Memories of Eyewitness-Survivors of the Armenian Genocide

80 (80).
SOUREN SARGSIAN'S TESTIMONY
(Born in 1902, Sebastia)

Our Khochhissar village lay 25 km east of the town of Sebastia (Svaz). The Sebastia-Erzroom road passed through the village. Guests often visited my grandpa at his house. As far as I remember my grandfathers were influential people. We had a two-storeyed large house, a summer resort, grazing pastures in the valley of Mount Sakhar 15-20 km from our village. When the First World War broke out on the 1st of August, 1914, the peasants of our village were busy in harvesting, although bad news had reached our village by some Armenian newspapers. On the 2nd of August criers came to our village, and the village headman began crying from the roofs: "Hey, it's Seferberlik: men from 18 to 45-50 years of age must come to Khochhissar to enlist." I remember well that the people got mixed up, they cried and shouted everywhere. The same day the sun eclipsed completely, the sky darkened for half an hour. That horrified the people still more.

Everybody was seized by the feeling of pessimism. The road of our village became more active on both sides. At times, the Turk gendarmes began to act willfully, the soldiers passing by demanded food from the peasants; they entered the village in broad daylight and didn't return to their centers by night, but stayed in our houses. Our peasants applied to the primacy, four gendarmes were posted to guard our village.

After a training period of two months, the Turkish army passed before our village in regular lines, with a brass-band. The Turk guests appreciated the Armenian soldiers telling that they learned well, mastered the technique of weapons soon and that their commanders praised them. The days passed, the November-December cold weather and rains caused the soldiers to lose their discipline; many began to escape from the army, many had come to the village and were hiding in barns or in the caves near the village; nobody inquired about them.

Thus, 3-4 months passed. In December 1914 news spread that Enver pasha was coming; the roads should be brought into order about 4 km all along our village. After a few days Enver's retinue came and stopped at the western end of the village: three carriages were drawn by four horses each, surrounded by six horsemen in the rear and six horsemen in the front and taking the lead was Mourad of Sebastia with his group of 12 horsemen. The peasants surrounded the retinue. I also went especially to see Enver pasha. The peasants brought salt and bread, as they were instructed by Mourad. Enver pasha stood up in the carriage, accepted the salt and bread on a tray, thanked the people with a nod of his head. I saw how Enver pasha took the tray and served the members of his retinue without exception. In honor of Enver pasha a horserace was organized on the field road. I was watching how the horsemen were galloping towards the Alice River. Suddenly the people roared: "Mourad, Mourad's horse Pegasus won the race." The racing horse-men returned. Mourad approached Enver, who stood in the carriage, smiled, arranged his moustaches, shook Mourad by the hand and patted his back. I was standing on a high mound ten steps from Enver pasha and was staring at him out of curiosity. I remember every thing so well, as if it were now. The weather was fine. Enver pasha had put on semi-military clothes, he had a fez on his head; he had long shining boots on his feet; his face was round, broad, handsome, with regular features; he was a bit taller than average height, a bit longer moustaches, thick eye-brows and black eyes. Vehib pasha was seated in the first carriage together with his assistants.

After the horse-race Enver pasha stood up in the carriage and spoke to the people for ten minutes. I remember his words so well: "The Armenian soldiers are fighting bravely for their Ottoman Fatherland, for their 'Vatan' (country - in Turk.) At all the fronts the Armenian doctors and nurses are treating our wounded soldiers. Most of the Armenian soldiers master the military techniques, for that I'm very thankful to you. And you, in your turn, work well at the rear to supply our army with food." When he finished his speech, Mourad approached him on horseback and shook hands with him. Enver pasha patted Mourad on the back and told him something in a low voice. The whistle gave the signal and the carriage moved. Enver pasha disappeared waving his hand.

Thus, days and months passed, nothing exceptional occurred in the village; only our villagers were filled with enthusiasm to meet the Russian army in Sebastia (Svaz), but all that was in vain: the Russian army didn't come. Only war prisoners came. Our people were disappointed with their vain, senseless hopes and feelings.

One day we were playing together with the children in the village center, when suddenly, from the eastern side, from Kapan, four carriages came swiftly and stopped in the center of the village on the road. The people rushed forth to find out what it was. I ran, too. This time again the four carriages were drawn by four horses each. Mourad's group was standing far from the carriages, silent and sad. The coachmen were arranging the harnesses of the horses and feeding them. Enver pasha was returning from Erzroom. He had a very angry appearance; he was looking at the people with fury and didn't speak to the people next to him.

I passed to the left side of the carriages and, standing on a mound, was watching Enver pasha on. He was making nervous movements while sitting in his place. He turned his eyes on the people about and his glance fell on me. His eyes were filled with hatred. I was horrified by his black eyes. He wrapped himself in a felt coat and threw a beastlike glance on the standing people. Enver pasha neither greeted, nor said good-bye to the people, as he had done the previous time, and left. They stopped at the Seyfe Khan to rest. He called Mourad and said in an extremely furious manner: "What are your people doing in the Caucasus, on the Russian side? What did we sign with you in 1908 and 1914 in Erzroom? You'll pay through your nose for it." Mourad left the group very offended and sad. He said that Enver had protested about some volunteers. As our village was on the way from Sebastia to Erzroom, the news reached fast. On his way to Constantinople, in Sebastia, Enver pasha invited the governors of the six provinces and gave them instructions about how to massacre the Armenians, to annihilate all the men by slaughtering them on the spot and to drive the women and children towards the Taurus Mountains and beyond, to the Arabian deserts, to annihilate them with famine, thirst and exhaustion. At the end of March 1915 the governor of Sebastia summoned Mourad. The latter didn't go; he fled to the mountains, for he knew the governor's intention.

One morning I woke up and saw Mourad with his twelve companions sitting in our summer hall and having dinner; mother was serving them. They stayed in our house about 10-12 days and then went toward the Khorokhon village.

On April 11th (24th) mother put a few calves and two colts before me and told me to take them to the pasture. Suddenly a gendarme, a youth of 20-21 years old, a rifle bigger than himself in hand, came towards me and took aim towards my belly. I was stunned with fear and began to cry. I returned home and told mother what had happened. I don't know if it was on the same day or on the next, 10-12 gendarmes of the village brought the priest of the village, (Ter-Youstos - his religious name) Sargis Mazmanian, to our house, seated on a donkey, his face toward the animal's rump. They put our people rudely out of the house, but I didn't go, and they paid no attention to me, I saw how they had shoed the priest's feet, they had put a hot iron plate on his head, which had burned his hair and the skin of his head; his beard had been plucked and his teeth pulled out. The gendarmes were beating the priest brutally. Thrashing, they brought also my mother, they piled wood under the pillars of the house. "We're going to burn this house," they yelled. "You've fed Mourad in this house; you've kept his group for days. The landlord of this house Aram Sargsian and his friends have gone to the mountains with mauser. Go, bring the mauser and tell us where they are."

