Kurdish Accounts of the Armenian Genocide

The following interviews with Kurds in Anatolia were conducted for the documentary film “The Armenian Genocide,” directed and produced by Emmy Award-winning, producer Andrew Goldberg of Two Cats Productions (www.twocatstv.com).

The documentary featured short segments of some of these interviews and excerpts later appeared for the first time in their entirety in the Armenian Weekly (www.armenianweekly.com).

Given the rare insight these interviews offer into the perspective of present day Kurds living on the lands Armenians were murdered and forced from during the Genocide, the Haytoug editorial team felt it was important to reprint for our readers segments of the feature as originally published in the Armenian Weekly.

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Interviewee: Emin

Question: What have your parents told you regarding the Armenian genocide?

My father and my mother talked about it. For instance, there was Menushehr. The Muslims had married her. She was saying it wasn’t simply killing, it was genocide. They killed about 1.5 million Armenians.

Menushehr told me that, later, she became Christian again; she had become Muslim out of fear and bore three children. The ones who lived in the Mazidare and Dairik regions were all Armenians. They were the largest population in the area. They were killed and thrown in mass graves. People used to go, myself too, to scavenge for gold among their bones, for gold-plated teeth.

I mean, when old people and our parents talk about it, they tell the facts. Half a million Assyrians and 1.5 million Armenians were lost or killed at that time. That is what I can tell you.

Question: How old were you when you were looking for golden teeth in the mass graves?

I was eight, nine. I was in school. In 1938, we would search the bones for gold. That is what I have seen. What my parents were talking about was genocide: genocide of Armenians. The government ordered the genocide and the Mullahs made decrees in the mosques approving the killing of the Christians, and so, besides the army, the civilians also did the killing. This is according to my father and people of his time. I mean, it is what they were saying.

I mentioned the ones who became Muslim, they became Muslims out of fear. And the Muslims would marry them. Not the men, the women.

Menushehr was my friend. She used to tell me about the genocide. Said, they would chain people in groups called “Armenian chains.” Twenty to thirty per group, they would blindfold them and shoot them into mass graves.

Of course if the government finds out it will put us in trouble. It is doing it to us Kurds anyway. We are not historians but what we know cannot be denied: There was a genocide on them [Armenians]. Like the mass killing in Halabja [referring to the gassing of Kurds in Iraq by Saddam Hussein’s regime]. Can anyone deny the fact? With the chemical attack 5,000 were killed in a second. This is a genocide.

They didn’t use chemicals but used guns and swords. The woman [Menoshehr] told me they would throw the babies up in the air and let them fall onto their swords. The swords would pierce them or cut them in half. It was savagery. I haven’t seen it with my eyes but we have been told.

Question: Will Turkey admit to the Armenian genocide?

A couple of days ago I listened to the Europeans [on the news]. They said the Turks and the Kurds too, not just the Turks, because the Kurds also had a part in the genocide, should ask for apologies from the Armenians. And that is fair. We should ask for apologies.

I will tell you what my father told me (my father is dead now). He was involved in it; he killed Armenians. He participated in the genocide. In our region we had 10 to 15 Armenian villages. They either became Muslims or were killed.

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Interviewee: Heleem

Question: What have your mother, grandmother told you regarding the genocide?

My grandfather talked about our neighbors who had seen terrible times. There was a village close to ours called Akrak. An Armenian village. They take them [the villagers] to another village called Chukhrek and slaughter them all and throw them in a grave. A boy had survived; his throat had a scar from the knife. He said, “They came and took us in the night, they started slaughtering us and throwing the bodies on top of each other. I slipped from underneath the pile.”

He said, “I made it back home. My grandmother, who was 70 years old, was left behind, asked who I was. I told her it is me, Grandma. She said ‘How did you survive?’ I said, ‘I just did, I don’t know how.’”
I mean, there are so many situations. I met a woman in Sultan Sheikhmoose, a village in Mazidare. She was Armenian in origin but turned Muslim. She said, Lad, we didn’t know a word of a Muslim verse, we submitted to Islam but they still killed a lot of us. The killing had nothing to do with faith, they killed us because we were smarter, more knowledgeable, good businessmen, civilized.

