Exhibition in Diyarbakir Recalls Multicultural Past

From the Poetry Collections: ” A Poetic Soul ShIned of Genocides” , 2008

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Genocide Victims in My Family in Diyarbakir
The story of our family. My grandfather, Mihran Dabbaghian (head of the customs department), left for work and was never to be seen again. His uncle, Garabed Dabbaghian, famous lawyer/judge, given the short name Natick Effendi (“Mr. Speaker” in Turkish)—he and all his extended family where slaughtered in Diyarbakir. We still have the official papers that state we are owners of many lands in Diyarbakir.
Other related families are the Abrahamian (changed their surname to Sabri to save their life—we recently discovered that their real surname name was Abrahamian before the massacres of 1915), Chilingirian, Kazandjian, Ouzounian, Misakian, and Simsarian* (owners of silk factory in Diyarbakir).

My granduncle’s wife, Katrina, the only survivor from Yousif Karagulla’s family (feudal lord in Mardin), had a brother, Numan Karagulla, who was graduated from the medical school Harvard or John Hopkins (1905?), and married to an American woman named Stella. They raped his wife in front of him then slaughtered him, his wife, and their son Philip. The genocide survivors are American citizens. There are endless stories, so which one to tell?

My father’s family in Baghdad never experienced the same situation. However, in Turkey, his two cousins (from the Ohanessian family) who were medical students in Vienna (Austria) vanished when they came home in April to Diyarbakir for the Easter holiday.

page 23, also from Diyarbakir
Hovanes Ouzounian: My grandmother’s brother-in-law. He was a merchant, surviving by his intellectual ability till the last part of the massacres. At the end, when he saw all relatives massacred they advised him to change his religion to become Muslim. When he decided to convert, the Turkish authority refused because his wife, Gadhar, could no conceive. He decided to adopt my elder uncle Khosrof, to be his son so that his conversion to Islam would be accepted. He then came to Mosul (Nineveh) north of Iraq, and opened a wine factory (Hadba Wine Co. sometime in the 1920s). The factory continued production till it was closed in the year 1964.
The Turkish fatwa or legal opinion at that time indicates that even if you want to change your religion, you cannot do so if you do not have an offspring. At the end, many Armenians started to become Muslims, but some were not accepted unless they give their daughters, sisters to marry the governor’s son or to become a second wife. It was well-known that Armenian girls where pretty, educated and said to be good homemakers. When their kin refused, they where deported or killed.

Sylva Portoian, MD
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* I have small piece of silk cloth from Samsarian’s Silk Factory…My mother’s aunt left late, she was able to carry with her. i remember her large wedding box where she use to put her jewels and cloths (bukhcha).

I am Armenian and I’m reading “The Thirty-Year Genocide.” In it I found out more about the atrocities of Bursa (where my father’s family was from) and Diyarbekir (where my mother’s family was from)
Thank you for your post and poetry.