Mother was swearing that she hadn't seen Mourad and she knew nothing about the mauser. The gendarmes were beating mother incessantly. Mother was crying and saying: "Aram Sargsian has given 44 gold coins as a ransom and he has gone to the mountains to keep our cattle, the sheep."

My uncle Abig Sargsian, the elder of the village, was running here and there, he didn't allow the gendarmes to light the match and set fire to our house: he didn't allow them to beat my mother. Finally, they took some money and didn't burn the house, but they took my poor mother with them. They had raped her all night and the following day they brought her home on the verge of death. We, the children, were crying around mother. The following day they took my sister, Knarik, who was very pretty and newly married: they had treated her in the same manner...

In the village the gendarmes had gathered 10-12 distinguished people of the village together. For 10 days, those scoundrels beat them, burned the various parts of their body with hot iron, pulled out their finger-nails, put hot eggs in their armpits and committed a series of unheard-of atrocities. Finally they took those men, tortured them in prison for months, then brought them to the village and shot them, when they were already dying. At the end of May all the roads were closed, they marked all the cattle of the Armenians with hot branding-irons in order to recognize them that they belonged to Armenians. There came a strict order not to touch the property of the Armenians, but to kill the Armenian males on the spot without sparing.

Gradually they changed the local gendarmes, replacing them by gendarmes brought from Albania, who looked like wild beasts. News was spread that a special authorized man had come from Constantinople, Sidki bey, who had been sent only to slaughter the Armenians. One day the gendarmes, under the leadership of Arnavoud Hassan, gathered 50-60 men, tied their arms and took them away in the evening and killed them brutally. The next morning they came to the village to take their clothes, they ate and drank and went away. The following day the peasants went and found their corpses, torn to pieces, disfigured and unrecognizable. No one found his man or recognized him. The Turks came again for the second time and called very politely, according to a list they had in hand, the notables of the village, saying: "Come, we're going to build bridges and roads, it's alright." In the evening they took them away; they had killed them all in the Purnaz valley and had thrown their corpses into the river. There were no more males left in our village. Next, they brought the prisoners of the central prison. None of them had a normal face: one's nose had been broken, the other's eye had been put out, another's teeth had been pulled out, people with broken legs and swollen heads, they had lost their normal human face after being beaten for days and months; they had shoed their feet with horse-shoes, they burned their flesh with a hot iron, had pulled out their nails and teeth. They brought those half-dead ghosts before our village. In the evening, at sunset, they made them sit, for half an hour, before the village, expecting to earn money... The people of our village rushed toward them, every one looking for her next of kin. Whoever found him, embraced him and wails and laments were heard all around. The prisoners, who had even no force to sit upright, and their folks were wiping their tears. I was looking at them and couldn't understand if they were alive or dead? Then they went away driven by whip-strokes of the gendarmes and under the lamentations and sobs of the women. They went to be slaughtered like animals in the dark valley, under the bonfire lights. They were walking silently, their heads lowered. The village became a dark grave-yard. Old people, women and children were crying and sobbing. In the morning the gendarmes came to the village, loaded the new clothes of the martyrs on horseback, ordered the villagers to slaughter and roast chickens and sheep for them to eat, they ate and drank and went away.

Only a few old men and boys below 16 were left in the village. After 5 or 10 days they came and brought a cart front of each house and they ordered the women: "Load on the carts whatever you want; you're going to Arabia to live there." He left everything: our house, orchards, animals, property and we set off. Dante's hell had descended on the village, an unprecedented tragedy was taking place. When we reached the main road, we saw carriages, carts, horses, caravans coming from the city; they had reached us and the end of the line was near the town. From our height the town was seen, and the stone bridge on the Alice River, built by King Senekerim. The mountain-side was covered with a flood of people mixed with carriages and carts. The people didn't know why all this chaos was, where they were going and why. The cries and laments of the women and children were mixed with the shouting and the impudent blasphemies of the gendarmes and soldiers. They were striking the women and children, right and left. Suddenly we saw a group of horsemen about 15-20 in number who came and ordered all the caravans to gather on top of the Ghardashlar Mountain, on a plateau. They made the people spread the carpets and rugs and began to collect money from the people: "Hey," shouted a horseman. "Whoever has a prisoner in town, let him bring one or two gold coin for everyone, and tomorrow you man will be here with you."

Women began to bring money, giving the names of their husbands. A gendarme, a huge notebook in his hand, was supposedly writing down the name of the prisoner, his address, his age and so on. In a few hours the saddle-bag was almost filled with money. In the evening they put he saddle-bag on a horse and went away. The following day they brought a group of men about 20-30 people, surrounded with 10 gendarmes. They brought also the well-known rich man in town, Khelkhlik. He was very fat and was seated on a big, white donkey. The people ran forward, expecting to find their relatives. The gendarmes drew them back and told them to form a circle. In the center of the circle, the chief of the gendarmes fired at Khelkhlik behind his ear. The man fell down bleeding severely, grunting and shuddering. The gendarmes were laughed whole-heartedly, and the people were silent, horror-stricken. Then they brought forward the others, every five-six men hugging each other and they fired at them, then they struck them on the head with clubs until they lay dead, then they threw them into the torrent and went away.

The next morning, before sunrise, they drove us southward; we crossed the mountain. Good-bye Motherland, we're going towards torture, toward torment and death, to face more monstrous, more inhuman ordeals. Before our death we're going to death, towards crucifixion. Good-bye my native village. My eyes of childish eyes saw your mountains from afar. I saw the high Mountain Sakhar, in whose valleys I've passed my sweet days of childhood. I won't see any more the magnificent, clear, blue streams, the rustling evergreen oak forests, I won't hear my mother's sacred call, I won't hear my playmates' delightful cries and shouts... Good-bye, you, unburied, lacerated human corpses; you've remained in the open air and the beasts are devouring your corpses. The sweet melodies of the church-bells won't ring anymore. The school doors won't open anymore, no more weddings and feasts will be held. Death, death is awaiting us all: the old, the child, the newly wed and the baby in his swaddling clothes. What is our sin? Whom had we done anything wrong...? Cursed childhood, cursed world! May you be ruined, may you be destroyed! What's happening to us? They flung the newly born babies to the ground; they made the mothers cry bitterly. What was the newborn to be blamed for? He didn't know yet the existence of the prophet, or Christ, or of God. What was their sin? I didn't understand.

