On the Road to Exile: 100 Years Later in Ayntab

Hope amongst the Ruins: The People of Ayntab

Special for the Armenian Weekly

I have reached the final point of my journey on the road to exile: Antep. Or as we say in our Armenian language, Ayntab. I mentioned this before. As we advanced on our itinerary, my emotional burden became increasingly heavier. I started feeling exhausted once we reached Ayntab. With every new town I visited, I thought about the people who had walked this road before me, without rest or water, and the thought of this suffering weighed down on me like a heavy, oppressive humidity. When I reached Ayntab at night, I began looking for a barber so that I could take a little rest and pull myself together. In the former Armenian neighborhood, now dimly lit by the light of the Kurtulus Mosque, I found a barber sharpening his straight razor. I thought it would be a good place to not only get a shave but to learn a bit about the local history of the neighborhood as well.

The Meryem Ana Church, now the Kurtulus Mosque
The Meryem Ana Church, now the Kurtulus Mosque

Before I came to Ayntab, the former Meryem Ana Armenian Church, which had functioned as a prison during the 1980’s and was now the Kurtulus Mosque, had been intensely renovated. When I went to the barber, I overheard a conversation between the shop owners who worked underneath the mosque. The homes of the priests, located behind the church, are currently being renovated. According to the barber, “It’s taking forever to restore everything in this neighborhood. Maybe only 10 people are coming to that mosque every Friday.” The city is full of museums at every corner thanks to the ‘Museum City’ project launched by the municipality of Ayntab. And these museums were once Armenian homes.

 

A Turkish Flag to Cover Up the Cross

A Turkish flag, hung in order to cover up the cross in the background
A Turkish flag, hung in order to cover up the cross in the background

I encounter people with beautiful and smiling faces in the city. Every single one of them is a valuable person. I am on the streets of Ayntab in the company of people my dear friend, the historian Umit Kurt, recommended to me.

Murad Ucaner has a deeper and more detailed knowledge of Ayntab than many historians in Turkey. He taught himself Armenian and translated numerous books relating to Ayntab history, and is the best guide we can have for this region.

First we go to the Meryem Ana Church. After looking at the restoration of the priests’ homes, I take a look inside. For years, a huge flag was hung in the apse of this church: a Turkish flag, hung in order to cover up the cross in the background. The flag remains there, even as the restoration work continues. It’s clear that some people think that if the past of Kurtulus Mosque remains hidden, if there are no crosses visible, people will forget that it used to be a church.

Right across from the church, the Armenian neighborhood is undergoing intense restoration work. Nearly all the houses in the neighborhood have been given a new stucco exterior. The interiors, on the other hand, are still in ruin. And the Vartanyan School located next to the church has been left to rot.

The current condition of the Vartanyan School
The current condition of the Vartanyan School

 

The Nazaryans

Restoration work at the Nazaryan house
Restoration work at the Nazaryan house

While walking around the Armenian neighborhood with Ucaner, we enter an old house now used as a cafe after a small restoration. “You’re really going to love it,” he excitedly tells me, and I understand what exactly I am going to experience as I step inside. The left side of the building is left completely unaltered at Ucaner’s request. The owners of Papirus Cafe left this part of the building as it once was. The right side, which was then used by the servants and workers of the house, has been turned into a cafe. The Nazaryans were one of the richest and most powerful families of the city in the 1700’s. The head of the family, known as “Kara Nazar” (Black Gaze), had this residence built in 1825. Its name is written in many places around the building in Armenian letters. The most important feature of this building is that the walls, doors, and ceilings of these rooms have survived and still hold many pictures and writings that are important to Armenian history. In my travels throughout Anatolia so far, I have not seen such a well-preserved and solidly standing building as this one. With a few more improvements, the Kara Nazar home could become an Armenian addition to the local government’s dream of a “Museum City.”

The original doors of the Nazaryan House preserved
The original doors of the Nazaryan House preserved

 

The Wife of Kevork Chavoush

Heghine in 1910
Heghine in 1910

Murad Ucaner shows me another house as we walk around—a house that he started restoring himself but was not able to finish. He explains how on the top floor he found a picture of Heghine, the wife of the famous Armenian revolutionary Kevork Chavoush, holding a gun.* There are restorations going on everywhere in Ayntab. We can still randomly come across traces of the Armenians’ presence. The locals of Ayntab are honestly quite open-minded on this topic as well. We sit down for a tea break. Celal Deniz and his friends join us as well. Two cups later, the conversation around the table deepens with new faces joining.

