In that evening of April 1915, my father Manouk Gasparian had lost his usual joyful temper, and at the dining table he explained to my mother Nazeli with a perceptible anxiety what a serious danger was threatening the entire Armenian population. That day, during the meeting that had taken place at the prelacy, the order of the Turkish government was presented, according to which, it was required from all the Armenians to hand over their guns of all types to the government, as a sign of loyalty. Otherwise the State was going to resort to severe measures.
Considering that the Armenians had no plans of uprising, and their only purpose was self-defense, the meeting concluded that the delivery of the arms was preferable to bloodshed. There were opponents of this point of view, who warned that Turkish promises weren't reliable and that it was one of the usual massacres that was being prepared for Armenians and for that reason the delivery of the arms would be a fatal mistake. But the majority decided to remain "wise".
It was the first time, that my father was talking with me as if I were an adult, even though I was barely nine year old, but his elder son. He explained to me the gravity of the situation and the absolute necessity of keeping secrets. Then we took a shoval, a pickaxe and light with us and went to the house next to ours, which belonged to the son of my father's uncle, who had left Gurin many years ago. We dag the soil of the cellar and buried jewelry, money, two small pistols and precious objects. A few days later, we handed over most of the arms that we possessed to the government, much like all the other Armenians. But it's only after the death of my father that I realized, why he had shared all these secrets with me.
It was a few days later that the authorities arrested alltogether, all the notable Armenians and jailed them with groundless accusations. In the first group were my both uncles, Grigor and Gabriel Gasparian, as well as the two uncles of my mother, Hambardzoum and Yenovq Kochounians. Given the fact that my father was confined to bed, they did not take him away that day.
I remember well that, at the end of April 1915, or in May, returning from our school of the Mother Church, we, the pupils, lingered in front of the prison and watched it and the surroundings. Sometimes we could see the transfer of some of our relatives from one side of the prison to the other. Terrified, we noticed that they were ferociously tortured.
One day, the news was spread that, the prisoners were going to be transfered to Sepastia(Sivas) for standing a trial. That afternoon again, returning from school, a large number of students and people gathered opposite to the prison and we were waiting for the departure of the prisoners. Suddenly they started shouting from above, "flood! flood!". Two minutes had barely passed and the crowd disappeared, all the people started climbing on the roofs, trees and wherever they could, to save their own lives. I reached the window of the half completed mosque building, and then climbed on a tree situated in the courtyard of the Turkish school. The flood waters rose and filled little by little the first street of the prison and the shops on both sides, that were almost totally swept away by the flood waters. The lower floor of the governmental building and the prison were in the same way flooded and the policemen as well as the prisoners escaped to save their lives. Later it turned out that my uncle Grigor had saved a high-ranking Turkish official of drowning, and that evening when he came home, he hoped naively that, because of his benevolent act, he wouldn't be arrested any more.
One or two hours later, although the flood had ceased, it was still impossible to return home via the stone bridge. I came down of the tree and passed to our quarter, Gharatepe, from the side of Khasbagh.
That night and the following few days, if the Armenians were not happy, at least they deluded themselves with the illusion, that flood was God's punishment to bring Turks to their senses and that henceforth the executioners would not bother the Armenian population. This illusion did not last long. All the notables who had escaped from prison on the day of the flood, were chained up and deported without trial by the Turkish executioners, upon the order of the Turkish despotes, as it turned out later.
Immediately after having annihilated that first group, all Armenian men who could have opposed some kind of resistance to the more inhumane and horrible crimes to come, were arrested with the same savagery and all of them were "taken to Sepastia(Sivas) for trial" with the same usual, official pretext.
Then it was the turn of ill men to be arrested. An afternoon, two gendarmes took my ill father to the hall of the school of the Mother Church, which was seized by the government and was used as a prison. Henceforth the usual prisons were too small for mass arrests. I immediately contacted the bashkatip(main secretary) Shukri Efendi, who was a high-ranking civil servant and was considered to be a friend of the Gasparian family, and kindly asked him for he intercede on my father's behalf and get my ill father freed. He, who was educated thanks to the financial support of the Gasparians, who had reached a governmental position, and a high rank, refused to intercede on his behalf in any fashion. Then I contacted another (Turkish) friend of my father, who was equally a high-ranking civil servant, who immediately taking me with him, went to the prison and ordered that they free the ill man. It was with a big joy that we took my father and brought him home.
They did not bother my father in Gurin any more, but a short time later, they started sending caravan after caravan, by force all the remaining Armenians, without exception, to the Arabian deserts, to the certain starvation, illness, death and destruction. Two caravans had already left before us; ours was the third one, probably consisted of 400-500 people, and except my ill father, there was no adult male; all were women, children, girls and teenagers below the age of 15. That day, the weather was pleasant, the sun shining, the vineyards and gardens were all green, the entire nature smelled like life and cheerfulness, but the Turkish State had decided to deprive us of our rights.