For two days we were kept on the mountain top of Ghardashlar; they gathered a lot of money from the people. Early in the morning, before sunrise, our carts and carriages began to move forward, in turn, to the south, down the mountain. The carts and the carriages were going down like a flood and their rattle was mixed with the people's cries, wails and sobs. Women, old people, children and babies in their mothers' arms were walking on the two sides of the carts and carriages silently, their heads hung down. The furious gendarmes didn't allow anyone to get on the carriages or carts. They were shouting all the time: "That is state property, and you're undesirable people, you're going to die, to be annihilated." After walking a certain distance the young girls began to cry and to grumble. The July sun was burning mercilessly. They wanted water to drink, they wanted bread, they were exhausted. The people were going their heads bent down, sad. They didn't knew why they were going, where they were going, what their guilt was, what they had done. After going for a long time, at last we were stopped before a khan, which was called Tejiri khan. There was water in the nearby valley. Women began to cook food with the little supply, which was left. That day nothing particular happened with the caravan. The oxen and the horses grazed and were satisfied. From there we continued our way. Before the sunset we reached Ghandal (a central town) where the Armenians hadn't been deported yet and they brought us food. They met us with tears and wails, waiting for their evil luck. Our next stay was at Kherkhi khan, which was on a river. On one side there was a Turkish village and on the other was the well-known Armenian Ulash village, which was famous with its abundant crop and its wheat.

There the people rested, the oxen grazed, they somewhat recovered their forces. On the fourth day we reached the Armenian village of Manjelek, which was deserted. The windows of the abandoned houses were looking at us like the devils of hell. The following day we passed before Kyotu khan and on the fifth day we reached the human slaughterhouse, a small town, which was called Hassan Chelebi. That was a place where crime had reached its culmination. We had crossed the border of Sebastia and now we were between the Harpoot province and the Kurdish border. There was a strict order: not a single male should cross that border alive. They had gathered and killed them all. That was the reason why the valleys were full of corpses. Our carts stopped before the village in disorder. It was surrounded with forests and a stream flowed through it, the air was cool and pleasant. Suddenly we noticed corpses on the other bank of the river, which were scattered here and there, among them young and old people, children and women. My uncle's wife wanted to go there and see; two officers didn't allow her and they began to yell: "Hey, old bone gâvur, what are you looking at? Soon you'll be in the same state."

In the evening, a few gendarmes and a few Kurds came, gathered the males of our caravan, the boys and the old men and took those 200 men to an old dilapidated building, where there were no sitting places, not even places to stand. At midnight they took them by groups to the mountains. On the next morning, a young boy, half-naked and bleeding, came and sat near his acquaintances. I approached him; I was looking at him and recalled the men of our village. They had taken them, by night, to the top of a mountain, had cut their heads with axes and had thrown them into the valley. That boy's neck hadn't been cut deep, so he had remained in the corpses till morning. I don't know what happened to him later. We came out of Hassan Chelebi. Soon we saw corpses of men, women and children, especially women, who were naked and swollen. We noticed a bridge from afar and whispers were spread that they would slaughter us all over that bridge. Some Kurds began to appear, armed with axes, knives and rifles. My uncle's wife ran, panting, to a gendarme, put two gold coins in his hand and said that we wanted to become Turks and asked him to take us to the village. The gendarmes said calmly: "Don't be afraid, you should have become Turks six months ago; but don't worry, I'll pass your caravan safely over the bridge." We reached the bridge; below it corpses were piled on each other; corpses in hundreds, naked corpses spread in the water of the river. The Kurds attacked us secretly, threatened us with their knives, took off our clothes and ran away. The gendarmes accompanying us, went forward and backward and fired at random. In the evening we reached Hekim khan. It was a marvelously beautiful valley lost in green. All of a sudden we noticed on the other bank of the river a woman's corpse, which was naked and extremely swollen. The women were crying and cursing those who had caused all that butchery, those who had brought that woman and myriads of others like her to that state.

In the morning we left Hekim khan and continued our way as the previous day. Kurds were everywhere, they tried to rob, plunder and kill the people. The gendarmes were firing, the women were screaming for help, the carts were going, once going down and then climbing up. An old woman fell off the cart, the following carts ran over her; her daughter was crying and shouting: "Oh, dear mother. Would your life end this way?" She was kissing her mother in agony and was scratching herself.

The mountains and the forests remained behind us.

In the evening our caravan turned to the right where two rivers joined. There was no clear water to drink, because the streams were full of putrid and decayed corpses. Darkness fell and we slept thirsty, longing for water. Suddenly several gendarmes came, gathered a few men and took them away; in the morning they brought them back and shot them before our eyes. That day we arrived at an arid plain near Malatia, called "Soussouz Ovay." The next morning the number of the gendarmes increased, they hurried the carts to move on faster and in a disorderly manner and they themselves defended us from the swarming Kurds. The heat was unbearable. The people were parched with of thirst. On the two sides of the road there were rivulets and puddles, but there were rotten, stinking corpses, heaped on each other, in them. Finally the caravan reached the bridge of the Kherkh Gyoz River, where Turks were crowded. One of them got on the first cart and shouted: "Hey, gâvurs, who doesn't bring one gold coin for each cart, we'll throw that cart into the water." Uproar and clamor were heard everywhere... At last the caravan passed and stopped in front of a khan, where the caravan preceding us had stopped. Here they had massacred the Khotordjretsis from Erzroom. They didn't give us trouble. After two days we arrived in the village of Ferendjelar, which was a small negligible village but which became notable in the history of the Armenian nation. Here we were dispossessed of our carts and carriages. According to the governmental plan, the people had to climb, on foot, up the Tavros Mountains and surmount a height of 3900 meters on their road of exile. Hundreds and thousands of caravans came here to their crucifixion, whence they went to their death. Women, children, newly born babies were being abandoned, forsaken and helpless. My sister Knarik remained there with her newborn infant. She was ill and was unable to walk. Ferendjelar (name of a locality - place of concentration of deportees)! Ferendjelar! Abandoned children, old, lonely women, diseased people lying here and there in agony, putrefied corpses under rags or in the streams. One morning the gendarmes came with the Kurd crowd to deport our caravan. The people were complaining; they didn't want to be deported. The gendarmes started to beat them, cursing and swearing, the children screamed on their mother's back. The women had taken heir children on their back. We reached the foot of the mountain, the sun was burning. There was no water. The people were exhausted. A woman next to us threw her child on the ground and went away; the child was moving to-and-fro and crying. I looked at him for a few minutes and continued my way. After climbing a certain height, we saw in a valley children's and old women's bodies, completely nude, some of them alive, the others - dead. The ones, who were still alive, were looking at us in agony, with dim eyes; they had taken off their clothes entirely. We continued to climb up. There was a cold fountain under a huge rock; the people drank the water greedily and recovered to a certain extent. My mother couldn't endure all this; she fell exhausted and died. Women fell on her, took the gold from her and went away. We were crying and crying incessantly. When we reached the summit of the mountain, there was a rumor among the women that they were collecting the boys and killing them. A sixteen year old boy ran away from our group, his sister ran after him and asked her brother to give her money. The boy gave the money and went away. The sister was crying and wailing: "They slaughtered our father and mother in the village, now our only brother is gone. Be cursed, world, be cursed you, people, be cursed all of you!"

