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Part 1
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12 | 13
War—and the Death March
Story of an Armenian Girl (Part three)
by Serpouhi Tavoukdjian
And then there dawned a day! Like a thunderbolt from a clear,
blue, sunny sky came Turkey's entrance into the World War as an
ally of Germany, and the official declaration from the
government at Constantinople that she would now entirely clear
her possessions of that hated Christian race, the Armenians.
The first we knew of trouble was when a proclamation was made
by the town crier in the streets of Ovajik, calling all the
chief men of the town to meet in the schoolhouse. When they
arrived there, they were received by Turkish officers, who told
them of the declaration of war, and announced that all
able-bodied men between ages of twenty and forty-five years were
to be mustered into the Turkish army for immediate service. They
were also told that their families would have four days-and only
four-to prepare clothes and food for a long journey. The
soldiers made them understand that this would be a final
leave-taking of home-a final parting from loved ones. Then the
men were beaten by the Turks as proof of their servitude, after
which they were allowed twenty-four hours of freedom to make ay
necessary arrangements and take leave of their families.
My father was one of those called to the schoolhouse. When he
came home and told us that startling news, we were very sad and
bewildered, and hardly knew what to do. But we did know that we
were in the hands of a ruthless foe, and could expect no mercy.
The Jews were not forced to leave their homes as we were.
Ishmael and Isaac were half brothers, you remember, and the
relationship is still respected.
The time came for father to leave us. It was heartbreaking.
He gathered us in our cozy living room for a last prayer
together. Earnestly he pleaded with the all-wise and loving
heavenly Father to watch over his dear ones and spare their
lives if it were his will, but above all else to keep them true
and faithful to Him and to the right, come what might.
And we, while we could not speak for tears, breathed a prayer
for him, and begged for his protection as he went out to the
battle front. He said a tender farewell to each of us, and dried
our tears, reminding us that if we did not meet again in this
world, we must gather as a united family in the earth made new.
There was not time for more. We all followed him to the door,
and watched while he mounted a horse and rode away to the
Turkish barracks. We were alone! He was gone!
I was only a little girl ten years old, but how vividly I
remember those four sad days of preparation. My mother was ill
from grief and sorrow, and my sister sewed frantically on
garments which we would wear on our long journey. Into the seams
of the wide bloomers we were to wear they sewed money and our
few precious pieces of jewelry, which might be bartered along
the wayside for food when the little supply we could carry was
gone.
The Turkish soldiers, and also civilians, were going through
Armenian homes, ostensibly searching for firearms and weapons
and evidences of rebellion against the government, but really
they were robbing us of whatever they wished to take. They
carried many bolts of rich silks and cloth out of my father's
store before our eyes, and they also took the stock and wrecked
the toy store of my brother Lazarus, some distance away from our
home. This father had given him on his recent eighteenth
birthday, so that he might have his own business.
What should we take with us? Frantically we ran about the
dear, familiar rooms we were soon to leave. Only that which we
could carry in our hands would be allowed. What would be most
valuable? Should we take this, and leave that? No! No! Here was
something that really must go! In the last hours my sister made
a small tent of light, waterproof cloth. My brother Lazarus
rolled this, and when we began our long march he strapped in to
his back. Arasig and I made a careful selection of toys to be
taken, and packed them over and over again, but at the last
moment they were all left.
The four days of grace were gone! We dressed ourselves in
double clothes. I think my mother wore even three clothes. We
wrapped as much valuable good around our bodies as we dared. And
each of us carried as large a bundle as we could manage. Our
food was made ready and packed. All was confusion.
The came the last hour! The last moment! The Turkish soldiers
on horses, with their guns and long knives ready for business,
told us we must start, and saw that we started! Where? We did
not know, and we dared not question. There was hardly time for a
farewell look at the dearly loved home. Frightened, sorrowful,
bewildered, we were driven out and joined hundreds, thousands of
our countrymen who were as frightened, as sorrowful, as
bewildered as ourselves.
Because we had money to pay our way, the Turks allowed us and
other who had money, to make the first lap of this dread journey
by train. In a Pullman? In a day coach? No, indeed. We were
herded into side-entrance box cars. So many were packed into
each car, however, that there was hardly room to sit down. They
were very particular that we have no comfort, but we were glad
for even this concession, as my mother was hardly able to walk.
During that first night, the train stopped at a station, and
the doors of our car were opened. Somehow-we do not know how it
could happen, but it did-most of our bundles were stolen. I had
left only a little baby doll and a fork which I had in my hands.
These I carried all through that long, long march to its end.
I remember particularly that we passed through the cities of
Eskishehr and Konieh on the train, though the soldiers compelled
us to walk some of the way between.
But train travel even in box cars was expensive. The Turkish
soldiers cane and searched us for valuables. They looked eve in
our hair, and took whatever they found. So at last when we came
to Adana our money was gone, and we were forced to join the
hundred of thousand of Armenians who were walking, walking,
walking! We did not march in one great company. The route we
were to follow was marked out by the Turks, then we were divided
into groups of perhaps a thousand persons. Each group had a
strong mounted guard. And group by group we were urged forward
at the point of knives and guns. Where? Oh, yes, we knew now.
