten

FROM DANIEL’S DIARY.

34- Forty days in the quarry.

From Marash the people were driven into the Syrian desert, where places like Rakka, Mashench and Der-Zor (Syria) on the Euphrates became great centers of great massacres. Mother and I did quite get to one of those centers of massacre.

Those who could walk kept going on, but about 300 of us the old, sick people and children were stationed in a stone quarry in the outskirts of Aintab. So far our stations had been open spaces on top of hills and with us had been many able-bodied people. Now, we were inside the caves of the quarry where the space was damp and limited and sheltered from the sun and most of the people were sick or invalids unable to move from their places. In a way this was the most unhealthy station we had had so far.

We all slept on the moist ground without bedding and cover. The dead and the dying were thrown to one side of the cave, unburied while the rest waited for death to relieve them from hunger and suffering.

We were completely isolated from the rest of the world. There was a well in the quarry where we got our drinking water. As to food, occasionally some people (American missionaries or local Armenians) when they could get permissions would bring some bread for us, but had to throw the bread down to us. They were not permitted to come down into the cave and we were not allowed to go out. The main reasons must have been the following:

First, we were so hungry and brutalized that we might assault even our benefactors for food.

Second, we were full of vermin and all sorts of microbes and we could easily infect them and start an epidemic in the city.

As the bread was thrown down people who had some strength grabbed it in the air, while children, including myself would look for crumbs in the soil. We threw bits of cod in our mouths and swallowed them hoping that there were crumbs of bread in them. We lived in complete filth, with swarms of vermin on us, overwhelmed by the odor of the unburied dead and dying.

Just imagine about 200 human beings crowded in a single cave without toilets or any hygienic facilities, with some 50 or 100 corpses smelling unburied for a month in the intense heat of July!

35- How I stole sour grapes.

The caves in the quarry we lived in, were about 20 meters below the ground surface and had a simple narrow entrance where two gendarmes were posted to prevent all unauthorized entry or exit.

The season of the year must have been July, because we had sour grapes in the vineyards just outside the quarry. (This is the only way I can tell the season of the year, which must have been 1916).

After dusk, I would watch the gendarmes very carefully and when they were preoccupied or looking the other way or half in slumber, I would slip out of the quarry, into the vineyards and return with some sour grapes. I would then exchange part of my sour grapes with bread which some people who were glad to give me some grapes for their sick or dying loved ones. I have never considered myself smart but it seems that exceptional circumstances can call out unsuspected qualities in people.

I am angry…Very angry to say the least. Angry at man’s inhumanity to man and most of all angry at how the world could have watched and let it happen. I know the world in 1915 was at war but that is not an excuse and similar atrocities have happened since with other nations and are happening now, as we speak. I sat down not knowing what to write, so to refresh my memory, I googled what Turkish President Recep Erdogan had to say on the centenial of the Genocide ‘…we don’t carry a stain or a shadow like genocide…’ This incredible comment left me angrier. Truth and reconciliation are powerful forces when it comes to revealing the violence of one set of people towards another, in the hope of resolving past conflicts. Daniel’s diary is one eyewitness account and there are thousands of others. Yes, they are not government reports but they are proof against the historical revisionism and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ottomans against the ethnic Armenians living in their empire. The Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century and it is the only one not fully recognized as such. We have been living with the emotional burden for three generations and I believe we deserve to sit face to face with the Turks with the hope of bringing peace of mind, if not compensation and closure. Other nations like the Jews, the Rwandans and the Cambodians have managed some kind of resolution but then again what will closure mean for the Armenians?

FROM DANIEL’S DIARY.

36- How we left the Aintab quarry.

It must have been around August 1916, when orders came to evacuate the quarry. By that time our numbers must have been reduced from 300 to about 80 who could still be counted as living persons. In the 40 days we stayed there about 125 must have died. 80 taken out and sent on to Der-Zor (Syria) about 15 left there half dead or dying as we cleared out and abandoned the place.

Of the 80 left, about 30 were children below 8 who had no parents. These were taken to the town to be distributed among Moslem families. The rest about 50 of them, old and sick people were thrown into carts and carried away in the direction of Der-Zor, the greater slaughter house of Armenians.

Mother was sick and had to go into the cart but she and I agreed I would say I had no parents so that I might go to Aintab and have a chance to survive the deportation. Thus we were deported for the second time.

At this time I was 7 years old and from there on I was entirely on my own. There wasn’t even a townsfolk from whom I could ask for advice, I had to make my own decisions and manage to survive in a hostile country. A child of 7, all alone, facing a hostile population which itself was suffering from a severe famine.

To be continued..
Menak Parov…See you next Wednesday.