Near a river the caravan halted again - everybody was weary and exhausted. That evening nothing happened to us. Those, who had left their relatives on the road, were crying and sobbing...

We slept at night. The next day the Kurds came, bringing with them the notorious Zeynal bey and his brothers, the wicked executioners. They collected among the caravan all the little boys, bound their arms and took them farther on the mountain top, where the bonfires were burning. There they cut their heads with axes and threw them into the valley. They had done the same to the children of the previous caravans. That is why that valley was called 'Kanlý dere' ('Vally of blood'). Our people had kept me under rags and were seated on me; I wasn't able to breathe; I was almost fainting. I had a narrow escape; they didn't find me. It was a cool, wonderful night. The moon was shining like a sun in the sky and the stars were twinkling. In that beautiful scene an awful tragedy was taking place. Women were crying and lamenting over their children, screaming and cursing their fate and their luck in hoarse voices: "May your eyes become blind, where have you gone, why don't you come to help us. God, moon, stars, don't you see what's going on? Where are our God and Jesus Christ, whom we have worshiped? Where are those boastful loathsome men? Where did our fedayis go? May you tumble down, Earth..." I couldn't sleep in that noise, I was thinking to myself and recalling everything... We went from there and reached Zeynal bey's mansion and settled down on a green field. The Kurds didn't trouble us anymore. The next morning, when we were setting off, I noticed that women held their little children by the hand and took them by force towards the fenced building; the children didn't want to go, the mothers were almost dragging them, crying at the same time; a child was shrieking and rolling on the ground, his mother embraced him and carried him by force. The child was screaming: "I won't go!" The mother, in bitter despair, said: "What can I do, darling? I have no money; I have no strength to carry you any more. Everything is lost, may you be destroyed, Earth," and, hugging the child at the waist, took him and threw him over the wall to the inner side, into the garden. From outside the wall was low; from inside it was quite high. I ran near the fence and looked down - on the green grass lay one to two hundred children, some of them dead, others alive, there were women with their children, a few of them dead, the others still alive or in agony. Their sucklings in their arms, these exhausted women were waiting for their death. A baby was still sucking his dead mother's breast; he turned and looked at me, what a glance it was! Some of the newly thrown children saw me and ran towards me in the hope of being rescued... Half mad, I got down the wall and ran after our caravan. Up to this day I remember that heartbreaking sight.

The next day we passed, with great difficulty, through narrow rocky paths. Many people rolled down the precipice, especially the old women, who had no strength to walk. We went down the valley; there was a swift river, which was impossible to cross. The gendarmes ordered us to cross the river. We were extremely tired; all of us were exhausted. A few tried to enter the water and they were drifted away by the current. Some hired horses, while others paid the Kurds to help them cross the river. On the other bank of the river we sat down at the foot of a sandy hill. The following day we set off again, but the people couldn't climb the sandy mountain, they slipped back. The Kurd women showed us a path through the forest, which we followed without fear. In the forest a Kurd wanted to snatch my cousin's belt from his waist and he drew his sword on him. My uncle's son, Jirayr screamed painfully and gave him his belt. But the following day he died of fear. Finally we reached the Adiyaman Fortress. I approached a fountain and wanted to drink. A Kurd came up, struck me on the head with a stick, took the clothes from over my shoulder and went away. At last the refugees settled somehow in the fortress, which was partially ruined due to an earthquake. They drove us into the fortress and put guards at the gate. All of a sudden the women noticed corpses heaped on each other on the right wing of the fortress. There were corpses in the valley, on the river bank. After two days they took us out of the fortress. The Kurds were busy in harvest; they hadn't come to slaughter us. So, we were rescued from the slaughter by chance. The blow, which I had received on my head near the fountain, made my eyes ache. I couldn't sleep the whole night: something hard was touching my eyes. I couldn't close them. They dropped donkey milk into my eyes and tied ground raisin on them. The pain abated, but I couldn't see well.

After the fortress, we passed over an ancient bridge and began to climb a steep mountain. Many remained on the way; they weren't able to climb the steep mountain. Finally we reached the top. We slept that day on a grassy hill. In the evening they began to cry: "Let the town people be separated from the villagers." The citizens went down the hill. In the evening they checked their tents; they were searching money. Then they took away the young women and the girls to a remote building. Crying and wailing started again; they had taken and raped them till morning. The next day they brought them back to their mothers.

This was our last mountain; from this height the distant desert was seen and was rippling below like the waters of the ocean. Towns and villages were seen in the distance. After walking a day's distance we came to Adiyaman, Missak Manoushian's birthplace, which was lost in orchards and vineyards. We rested for a while in the green orchards of Adiyaman. The local Armenians brought some bread for us. After staying for two days, we were driven again and all the Armenians of Adiyaman with us. The beautiful and cruel mountain rage of Taurus ended. We were getting down from the cool mountains, and the heat was suffocating us. The 30 days of sufferings, torture and death remained behind us. Our caravan, which was reduced to half, settled down in the south of Samosat, on the bank of the Euphrates River. Everywhere corpses, corpses, dead women and children on the sands, in the fields, everywhere we heard the moans of the half-dead, diseased people and saw the suppliant, help-seeking gazes of moribund people and beside them swollen, putrefied and stinking corpses, mainly of women. Dante's hell was on the bank of Euphrates. The people washed themselves in the Euphrates River. Whatever food they had managed to get, they ate and lay down on the soft sand and silently fell asleep. The faint sobs of grief gradually died out; it seemed that everything had calmed down; the moon disappeared behind the mountains. The people were tired to death. All of a sudden several gendarmes and a few Kurds, entered, in the dark, in the rows of deportees, treading roughly on the sleeping people, the dead and the sick; they began to search right and left and gather the small children. The people woke up in horror. Suddenly a Kurd giant noticed me under the rags; he dragged me out, threw his arm round my waist and was about to take me away. Terrified, our people began to scream and cry; my uncle's daughter tried to save me from the grip of the Kurd, but in vain: the Kurd dropped me down; pushed her and threw her on the ground, picked me up again and carried me away. He had gripped me so strongly that I felt my ribs on the point of breaking; I couldn't breathe. After carrying me for a while, he got tired, threw me wildly onto the ground and ordered me to walk before him. On the way other Kurds also were bringing children. They took us around the burning fires, where about 150-200 children had gathered and four old men. I couldn't understand how those old people had been able to reach so far.