Our persecutors took please in telling us that we were being
driven to the Arabian Desert, where all who did no die along the
way would be killed. The Armenian race was to be exterminated
for all time.
Only God in heaven, who looked down upon that pitiful death
march, and permitted it, we are sure, for some good purpose,
knows how far we walked. Day and night, with little or no rest,
we were kept moving. We also had very little to eat now, and
were suffering form hunger and thirst as well as from fatigue.
Instead of permitting us to walk in the road, which was fairly
smooth, the soldiers forced us to keep to the side of the
highway, where it was rough and stony, and the path very narrow.
Uphill, downhill! It seemed that there was no pity or humanity I
the hearts of our captors.
If we passed through Turkish villages, the people would shout
that we were "pigs," and stone us. Neither would they
sell us food nor allow us water to drink from their wells. If we
passed through Armenian villages, where the deportation order
had not yet reached, we were so closely guarded that it was
almost impossible to communicate with those who were our
friends, and would gladly have received our suffering had they
been allowed.
Sometimes we were ordered to rest, but we were no sooner down
on the welcome ground than the order to "march on"
would boom out, and if we did not move promptly, a knife point
or a gun urged us to greater haste. Often our guards beat us
with straps they carried. How we prayed for deliverance or
death!
As we trudged along our weary way, in the daylight hours the
Turkish guards kept close watch of the pretty girls, and when
night came, marked the places where they camped to rest. Then in
the darkness they would slip quietly to where they were sleeping
to carry them away into the hills. Sometimes they would be
released and come creeping back through the gray dawn, pitiful
shamed wrecks of innocent girlhood, only to have the experience
repeated again the next night. Sometimes we never saw them
again. As terrified screams of these helpless victims filled our
ears, our blood ran cold, and we prayed that God would protect
our virtue and save us from their fate. Beauty was nothing to be
desired then. Comely girls blackened their faces and made
themselves as hideous as possible. This ruse saved many.
As the march lengthened, many committed suicide. Mothers went
crazy and threw their children into the river to end their
sufferings.
As we passed through Turkish villages, the men would come out
and look us over. If a girl caught the fancy of one of them, he
would not hesitate to seize her for his harem. But sometimes he
could not succeed in stealing the girl of his choice. Then he
offered money for her. The Turks were willing to buy Armenians
girls for wives, and the girls were often glad for this
opportunity to escape from the almost unspeakable suffering they
were enduring. Also the few coins with which such a bargain was
sealed help to buy a bit of food for the starving family.
One day we stopped to encamp near the town of Bahub, and
while there I went to the bazaar with my sisters. A Turkish
soldier riding by on his horse asked my sister if he could buy
me. My sister said, "No." But he was very persistent.
As we mingled with the crowd, sister said, "Here's a good
chance to run away from him, and get to a tent." But he
must have been watching closely, for he followed us. I ran into
the first tent that was convenient; I did not know whose it was.
But it happened to be my cousin's.
I was crying. I told my cousin the soldier was coming to get
me. She glanced out and saw him. Then she piled a heap of quilts
over me and went outside as though she knew nothing about the
matter. The soldier did not find me, and when he had gone I
again joined my mother and sisters on the long march.
One morning as we were dragging ourselves along the stony
road, we suddenly came ace to face with another army-Arabs on
their way to join Mustafa Kemal Pasha. They wore few clothes and
had long hair hanging to their shoulders. They looked even more
fierce and dangerous than the Turks, and we were afraid of them.
All of us children gathered close to other, and she held tightly
to my hand as they passed down one side of the road and we
stumbled over the ruts and stones up the other side.
Childlike, I stared at these strange men with wild,
frightened eyes, and suddenly one of the caught my other hand
and pulled me way from my mother and started to run, dragging me
along. I began to scream with all my might, and succeeded in
making so much commotion that several of the Armenian men in our
company my mother in pursuit, and I was rescued. Mother dried my
tears and held me close to still the wild beating of my heart
the best she could with the guard hurrying us back into the
exile line. She had been sick when we started, and now she was
growing very weak from lack of food.
This pitiful caravan of despairing human beings, of which we
were a part, stretch out miles and miles over the valleys and
plains and hills and mountains of Turkey and northern Syria. It
was truly a march of death. Hundreds, yes, thousands dropped out
of the line, so weakened by starvation that to take another step
was impossible, and they were left by the roadside to die alone.
The sick and the aged people and the wee children fell also by
the roadside and did not rise again. For when the deportation
orders came to a city or town or hamlet, they were explicit and
detailed. Every Armenian must be ready to leave at a certain
hour of a certain day for an unknown destination. There were no
exceptions. Hunger, thirsty, sickness, death, stalked at our
side, each eager to take its toll of the helpless exiles.
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