People took with them all of their possessions they could, and all that was essential: money, food, clothes, light beds, transportation animals, etc. We had two horses, two donkeys and a purebred cow, all of which were used to transport us and our belongings. Every family, according to its financial abilities, tried to buy transportation means, but all those means were insufficient, especially that people were not prepared and were unexperienced for such a painful and bloody "journey" and deportation.
It's natural that the biggest portion of our furnitures, utensils and tools remained at home, of which we locked the door and handed over the keys to the representative of the government. It was strange but, there were still people, who had still faith and confidence in the criminal-minded State that had uprooted, robbed and cast us into despair and death. They still hoped that the government would keep our houses and properties safe until our return. They did not want to understand the devilish plan aimed at annihilating the Armenians from the Turkish land, at annihilating an entire nation in one go. It was difficult to believe that creatures having a human appearance could draw up such monstruous plans in their minds and execute them even on innocent children, unprotected women and elderly people. They still believed in the "kindness" and "fraternity" of the Turks.
The wife of my uncle Gabriel, Brabion(born Magarian) was part of our caravan with her six sons. The family of my uncle Grigor left with the second caravan mainly consisted of rich families. In exchange of a special payment, ransom, the government promised them special "protection". My father had considered more clever to travel with ordinary people.
It took 3 to 4 days for our caravan to reach Albistan, situated 40 miles south of Gurin. After having stayed a few days outside the city on an open plain, they put us on the road to Marash, and we started coming across girls, women and children kidnapped from the second caravan, as well as merchandises, loaded mules that were seized by Turkish bandits and were returning to Gurin.
Our caravan was moving slowly. We had barely traveled 15 to 20 miles in two days, when in the evening, near a stream, we stopped to spend the night. Right at the sunset Turkish bandits started attacking us from surrounding villages. My father ordered me to bring the grazing mules near him. I had barely reached one of our mules that I heard a gunshot and noticed that a Turk with a baton was advancing in my direction. I immediately ran back and dove in the stream and hid under reeds. I stayed there 4 to 5 hours. From where I hid I could hear the cries and entreaties of Armenian girls and women, addressed at the Turks kidnapping them. Transfixed, I was afraid to move and say a word. My head was full of all sorts of terrifying images.
It was past midnight, when people's voices and movements ceased. Fearfully, silent, I came out from under the reeds and started to walk towards our camp. It was a moonlit night. I noticed that, a bit further there were moving people. I took heart a bit and no sooner had I entered that group of people, one of the women started calling loudly, "Nazeli! Nazeli! Your son is here". My parents had thought that, like many others, I was also kidnapped by the bandits.
That night, the bandits took all the mules, most of the merchandises, girls, young women, teenage boys...All of us were exhausted, but the effect of savage actions and the suffering was so intense that, it was impossible to sleep. As soon as it got light, the bandits returned to pillage again, what they had not seen in the night and our "guard" gendarmes did nothing to prevent the ongoing crimes.
Henceforth people refused to go forward and asked for returning to Albistan. The gendarmes were unable to maintain the order and people started to run away towards Albistan in small groups. All night long and until midday the next day, there were people arriving. The sons of my uncles, Mihran, Karapet, Yervand, and my brother Avetis and I arrived in Albistan in the evening, and all night long we heard about the tortures that those returning had been subjected to, and their noise. In the chaos of the escape, and especially in the darkness of the night, many people lost each other and families were broken up. In the morning we started looking for the other members of our family. We found my mother and the wife of my uncle with her two babies. It turned out that, my father had not come back yet. Mihran and I took to the road to look for him. No sooner had we reached the limit of the town than we saw my father with my sister Tagouhi in his arms and holding the hand of my uncle's son, the little Khoren, slowly walking in a bent position. Our happiness was boundless, but we also noticed that my father had barely enough energy to move.
Our caravan stayed in Albistan 2-3 weeks. My father who was already ill and, unable to endure the moral and physical tortures, died in Albistan and was buried in an unknown place. Now I do not remember any more how my mother endured that terrible misfortune.
There was nothing left with the people which could be robbed and it was as if the governement was hurrying to take us to the Arabian deserts, in order to achieve its monstruous plan as quickly as possible. Consequently, the gendarmes did not allow that the bandits disturb the advance of our caravan. But the hunger, diseases and especially the lack of water slowed down a lot our travel.