Eight to ten gendarmes armed with bayonets and fifteen to twenty Kurds surrounded us, made us sit on a sandy mound in rows, according to age and height. A woman came to save her little boy. One of the gendarmes cursed and pushed her roughly into a pit. She got up screaming plaintively: "Help, they're slaughtering the children!" Suddenly voices of thousands of women rose in the darkness to heaven. The chief of the gendarmes ordered to open fire towards the people. They took the rifles and fired towards the people: no more voices were heard, only the moan of the wounded women. They made a bonfire and ordered the four old men to stand up, leaning one against the other.

A gendarme took the rifle and wanted to fire; the last old man pushed away the rifle and began to implore: "We are old, we have done nothing, for God's sake, don't kill us."

The gendarme shouted: "You are old, you've done nothing, but you have prayed your God that the Russians come and destroy Turkey, that Andranik's sword be sharp to slaughter the Turks," and he fired. The four old men fell down to the ground. The Kurds, standing around, began to strike them on the nose, mouth, and head with clubs till they stopped breathing. The Kurds tied ropes around their necks and dragged them to the nearby Euphrates River. It was the children's turn. They brought a child from the first row, the Kurds stabbed him with knives on the back and the belly till the child stopped breathing and then they dragged him away with ropes to the river, and thus during 3 or 4 hours. It was the turn of our row. The Kurds watched standing behind us. They had already killed about 200 children. A gendarme came up slowly to us and said: "Get away, go!"

We ran in group and join our people. My uncle's wife woke up and put me down to sleep. At midnight, a boy came suddenly in wet clothes repeating all the time: "Thank God, I didn't die, thank God, I didn't die." In the morning I saw that his body was all riddled; his wounds inflamed, and he died in tortures.

I hadn't slept and I heard a woman with a strange voice crying above my head. On a high place, two women embraced each other and were crying bitterly. I hardly noticed a giant Kurd who was watching them a big knife in his hand. I learned later that they were mother and daughter. The women was groaning and cursing the Turks who had caused all that. I was told later that the police chief had come and taken away the mother and daughter on the next morning.

My uncle's twin grandchildren and his son, Smbat, aged 5, whom I loved very much, died on the bank of the Euphrates. We approached the bank of the Euphrates River. There were boats covered with rags; the people went on board the boat with great difficulty. The Kurds were examining the women from head to foot; they were looking for money. The boat went down the river current. It took us hours till we got to the other bank. The Kurds were turning the boats upside down; women and children were falling into the water. An incident happened, which I will never forget till my death: two giant Kurds attacked a tall beautiful woman and wanted to take her purse. The woman resisted them with all her strength, knocking them down, but they got up and attacked the woman over and over again. I don't know how long the struggle lasted. They tore off the woman's clothes and soon she was left completely naked; they grabbed her purse and went away. Suddenly I noticed near her a girl, 7-8 years of age, who was following her mother's struggle with wide-opened eyes, trembling, crying and screaming. I hadn't seen such eyes either in paintings, or in life. The woman got up, embraced her daughter and said in a shaky voice: "We have died, daughter, we have neither money, nor clothes," and with one leap she threw herself into the river together with her daughter.

We had been walking for a whole day that again; the sun was scorching, there was no water. We left my uncle's daughter Haykanoush on the road, under a tree; she was alive and was following us with her eyes. Somewhere below, a water pond was noticed. People took vessels and began to run. A gendarme said: "You can't drink it; the water is full of corpses." After going for two or three days, they again gathered the children; they shot two or three elderly people, they demanded money and they let us free.

Finally, after passing a long, wearisome road, we reached the Sourudj desert. That was a real slaughterhouse: everyday hundreds of people died. Seventy per cent of our peasants died there. The hardest and most unbearable grief for me was that we left my 5-year old brother, Yeram, under a tree; he was crying after us. Oh, I cannot forget that day until now. After suffering for 15 days, according to the last comers, he had died of hunger and thirst. We moved toward the Sourudj railway station. On the way a Kurd woman held my sister (7-year old) Elmon by the hand and took her away. We were lodged in a khan near the railway station; then they drove us towards Aleppo; then they divided our group into two: one half went to Der-Zor, the other returned again to Sourudj. They distributed us lavash bread and ordered to shout, "Long live the King!" (It was a comedy). News spread that Enver pasha had passed by and gone with his wife to Diarbekir. From there they drove us along the railway to Ras-ul-Ayn, toward the east. We reached the station of Ras-ul-Ayn. They took us to a paved road about 2-3 km long and made us stand in a row on both sides of it. They began to make raised platforms at a certain distance from each other and erected stakes on them. At midnight they brought people and arranged them under the stakes: from one end of the road to the other, by eight people on each side. They had cut many heads and made square heaps of them. From the East they had brought refugees like us and arranged them on the other side of the road. From above the sun was burning, from beneath - the hot stones. We were almost dying, people were crying, begging for water, there was no one to bring water; there was no water.

Soldiers, gendarmes and Kurds were going and coming, they were getting ready for something. All of a sudden, a long train came and stood before us. People got off, and the train went back. They were from Tekerdagh, Rodosto, Edirné, Malkara: the people of Thrace. The people composed of women, children, old men and girls stood in astonishment. They had deceived them and brought them saying that they would settle in a new place. They noticed us from afar and began to move right and left, screaming and crying for their goods. The gendarmes ran toward them, calmed them down and made them sit along the railroad. We could see them from our place: they had their Sunday clothes on; they were white dresses. In the evening they slaughtered the men and arranged the corpses before the stages. Then they brought the girls in white clothes. In the darkness of the night, they impaled them all with the sharp stakes. Our ears became deaf to their and their mothers' screams, cries and heart-rending clamors. I learned that those people had carried Andranik pasha on their shoulders, and the girls had sung the song "Like an Eagle," dedicated to him and had presented Andranik with bouquets of flowers in the street, in the presence of Turks. This way they were avenging them.

