[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 107 (Tuesday, July 20, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1380-E1381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         A GENOCIDE SURVIVOR FROM PIRAN: SARKIS SARYAN'S STORY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 20, 2010

  Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I rise today to memorialize and record a 
courageous story of survival of the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian 
Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulted 
in the death of 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children. As the 
U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau documented at 
the time, it was a campaign of ``race extermination.''
  The campaign to annihilate the Armenian people failed, as illustrated 
by the proud Armenian nation and prosperous diaspora. It is difficult 
if not impossible to find an Armenian family not touched by the 
genocide, and while there are some survivors still with us, it is 
imperative that we record their stories. Through the Armenian Genocide 
Congressional Record Project, I hope to document the harrowing stories 
of the survivors in an effort to preserve their accounts and to help 
educate the Members of Congress now and in the future of the necessity 
of recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
  This is one of those stories:

                  Translated by Levon A. Saryan, Ph.D.

       In January of 2008, I traveled to Beirut to participate in 
     the International Symposium on the Culture of Cilician 
     Armenia, which was held under the sponsorship of His Holiness 
     Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia. One 
     morning, as I took my seat in the meeting hall, I turned 
     around and introduced myself to two women scholars seated 
     behind me, Dr. Verjine Svazlyan and her daughter Knarik 
     Avagyan. Both were among the contingent of academics from 
     Yerevan who were participating in the symposium. As we got to 
     talking (the usual ``where are you from, where are your 
     parents from'' questions that Armenians are so fond of), Dr. 
     Svazlian removed from her briefcase a small book that she had 
     written and opened it to a page containing several 
     photographs. After searching for a moment, she pointed to one 
     of the photos. It was a picture of my father, whose account 
     was one of several hundred that Dr. Svazlian has been 
     collecting over the years. Dr. Svazlyan transcribed my 
     father's story in July 1999 at the Louvre Museum in Paris, 
     when they were both attending the Sixth International 
     Conference of Armenian Linguistics. My father's account was 
     not contained in the small book she showed me, but it is 
     recorded in Armenian in Dr. Svazlyan's major work, Hayots 
     Tseghaspanutiun: Aganades Verabroghneri Vgayutiunneruh 
     (Armenian Genocide: The Testimonies of Eyewitness Survivors), 
     published in Yerevan by the Republic of Armenia National 
     Academy of Sciences in 2000. After returning to Yerevan, 
     Knarik kindly sent me a scan of the relevant pages from this 
     book, enabling me to prepare this translation.
       The village of Piran is located on the southern slopes of 
     the Taurus mountain range, approximately midway between the 
     towns of Palu (to the north) and Diarbekir (to the south). 
     Kharpert is to the west, and Sassoun is to the east. Piran 
     was a relatively small village, with probably less than 1,000 
     inhabitants. It does not appear on most maps. As we will see, 
     it did not escape the fate of other Armenian towns and 
     villages in the region. In 1915, through murder and 
     deportation, Piran was nearly emptied of its Armenian 
     inhabitants.
       I present here an English translation of my father's 
     account as transcribed by Prof. Svazlyan. Some additions and 
     clarifications are noted in brackets. I have also made a few 
     minor factual adjustments based on our personal family 
     knowledge.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       For the most part, the inhabitants of our village were 
     Kurds; there were a few Turks, and the rest were Armenians. 
     Our village was not far from the source of the Tigris River. 
     The Tigris begins at Dzovk Lake; Dzovk is where Nerses 
     Shnorhali was born. Dzovk was one and one-half days away from 
     us. In the spring, the Tigris River flowed so swiftly that it 
     would carry trees with their roots in its current. I have 
     seen how, if the trees became tangled in the river, some 
     swimmers would enter the water and straighten the trunks so 
     that the water could flow unimpeded. Four or five miles from 
     Piran, our village, there was a red rock outcropping, where 
     wild bees made honey which would collect in a hole [in the 
     rock]. Our villagers would go [to this place] with pans to 
     collect the honey, fill their pans, and take it home.
       I was born in 1911. My father's name was Krikor, my uncle's 
     name was Garo, my grandfather, Sarkis. Three months before 
     the Great Catastrophe, I awoke to find myself on my 
     grandmother's back. My father had been taken in handcuffs to 
     the police house. The last time I saw my father he was tied 
     with handcuffs. All of the Armenian men in the village were 
     taken from the prison and driven to the northeast. Later, the 
     Kurds told us that all of them had been killed.
       It was a hot day in the month of July, 1915. The Kurds had 
     come; they were sitting in the shade of a tree watching the 
     proceedings. The command for deportation had arrived and 
     everywhere there was confusion. The Turkish gendarmes were 
     saying to each other: ``Firman geldi, bir giavourn kafa 
     kalmaiachak.'' (Turkish for ``an official