 

‘The smell was so sharp they couldn’t sleep

Murad Uçaner standing in front of the door
Murad Uçaner standing in front of the door

Uncle Nusret, a painter who was sitting quietly at the corner of the table, suddenly begins to talk. “So many were slaughtered in Urfa and in Adiyaman. Our grandfathers told us: ‘We killed them, we threw them into the river, there were so many bodies that a bridge formed from one bank to the other.’ There was a stench from over 5 kilometers away,’” he said.

I don’t know what to say. I have been so used to hearing the story from Armenians, now hearing it from “the other side” in Ayntab is almost like a direct confrontation. Uncle Nusret continues, “From Adiyaman, they collected them from 5 villages. ‘We will give you soldiers,’ we told them. Then we bayoneted all of them.’ This is what my grandfather told me.”

 

One part of me is a traitor; the other, a rescuer

The Armenian Protestant Church now a cultural center
The Armenian Protestant Church now a cultural center

The Cenanis are a family dating back to Ottoman times. Ali Cenani was one of the founding members of the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), and also an Ottoman deputy. It’s known that he was close to Ataturk, and is famous for making inflammatory propaganda for the Armenians to be deported. He was also a commerce minister in 1924. This man’s name lives on in the form of a cultural center named after him in the city, located right in the middle of the Armenian and Turkish neighborhoods. It is known to have hosted interesting gatherings. It’s said that the debate about the deportation of the Armenian people was carried out here.

A distant relative of Cenani’s is sitting at the far corner of our table. Haluk Soysal. He explains that a portion of the Cenani family actually sheltered Armenians during the time of the deportations: “One side of my family are traitors, the other rescuers,” he says, with a bitter laugh. “In fact, it’s still said that the Cenanis are an Armenian family. At our house, an excavation was carried out in order to find gold. It’s rumored that the name pronounced during the funeral was Harutyun Cenaniyan.”

At first, nobody in the conversation believed it. On the way back to Ayntab I did a little online research and found out that one of the founders of Tarsus College, and its administrator from 1888-93, was someone with the name of Harutyun Cenaniyan. I find this out on the school’s website. The same source tells me that Cenaniyan was from Ayntab. Can all of this be mere coincidence, I asked myself. But this is another research topic in itself.

 

***

The author with Celal Deniz and his friends
The author with Celal Deniz and his friends

There are many Armenian structures and cultural heritages in Ayntab. And just as many oral histories as well. I was able to transfer a small amount of information to you, but in the short conversation I had, there were at least 10 times as many memories and knowledge shared by our friends. How nice it is that Ayntab has a community, albeit a small one, that is not willing to let the history of the city be forgotten.

Author’s acknowledgment: This journey was supported by the Open Society Foundation, Istanbul.

 

*The Armenian Weekly cannot verify the veracity of the claim that the woman in the photo is in fact the wife of the celebrated fedayee Kevork Chavoush. In Roupen DerMinassian’s memoirs, the author notes that Chavoush’s wife’s name was Yeghso (not Heghine). In addition, there is no evidence that Yeghso was a fedayee.

 

The house where Heghine's photo was discovered
The house where Heghine’s photo was discovered
What remains of the Armenian neighborhood - a parking lot and neglected buildings
What remains of the Armenian neighborhood – a parking lot and neglected buildings
Our discussion centers on the genocide
Our discussion centers on the genocide
Nazaryan konağı
The Nazaryan mansion
Aris Nalci

Aris Nalci

Aris Nalcı (b. 1980) lives in Istanbul and Brussels. He worked as a writer, then as an editor of the Turkish Armenian daily Agos until 2011. His articles have been published in several mainstream newspapers and magazines in Turkey. He currently writes for Radikal daily and works at IMC (International Media TV) as a presenter in a media analysis TV show. He also produces GAMURÇ, a show on minorities in Turkey.