In the morning the reddish sun was sifting gold from the blue firmament and its golden rays were spread everywhere. That was the desert sun, which was the only witness of our cruel sufferings. Finally they drove the people from Thrace; they brought and arranged them before the stakes: some of them were looking for their husbands and the others - their daughters on the stakes. The white dressed girls, who had been put on the stakes, had already died; their heads hung on one side... There was confusion, wailing and clamor among the refugees.

Suddenly a new uproar rose; four carriages full of people came and stopped twenty steps away from us. Two of the carriages stopped on a height, the other two - at the edge of the road. We heard that they were our intellectuals, brought form Aleppo; in each cart there were four of them. An order was given, and the two carriages moved forward, first slowly and then faster. The gendarmes on the carriages began to whip our intellectuals. They were striking on their head, body and face. The carriages appeared again; the gendarmes were shouting and whipping: "Hey, gâvurs, look right (they were showing us, the girls on the stakes and the beheaded men), see, the English battleships are entering Constantinople." The carriages went and came back; we heard the shouting again: "Gâvurs, look to the left, the Russian army is entering Svaz; Turkey is being annihilated." And so, without end, after going and coming more than ten times they went towards Urfa.

The following day they drove us after them towards the main road of Tigranakert and the Thracian people came after us. They made us sit in a semi-circle on a stony dry land. A little farther from us, in a green garden near the bridge, there was a large construction, something like an inn. People went in and out there. Suddenly they brought boards and stakes, erected them in the middle of the semi-circle and went away. In half an hour they brought our eight intellectuals, headed by Zohrap, beating and dragging them. They made them sit, then they came and made speeches; they spat on our intellectuals and went away.

Then eight gendarmes came armed with bayonets and with them a giant man in half military clothes. He looked like a wild man. He ordered to take off the clothes of our intellectuals; then they made them lie down on the boards face down, on their bellies, heads up, buttocks - height. An order was heard, "Stab bayonets." The gendarmes stabbed our intellectuals in the buttocks, and they died; they were already half-dead after their beating. They buried their corpses till the waist, their heads out. They were repeating to us: "Look at them: they are thinking of you and you pray for their souls, they brought you to this state." The people were crying and were suffering, the people were in torture; they were dying of hunger and thirst. Who would think about them? Who would save them? I don't know. It was said that Enver pasha had especially come from Constantinople to be present at the execution of the Armenian intellectuals; it was said that Enver pasha had personally organized that butchery. I saw a group of people sitting in the balcony of the garden. After the slaughter they came down, got on the carriages and went towards Tigranakert. The following day the gendarmes drove us to the place, from where we had come, and the people of Thrace - towards the south, where the men and girls were executed. A man, Grigor Ishkalian from Malkara, has told me about the events of Thrace, where he himself had been a witness of all those events, when he was 9-10 years old. So, they had announced to the people of Thrace: "You'll go with your property to Jezayir; after the war you'll come back." And they brought us here, to this hell. The girls on the stakes were from Rodosto, who had presented Andranik with bouquets of flowers, and the young men were those, who had carried Andranik on their shoulders and some of them were workers working on the Osmanié Tunnel. They took us to Urfa and from there they drove us to a desert, where no people lived and there were only a few trees. It rained that night and a cold wind blew. At night hundreds of people died. They brought some Kurds and had a large pit dug. The Kurds fell on the people, trod on those who were lying, whether sick or dead, tied a rope around their necks, dragged them to the pit and threw them in. Then they returned to drag the next one. They even dragged away those who were alive, without paying attention to the screams and cries of their kinsfolk. From there they drove us south, to another deserted place. Women, sick with typhoid, were begging for water. I brought them water with a dirty vessel; it was rain water gathered in pits. They drank the water greedily and died instantly. And one day I had gone for water and on the road I met two old men with their donkeys in front of them. One of them looked at me and approached me. I got frightened and was looking at him in horror. He said: "Don't be afraid, son, come, let me take you to our village." The other old man came near and they spoke to each other. The other old man came near and they spoke to each other. This old man said to the other: "Listen, my sons and your son are fighting at the Baghdad front. I'll take this Armenian boy, rescue him from death, and Allah will save our sons from the enemy's bullet." They put me on a donkey.

After going for two days we reached a village called Hyulumen, near Ayntap. We hadn't reached the village yet, when the peasants and the relatives of the old men ran towards us in group. When they saw me on the donkey, they were surprised and they ran away in horror. The peasants were divided into two groups. One group said: "Throw this gâvur into the pit; he will infect us all." The others said: "Let Bessé do as he wants; it's none of your business." During this clamor a respectable bearded man came, looked at me, looked at the mob, took the stick from the old man, struck them at random, and they all dispersed. We reached the old man's house: his daughter-in-law and grandchildren ran away from the house. The old man's wife came forward, took me by the arm, led me to the barn, put me down on the hay and said: "Lie down here, don't come out."

As I lay on the soft hay, I took a deep breath. After a while the landlady brought me a little lentil soup, which I ate immediately, and so, every day. After some time she began to give me more soup and then some pilaw with it and later - some bread. I began to recover; I began to walk in the barn. My blood began to move, I began to feel strong, and my face became round. The woman gave me a bath, together with her daughter, and gave me new clothes to put on. Her daughter-in-law, hearing that a new Armenian boy had appeared in the house, came panting, entered the kitchen, where I was having my dinner, and said furiously: "Ay ana, isn't it enough you're keeping a stinking gâvur boy, you've brought also a second one, eh?"

I had become a round-faced, blond, curly-haired, blue-eyed boy; I wasn't the former stinking, thin and disgusting lad. She looked at me and then ran with joy to the barn to find the old, stinking boy. She came back and said: "Ay ana, this boy is nice; he is so pretty; let's keep him."

The old woman said: "Go away, whore, you wanted to throw away my boy, you wanted to kill him, you ran away from the house because of him, now you want to own my boy."

The daughter-in-law ran and brought her children home, they became intimate with me and loved me very much; so did their mother. It was already spring. I began to help them in the house work and to graze the sheep. I lived there as one of the family. They had warned the people of the village not to touch me. One or two years passed and one day news was spread about the sons of Bessé, "His sons are coming; the two brothers, Sayat and Hussein are coming." They ran like fools to meet the two brothers and brought them home shouting and rejoicing. They sat down and had their dinner and suddenly noticed me. In the evening, when I was going and coming in the house, Sayat asked his mother: "Who's this boy?"

The mother said: "He's also our son. Your father has found him among the refugees, while returning from your place and has thought, 'If I take this boy and save him from death, God also will keep my sons from the enemy's bullets.' And now your father's dream has come true."