[[Page E1381]]

     command has arrived, not one infidel (Armenian) head shall 
     remain.'')
       Although at that time I was only 4 years old, I remember it 
     well. I did not want to go into exile. Our family was put 
     onto the road before noon. They were taking the road toward 
     the nearby Kurdish village of Kalbin, the one we used when 
     taking our herds to graze. The flocks went, the dust rose and 
     our family went. My mother, my older sister Haygouhi (seven 
     years old), my younger sister Esther (2 years old), and my 
     four-month old brother Haygaz. My little sister and my 
     brother became tired on the road to exile, and began to cry. 
     The gendarme [accompanying the caravan] took Esther and 
     Haygaz and threw them into the Tigris River. My mother fled 
     and my older sister Haygouhi was kidnapped. My father's 
     brother's son was small; they killed his mother with a 
     dagger, and they also killed little Ghevont since his mother 
     would not obey the soldiers. Hermig, one of our neighbors, 
     had escaped from the caravan. She returned to the village and 
     told us what had happened to them.
       I did not go with them. Because I sensed the coming danger 
     I went and hid in our stable. A military policeman came, 
     found me and took hold of me, and placed me on a donkey. I 
     did not want this, and started to cry. I got down from the 
     donkey, and again went and hid myself in the stable. Once 
     more, the military police came and found me, and again they 
     placed me on the donkey. Again I let myself down, and this 
     time I went to the tree where the Kurds were sitting, and 
     mixed with them. They belonged to the Zaza tribe and spoke 
     the Kurmanji dialect; they were our friends and neighbors. 
     Imagine, just at that moment my grandmother came from behind 
     me. She was a folk doctor; she would dry various types of 
     flowers and use them to treat eye diseases, and cure people. 
     People would compensate her for her services with tomatoes, 
     peppers, madzoun (yogurt), and so forth. [Because of this 
     skill, she was allowed to remain in the village.]
       I had a 15-year-old uncle [whose name was Kaloust], who was 
     taken all day for interrogation. It was he who shoed all the 
     horses in our village. Consequently, the Turks needed a 
     craftsman like him in the village. For that reason they 
     allowed him to remain in the village, and I stayed with him. 
     The next year we were Islamized, we became Zaza and Kurmanji, 
     but in the house we spoke Armenian. A mullah came, and my 
     name became Sefer. I, my uncle, and Hovhannes (whose name 
     became Haso) were circumcised. I remember that there was a 
     terrible pain. That part of my body felt like it was on fire. 
     They took that part of my body and dried it in the sun, 
     keeping it as evidence.
       We stayed with the Kurds for four years, until 1919. In 
     those years we would travel by donkey north, south, east, and 
     west, tinning copper pots. My job was to [stoke the fire by] 
     working the bellows. Hovhannes-Haso worked with us. He would 
     pulverize rocks, fill them in the copper pots and mix them 
     with his foot, cleaning the inside of the pot so that the tin 
     would adhere. My uncle would collect old nails which we would 
     warm in a fire until they became soft, and make new nails. 
     One day, in this fashion, we made 1,500 nails.
       Southeast of our village were Kurdish villages named Kalbin 
     and Shekhmalan. I have been to those villages. There was an 
     Islamized Armenian married woman who lived there. I was there 
     one night. I heard some whispering that the Islamized 
     Armenians, because they had been reduced to starvation, had 
     decided to enter the wheat fields at nighttime and steal 
     grain. The grain belonged to them, they had cultivated the 
     wheat in those fields, but the Kurds had taken it. The 
     following day it became apparent that they had taken the 
     grain, since one of their bags had a hole in it and the 
     grain, falling out of the bag, had left a trail.
       East of our village was the Kurdish village of Deiran, 
     where the Kurds lived in conical stables. I went, and saw 
     that the wheat was ripe in the fields around us as we walked 
     to Deiran village. The weather was so hot that the fields 
     behind us ignited and started to burn, but we were not 
     harmed. The Kurds were the losers, since for them this was 
     ill-gotten gain.
       The war was over by 1919. My father's brother Simon had 
     enlisted as a volunteer [gamavor in Armenian] in the Armenian 
     legion of the French Army. The young men trained in Cyprus, 
     and then went to Adana and fought.
       [Simon came to our village and found that I had survived. 
     He wanted to take me to America. First,] we came to 
     Dikranagert [Diarbekir], then Mardin, where there was a 
     railway. There was a fortress on a very high hill. The 
     railroad was down below, in a valley. The train only came 
     once a week, so we went to the station a day early and slept 
     there, waiting for the train.
       Many Armenians were going to Aleppo and we, with them, were 
     also going to Aleppo. There was nothing to eat, and I was ill 
     with a strong fever. My Uncle Simon somehow got me into the 
     railway wagon, so that I could reach Aleppo quickly. From one 
     side the French soldiers were pulling me onto the train, 
     while on the other side the Turkish soldiers were trying to 
     pull me off. Simon was unable to come with me, but he gave me 
     his volunteer's cap. This was the Berlin-Baghdad railway that 
     brought us to Aleppo. When I reached Aleppo, I put the cap on 
     my head, and the Armenian volunteers found me and took [care 
     of] me. We had a relative named Baghdadian, who had reached 
     Aleppo with his young son, but a Turk had struck him in the 
     head and blinded him. He took me in and kept me until my 
     uncle arrived the following week. Since my uncle was a 
     volunteer, he could travel for free. First he returned to 
     America, and in 1921 he sent me money and I also came to 
     America.
       I became a chemist. Later, I went to Befit to study 
     Armenian at the Jemaran [College Armenien]. There, my 
     teachers were Levon Shant, Nigol Aghbalian, and others. We 
     learned to sing in Gananchian's chorus. There I met Armine 
     [Manoukian, my future wife]. Later, she came to America. Now 
     we have two sons and two daughters. One son is a physician 
     and the other is a biochemist. Our daughters work in the 
     financial industry. We have eight grandchildren. The Turks 
     reduced our numbers, but we increased them.
       I am also a writer and I study the relationship of Armenian 
     to other sister Indo-European languages. I have published a 
     book on this topic [Language Connections: Kinship of Armenian 
     with Sister Indo-European Languages].

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