We passed through heroic Zeytoun, but it was already "widowed" and "mourning". The Turkish despotic government had removed the braves and deported the unprotected population from its nest. We reached Ayntab via Marash, where there were already numerous Gurunians who had arrived with the previous caravans. Here, the government first separated all the families having sons above the age of 11 and deported them to more distant places with a severer climate and deadlier conditions. As for the families having younger sons, the government sent them to closer regions, to assimilate them by Islamizing. It was here that they separated the family of my uncle Gabriel from us and sent to Deir el Zor, and as far as I know, Yenovq Kochounian's family was in that same group. There are survivors from the Kochounian family, but my uncle's family completely disappeared.
With a few other families, we were sent to the village of Arel, which is located at 15 miles from Ayntab in an eastward direction. Malaria and other diseases, as well as starvation and the indescribable difficulties of the deportation were causing numerous victims every day. In the streets or in cottages, all the deportees were having a miserable and hard life. It's here that my mother deceased. That night a few times, in her delirium due to fever, she advised me to do good things, cure patients, and take care of them...It looked like she had in mind my father's plan of sending me to the Beirut University to study medicine. It was strange that, after so many ill-treatments by the Turks, she did not urge revenge on me, or to seek blood against blood, but instead, she recommended education and good acts.
In the morning, the village police transfered us - my three year old sister Tagouhi, my seven year old brother Avetis and me, nine year old Sargis- to the police station. We never knew what happened to our mother's body in that unfamiliar village.
All three of us stayed in the village of Arel, in Khaliloghlu Mehmet Kahya's house, as shepherds until the beginning of 1919, when my uncle's son Vartan came, found us and took to Ayntab. In that city, there was a fair number of Gurunians here and there, but nobody was willing to return to Gurin.
In those days, Levon, whose brother was my classmate before the deportations, came from Gurin to Ayntab. Those two brothers had come from Varna(Bulgaria) during the last years and lived in the former house of Yenovq Kochounian, in Gharatepe, near our house. Levon had come to seek her sister, who was at that time married with Avetis Khanzatian. In the spring of 1919, during the armistice period, those three and us -four persons-, took to the road after a lot of difficulties, to travel from Ayntab to Gurin via Marash, and Albistan.
It was in an afternoon, around four o'clock that we reached the hill dominating Gurin. We contemplated the quarters, streets, houses, the river that were familiar to us, from Shoughoul to Tsakhtsor. The beautiful town of gardens, Gurin, which used to "smile" with an invigorating mellowness, like a huge bunch of flowers, with its fruit trees in blossom, during this awakening season of Spring, had ceased to exist. The old, joyful, and beautiful Gurin did not exist any more. Most of the unoccupied houses belonging to Armenians having been destroyed, the trees of the gardens cut down, the town had taken a dreary appearance, almost an appearance of death. The little lake that was created as a consequence of the flood of 1915, could still be seen beyond the stone bridge, upwards, and on the main street of the market. None of the shops was rebuilt. The ruins caused by the flood remained intact.
When I returned from deportation, I looked very sad and distressed. I was like a person accompanying his loved one to the cemetory. I was disturbed and sad at heart to the point of crying. Those feelings were stemming from the depth of the huge and impossible to appease pain and sorrow of the Big Catastrophy.
That evening and during the next few days, we were hosted in Levon's house. The next day, early in the morning, I ran to our house, that was occupied by an immigrant Turkish woman, who had come from Kemakh with her two children. I told her, that house was ours and we wanted her to leave. In these days, although there was no allied soldiers north of Marash, towards Albistan and Gurin, the Turks had lost their prior pride and tried to win our hearts. The reason of that was not the willingness to expiate the crimes they had committed, or to ease their consciences, but simply to lessen and avoid the punishment that they thought, was going to be inflicted to them by the allied forces. Even the Turks did not have any idea or expectation regarding the future betrayal of our "Big Allies", at least at that time.
Without any objection, the Turkish immigrant relocated with her two children to the ground floor of our house, while we installed ourselves on the upper floor. The best Armenian houses were occupied by Turkish immigrants, but the majority of the houses left by Armenians was destroyed and the timbers used as combustible. The gardens were in the same pathetic state.
It was during that period that Tanta's son, Karapet came back to Gurin, who had stayed in Sivas during the deportation years, as a tailor. He convinced us for we go to Sivas and enter the American aid organization's orphanage, so that we get education. I don't think that the time we stayed in Gurin exceeded 4 to 5 months.
According to the information we obtained, a certain number of Armenians were in Gurin by the summer of 1919, who departed progressively in different directions.
Those Armenians lived in the central parts of the town and we had the chance to see them, but if there were others, who lived in distant quarters like Eoren, Khasbagh and Tsakhtsor, we did not see them. Undoubtedly, there were many Armenian children living in Turkish families, the youngest of whom weren't even aware that they were Armenians, and we were not in a position to search and verify that.
The emptiness of a town deprived of its vitality was terrible, especially for us who lived in the terror of the past and of an uncertain future.
Sargis M. Gasparian