The boys were glad and told their story: "We were fighting at the Baghdad front for already more than two months, and our commander sent us to the Osmanié hospital to recover, for we were disciplined soldiers." We remained there for a whole month. One day, an Armenian doctor came and said: "You are being sent to Baghdad, to the front again. Come, leave your military clothes here and put on civil clothes; I'll give you documents, and you'll rest for a whole year." We agreed, took the paper from the doctor and thanked him. Later we learned that after finishing the construction of the tunnel of the Osmanié railway, the Armenian workers would be killed. That Armenian doctor had dressed the workers with our military clothes and sent them to Baghdad, where the Armenians were not being slaughtered. He had done the same to many others.

After that, the whole family began to pay much attention to me, they loved me very much, and the peasants were looking at me as a miracle maker. Their father Bessé often said to his sons: "I've become young; what a good deed I did to bring this Armenian boy here and I became happy."

After that they wouldn't let me do any work; they used to say: "eat, drink and live at your pleasure. You're our own son."

I remained in the village of Hyulumen until 1919: the war was over. I came to Ayntap. For months I went about hungry, naked. There were many refugees; there was neither work, nor money. After 4-5 months the Americans came and opened an orphanage, the Haladjian Orphanage. I applied there and was accepted. After a year the English went and the French came instead and after that the Kemalist movement began. Life became unbearable. The Americans transferred the orphanage to Beirut. Our orphanage was taken to Jibeyl, where I remained till 1924. I received an invitation from America and went to America. The ship sailed via Greece, Italy and France - Marseille. I went to Paris. I went to Stepan Dardouni, who had been my teacher at the orphanage. He took me to the café, where the Dashnaks used to frequent; he was a fanatic Dashnak. At the café I saw Armen Garo (Garegin Bastermadjian), who had participated in the Bank Ottoman seizure in 1896. In 1914 during World War I, he fought together with three thousand volunteers at the Sarighamish front against Enver pasha and had even fired at him. He had been a member of the Turkish Parliament; Enver pasha had permitted him to go to the Caucasus, to bring to an end his business of factories, houses and other properties and return to Constantinople.

We got on board the ship, passed by the Azores Island and reached New York. In America I lived in Watertown; a small town near Boston. I saw Hamastegh, Soghomon Tehlerian, Ruben Darbinian, the Ramkavar A. Nazar and the editor of the "Paykar" (Struggle) newspaper, Arsen Mikaelian - he was a poet and a fanatic communist, Snar Snarian, the editor of the "Banvor" (Worker) newspaper. I worked at the Hood Rubber Factory and at the Crawford Factory of furnaces.

From there I went to Detroit. For 3 or 4 years, I worked at the Ford Motor Factory. There I met the founder of the Hnchak Party, Nazarbek. I got acquainted with General Sepouh. Then I went to Chicago, where I worked at the carpet shop of Gabikian Karapet from Svaz. After a year I went to Minneapolis and St. Paul (those two towns were joined with a bridge), and there were many Armenians, who had cafés there. That state was America's storehouse of wheat. The town was very beautiful and the people were very kind. I remained there for a few months with a carpet merchant from Svaz, whose name I don't remember. That poor man was ill with tuberculosis; he had an order for one of the Denver (Colorado) sanatoriums and he believed that he would be cured there. In two months we got news that he had died. The shop passed to another man. There was a time when I distributed ice-cream to the shops. From there I went to the small town called Montana Whitefish, where I wanted to work on the railway, but I didn't succeed. I went to Spoken, a small town in Washington State. A young man from our Svaz had a carpet store there. There were also many Armenians at such a distant place. Then I went to the town of Portland, Oregon. This town also was very clean and tidy; I liked it very much. Here on the central street there was a small factory for repairing and washing carpets, and on the main street there was a small factory for new carpets, "Aram, Tadevos and Tigran Brothers." The Kartozian brothers were also well-known in the town and state. They were very attentive to me as a countryman, a man who had suffered a lot and was homeless; and they promised to give me the job of a supplier. I didn't agree; I don't know why. There I met a famous doctor, who had married a German lady. At the hotel I met Michael Arlen. There I found, by chance, a family from our village, a remote relative, Stepan Papazian, who had two daughters and two sons. He worked at the Kartozian workshop. He was the brother-in-law of Tadevos Kartouzian; for that reason he had reached that remote town. I remained at his house for two months. He loved me like a parent and he didn't let me pay for my nourishment. His wife was also very attentive and friendly to me. They wanted me to marry their daughter, but I didn't have any feelings towards her. From there I came to San Francisco, the city of beautiful gardens. I worked for a time at the restaurant of an Armenian from Van, but I don't know why, Fresno attracted me. I went to Fresno and got acquainted with the editor of "Nor Or" (New Day), Andranik Andreassian, who later became a well-known writer. Andranik was then replacing his uncle Armenak Amirkhanian, who had fallen ill. One day, at the publishing house I got acquainted with the well-known Armenian painter Panos Terlemezian.

The last days of his life Andranik pasha lived in Fresno. I saw him emaciated and in despair, leaning on his walking-stick, he used to come to the central park. Then he died. I was introduced to Vahé Hayk; he was the son-in-law of Grigor Arakelian, the wealthy raisin merchant. He often visited Fedayi Smbat's café, which was frequented by the Ramkavar Hrach Yervand and the Dashnak Arsen Mikaelian. Three newspapers were published: "Nor Or" (New Day), "Mshak" (Cultivator), "Asparez" (Arena). Levon Lyuledjian edited the "Mshak." Fresno had lost its former glory because of the 'dry law.' The price of grapes and raisins had fallen. The Armenians had left their vineyards and had gone to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hayk Bonapartian had a chemist's shop there, but he couldn't keep it; he went bankrupt. The Armenians had two churches: the Apostolic - Gregorian Orthodox and the Protestant Chapel. William Saroyan had just graduated from school and was appointed teacher of physical training there. I found a job; I was working on the high mountains, on railway construction. We had organized a working group together with the Armenian boys. On the mountains I saw the places described in Jack London's book "Green valley." After working for three years I went to Los Angeles. The population of the city hadn't reached one million then. In Los Angeles I began to work as an attendant to the actors during the film-shootings. I received five dollars daily. For a few months I worked with the actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford husbands. I took part in the film: "The thief of Baghdad." Then I went to work with Jackie Coogan. That was a twelve-year-old actor; he played the role of orphans and loved the Armenians very much. Once he took a whole ship-load of food to Greece for the Armenian orphans. The Armenian intellectuals had gathered in Los Angeles. I saw Armenak Shahmouradian, Alexander Melik, actor Harout, producer Ruben Mamoulian, an opera singer, who had a great fame, but I don't remember his name. There were no Armenian rich people yet, only one Armenian had an iron factory. There was a family of actors; they had been shot in a film called "The Persian Moon." Most of the Armenians were workers cleaning the city; mainly people from Moosh and Leninakan (now: Gyumri), who didn't enjoy a high reputation.