Because of that they were seen as a potential danger and so were subjected to genocide.

They made decrees that killing Armenians was a duty, killing them was a virtue, that if you kill an X number of Armenians, the doors of hell will become the door of Heaven. Due to their naivete and ignorance, people started killing the Armenians, took their young girls and made them their wives, took their belongings. Meanwhile, the poor Armenians were telling them, “Don’t do it, today it’s our turn, tomorrow will be yours.”

Question: Do you see Turkey admitting to or doing something about the genocide?

They deny it. They say they [the Armenians] have done it. That is strange. Even a child can tell you they are being dishonest. It is not something you can hide. The Armenians lived here and they are still here.

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Interviewee: Mehmet

All the orchids and gardens in Dairike, the marble homes, all belonged to the Armenians. The orchids, the olive farms, etc. They left and now it is in our hands. It is their land and their property. They are now out in Istanbul, in Europe or Damascus and we are feeding on their property. I am sure they will find proof of ownership in the old records. There is a village, I forgot the name, Khanoke, the land there all belongs to them but now other villagers are using it. They weren’t harming anyone, but the government started killing them. There is a gorge called “Christian Gorge.” It is a deep gorge, where part of the genocide took place. They killed the people and threw them in the gorge. Right on those mountains, they would grab small kids, 6 months old, 1 year-olds, they would grab their arm and throw them into the gorge. Meanwhile they [the Turks] deny doing that.

Question: Throwing people like that to their death is barbaric. Tell us more about their monstrosity.

The monstrosity was committed by the government. When the republic was established they began doing it. They were also committing it during the Ottoman times. The genocide wasn’t only here. It was all over the country, or wherever there were Armenians.

Question: What does the Turkish government say about the genocide, and are they telling the truth?

It says it’s a lie and there is no such a thing. How could they deny such a fact, I don’t know. The whole world is aware of it. To deny it is viscous in itself. They killed the Kurds and the Yezidis, too, not just the Armenians. They are barbarians.

Question: It has been nearly 100 years since the genocide. How do you feel about it or when you remember it now?

[He cries.] I am still under the grievance. The stuff our grandfather told us, I am still hurt by it. Where is humanity? When you ask me these questions my inside is shaking. We were like brothers. Our parents and grandparents were the same. We had no differences and we had the same enemy. What else can I say?

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Interviewee: Farqin

Many situations like that and a lot of mass killings took place at that time. The village we visited belonged to Christians. There were 300 Christian households. When I was young, I would go to the village, about 25 years ago. There were brass works done there. They were making pots and pans from brass. It used to be the work of the Christians. There were 300 families. They all moved out and escaped in one night. They say that they put their valuables in pots and buried them in the ground. They told the Kurds, We trust you with our homes and property. If we return give them back to us. If we don’t return then keep everything. My grandmother Aysha would tell us they didn’t believe the Christians could move out so swiftly. In the morning, we saw that the village was empty. She said they sat there and cried. Why did they leave? Why was there a genocide? Who did it? Did the republic do it? It happened before the republic was formed. They [the army] told the clerics to tell the masses that whoever kills the Christians will go to heaven.

Question: But the government policy at that time was to kill the boys and spare the girls.

It was like that. They had two boys and one girl. There were also rumors that there was an epidemic that killed them, but in reality, as you said, the boys were killed and the girls were saved for marriage. When they would capture them in groups and kill them the way the Nazis killed the Jews in the concentration camps, they would tie them up with ropes, take them to Zere and kill them en masse. The attractive women were spared. The rest were killed.

Question: What does the Turkish government say about the genocide, and are they telling the truth?

My grandmother is proof. Not only Turkey but if a hundred other nations deny it, I wouldn’t believe them. Go see Capson Valley. How could I believe the government? Go ask anyone in our district and they will tell you about the genocide of the Christians.