21 Comments

  1. Aintab was a very significant Armenian center 100 years ago. My four grandparents were all from Aintab and I had the opportunity to visit the city in 2000. A highlight of the visit was visiting the “Kurkji Hani” built by my great-great-great uncle, Hagop Kurkjian. Another major visit was to the American Hospital of Aintab, founded by Dr. Fred Shepard, the American doctor and Christian missionary. In 2000, the medical director was his grandson, Dr. Barclay Shepard, who had retired from medical practice and returned to Aintab to continue the medical work done by his grandfather; we had an amazing visit!!!

    • Opening a house for the invaders tells me only one thing: TREASON. This is what Kurkchuyan did. His house was the headquarters of French invaders and military high rank officials.

  2. My grandfather use to say that their hous Turks after sending them with his mother to Darha (located at the south of Syrian border) used their hous as a police station, sadly I have not any kinde of documents about it.

  3. It is unfortunate that the author is reproducing Turkish assertions that things are being “restored”. Restored to what? And is “restoration” an appropriate intervention? What is not being attempted anywhere is preservation by conservation – you do not gut the interior of a house, and replace it with a concrete building inside an old facade and call it preservation. What is common to all these “restorations” is that the historical integrity of the houses are almost always destroyed in the process. The Turkish concept of a “museum city” is a scattered selection of old monuments preserved in a sanitised, altered, and heavily over-restored condition standing isolated amid an otherwise modern city. There is no concept that the city itself could be a monument worthy of preservation as a whole. For example, look at the “parking lot and neglected buildings” photo (the site is located directly below the church, btw). In 2005 there was a ruined Armenian house where that parking lot now is. The wide boulevard with paving and flower beds visible next to the lot is entirely modern, bearing no relation to the urban fabric of Antep at the time of the construction of the church or the suviving old houses, and would have been formed through the demolition of hundreds of old buildings. I see no hope amongst ruins here, I see only the obliteration of the past and the obliteration of access to that past.

  4. Dear Aris,
    Thank you for the great article. This is what I learned about Aintep on a trip to Turkey in 2009. All of the following information is circa 2009.
    HOMES ONCE OWNED BY ARMENIANS.
    #1 Once: Armenian owned (name unknown) Now: Oh Bay Mahli (Sokak) Butik A Otel.
    #2 Once: Barsumian Home. Now: To be turned into a boutique hotel.
    #3 Once: Kara Manugian home. Now: a museum T.C. Kultur Ve Turizm Bakanlige The Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
    #4 Once: The Nazarian Home. The date 1859 in Arabic script appears on building.
    Now: The Papyrus restaurant downstairs. Upstairs rooms are decorated with paintings on walls and doors. In the restaurant one could see Armenian letters above a door spelling Nazarian.
    OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST IN AINTEP CIRCA 2009
    We learned about the huge caves underneath the houses in the Armenian quarter. Places for cold storage and where toneers were kept. Every Armenian home in Aintep had a basement or cellar.
    Sincerely,
    Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut

  5. Thank you for this article! I am actually related to these Nazarians through my paternal Grandmother, and know the name “Kara Nazar” as a great-great-great (? how many?) grandfather of mine. My dad’s cousins visited this building in the 90’s. My great-grandfather shortened his name to Nazar when he came to the US and helped start the first Armenian-English newspaper called he Baikar, now the Mirror-Spectator.

    • Jane,Ravi, Maro, I am the granddaughter of Mihran Nazaretian and live in Baltimore. I am also very interested in finding more information about our ancestors. I was born in Lebanon and my maiden name was Sylvana Sursock.

    • I agree, the house was Nazaretian House and not Nazarian. Although the Nazaretians were an offshoot of the Nazarian family. Kara Nazar was my great- great- grandfather from my father’s side

  6. I was amused to read the English translation of Kara Nazar as Black Gaze. Although Nazar is the Arabic word for vision (it may also be so in Turkish), I think in this case Nazar is the shortened form of Nazareth.

  7. Thank you for the wonderful article about Ayntab.
    My grandmother was one of the granddaughter of “Kara Nazar”.
    In fact, she lived in the beautiful Nazaretian mansion until she got married.
    She was the daughter of Garabed Bey Nazaretian who was the Persian consul at that time.
    My wish is to visit Ayntab sometime soon to find out more about the interesting city and my illustrious ancestors.