One day I got acquainted with a young man from Ayntap in a café, and he took me to a tourist office and found a job on a ship for me. I was very glad, for I liked a wanderer's life. At last we set off on a rich luxurious tourist ship around South America. We sailed to Chile, passed through the Magellan Strait; we visited Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Montevideo. There I found two of my orphanage friends, Souren Boyajian and Sargis Altounian, who had a shoe-shop in the center of the city. In Buenos Aires I met Terterian Tonik from our village; he was a barber. In San Diego (Chili) I met an old man from Constantinople, who told many interesting things about his life, many funny stories about the activities of Armenian revolutionary parties and so on and so forth. The ship sailed up the Amazon River. The ship was covered with glass to protect the people from poisonous ants, insects and even wild beasts. There were free-watching towers to watch the two sides of the Amazon. I, too, often watched with a pair of big field-glasses. Finally we reached the capital of Venezuela, Caracas, and via the Panama Strait we sailed back to Los Angeles. My voyage lasted more than two months. In Los Angeles I met representatives of Armenia, who tool Andranik's sword to Armenia. I was always thinking about going to Armenia, to study at the Armenian University and marry a girl from Armenia.

Then I traveled again. I visited many places in New York. I lived in my uncle's house; I visited Boston, Watertown, where my sister lived and from where I had started my wanderer's life.

In New York an Armenian doctor gave me a passport to the Republic of Armenia, with which I came to France and applied to the Soviet Ambassador Lounacharski, to go to Soviet Armenia. There I met Poghos Makintsian, Drastamat Ter-Simonian, Yeghia Choubar, who told me that because of Kirov's assassination no foreigners were allowed to enter the Soviet Union. They told me to wait for a while. I remained in Marseille, at our countrymen's places.

As a foreigner I had no documents to get a job in Marseille. I worked as a translator in a first class hotel, translating English, Turkish and Arabic. Every day I went to the sea-port and brought travelers to the hotel; I was paid well, especially for my English.

During the free months I went to Paris. In the cafés I used to meet Armenian intellectuals, and we discussed political questions. The cafés of the Ramkavars and the Dashnaks were separate. There I met famous personalities: Avetis Aharonian, Mickael Varandian, Simon Vratsian, Arshak Djamalian and Shavarsh Missakian - with his ear-phones (as he was deaf). In the Ramkavar's café I met Levon Bashalian, Ruben Vorberian, Aghaton Beyli, Arshak Chobanian, Vahan Malezian, the Secretary of AGBU, rich people, owners of jewelry and fur shops, etc.

At the café of the Relief Committee of Armenia I usually met Gurgen Tahmazian, Dr. Minassian, Galjian, the Chairman of the Relief Committee of Armenia, A. Issahakian, the Secretary of the Relief Committee, Zabel Yessayan, Tigran Zaven, Zareh Vorbouny and many others. I was on very close terms with Missak Manoushian; we were together during the Genocide in the Turkish village and in many orphanages. Outside I often saw Zareh Vorbouni, Vazgen Shoushanian and Shahan Shahnour. Armen Garo and Alexander Khatissian sat always separately in the café; they didn't mix with the others. I often saw Shahkhatouni; he used to walk with his mistress; it was said he was working as an actor. Once I saw Minas Cheraz and Poghos Noubar pasha, who were in their old age. On the anniversary of the Republic of Armenia, Dro had come to Paris from Rumania, Nzhdeh from Bulgaria, Levon Shant - from Beirut. I saw them during the celebration, on the stage, sitting around a table.

The Ramkavars had their embassy office, headed by Zatik Khanzatian, with their flag hanging; the Dashnaks had theirs, headed by Avetis Aharonian, and their flag - the tri-color. Each of them represented the republic, which didn't exist. The members of these three parties didn't want to see each other and treated one another like enemies. I was astonished at the attitude of the Armenians, which was the same everywhere - in America, Lebanon and France, wherever there were Armenians.

In Paris the Dashnaks published the "Haradj" (Forward) newspaper, edited by Shavarsh Missakain, the Ramkavars published the "Apaga" (Future), edited by Terzibashian, the Hnchaks published the "Yerevan," "Mer Oughin" (Our Path). Later Missak Manoushian began to publish the "Zangou."

I often climbed the summit of the Eiffel Tower and watched the panorama of Paris. The squares and the streets are beautiful, the people warm-blooded and vivacious. I thought about the past of France, particularly, about her Great Revolution.

Economic crisis started in France and all over Europe. The first victims were the thousands of Armenian workers. The Armenian workers were even deprived of the right of getting relief. The principle of reciprocal payment was put forward. They said to the Armenians, "You have no country; you aren't related with France in trade." The conditions were worse in Marseille. According to the indication of the Communist Party, a committee of the unemployed Armenians was formed, and I was elected chairman. Together with Missak Manoushian we sent a telegram to Soviet Armenia, to Sahak Ter-Gabrielian and to Aghassi Khandjian, asking them to organize repatriation. The Secretary of the Relief Committee of Armenia, Dr. Galjian sent a telegram to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union and the Ambassador of the Soviet Union, Lounacharski. After a while, Shahverdian came from Armenia. The AGBU, under the leadership of Malezian, undertook the expenses of the repatriating families until Batoumi. Thus, on May 22nd, 1936 about five-six thousand people were repatriated from France. Finally I achieved my aim: I wished to come to Armenia. We brought with us the ashes of Komitas and Minas Cheraz. Avetik Issahakian and his family, Arman Kotikian, the conductor Gevorg Yaghoubian and many others were with us. This repatriation gave a great impetus to the foundation and development of the new settlement in the outskirts of Yerevan, among them Kharbert, Sebastia, Malatia, Arabkir, Nor Geghi (Kghi) and others.

After coming to Armenia I went to Moscow. I remained there for two years, at the Center of the Military Investigations, after which I returned to Yerevan and became a teacher. In 1941 I was recruited to serve in the Red Army. After a year and a half they freed me from the army as a person, who had come from abroad. I returned and started studying English and French at the Institute of Foreign Languages, concurrently with my work. I have worked at various schools in Stepanavan, Maralik (Ani region) and Yerevan. From 1948 until 1955 I worked at the Ministry of Education as an inspector of foreign languages. I have corresponded with many newspapers published abroad.

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