  8. I really enjoyed this article about Aintab. My dad was from Aintab and graduated from the Cilicia Institute in Aintab in 1915. The school has been rebuilt and is called the Gaziantep Lisesi in Aintab. He was a survivor of the Armenian genocide. His parents and some of his brothers perished. My dad was orphaned and lived at the Jebeil Orphanage in Lebanon until he came to America in 1921. Dad mentioned the hospital that Dr. Shepard founded. Thank you for writing this article.

  9. To try to shed some light on the spelling and origin of the name Nazaret and Nazaretians of Aintab. Before the Romans made up the reference Christian or Christianity and adopted the new religion in 312 A.D., followers of Jesus for three centuries were known as “Nazarene” for being followers of the one who was from Nazaret. Nazar is just an abbreviated format of Nazaret. Until today in the Middle East, Christians are referred to as “Nazarene”. Photos have been circulated of ISIS marking properties of Christians with the Arabic letter “N”, making them targets. The male name Nazaret would translate today to Christopher in English and Chris for Nazar. The Nazaretians of Aintab were from Isfahan, Iran. Three Nazaretian merchant brothers had come in the year 1700, with two moving on, and one staying in Aintab for the next 220 years. The Nazaretians trace their roots to Julfa, Nakhichevan and the Pakraduni capital of Ani before it.

    • Hey Chekijian,

      May i know where you got all this information as i am a Nazarian and would like to know more.

  10. My grandparents were not from Ayntab, however I read a book where I read many Armenian orphans took shelter for weeks in a cave under the Hallajian school or the Shepherd hospital right after the genocide when they returned to Ayntab…would anyone know where this one cave is exactly and if it still exists today.

    • Note from Bill Isely

      I was born in the Doctor’s house in the American Hospital grounds in 1925, my parents were missionaries there and I was there last in 1941.

      I was aware of three caves on the grounds. The most useful and secretive was a cave to the east of the doctor’s house with access only from the doctor’s house basement. There was a han northeast of the doctor’s house just north of the west wing of the hospital and off of it were two small caves, at my time used for storing animal fodder and there were mushrooms in the larger one whose opening went down quite steeply.

      What I was most fascinated with was the aqueduct that ran under the hospital grounds and the girl school compound just to the west about 125 feet (42 meters) deep with
      five access wells, three at the hospital, two at the girl’s school. There was a windmill at different times at three of these wells down to the aqueduct, although the last one on the girl’s school property was actually brought over from the college property when it was sold about on about 1935. The aqueduct was disused as the water system for Aintep in about 1936 when the present piped system was installed. I was let down into the aqueduct in a basket when I was 8 or 9 yeas old when stone masons were carving a short tunnel to an underground spring to get purer water.

      I forgot to mention that there was a full basement under the girl’s school which might have been thought to be a cave. There was also a large cave on the girl’s school grounds in the south west corner which we used for our dairy cows. There were 12 foot high stone walls around all three of the missionary properties’

      Also there was an abandoned orphanage walled property maybe 300 meters south of the then city limits starting up what what we called Mardin Hill There was a significant
      stone building there but we never visited it close up.

  11. I read the article after three years for the first time. It is really interesting to me as I was born there and grew up there until I went to college. As I visit Antep 3-4 times a year, everytime I visit those neigbourhoods which are my favorite places, and think how things would be different-better if we lived together today with Armenians. This feeling got me even more after visitng Armenia and meeting people from Antep there. We were shy to visit Armenia first, then surprised by warm welcoming people and nobody were accusing us there in contrary to some of my experiences in Europe. So in short as Aram Gülerian (Ara Güler) said; “insanlar birbirlerine düşman değil, insanlar birbirini sever. düşmanları hep aracılardır” ( People are not enemies to each other, people love each other, their enemy is always intermediaries ).

  12. ‘My father’s Aintab’ is a video , where I am following the steps of my father’s birth place where 77 boys were rescued and hidden in the cave and then after a flood they were moved to the third flour of the hospital, now part of a research center . Five years ago when I visited ,the cave was a nicely decorated cafe with some antiques,last year I saw it as a storage place for furniture of an outside cafe. Aintabcis will love the video

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