The mystique of our grandparents’ backyards

Born from Mother Escaped Genocide

I was born from Mother
Escaping known genocide.
Astonishingly, by great luck,
That was a miraculous crack.
My mother always prayed and said,
“Some are born to live
No one can take souls to sharks.
Even to a devilish devil flying in the dark.”
Grandfather Mehran,
The director of the customs department in town,
In a government job—Empire of Ottoman,
A graduate of college and a respectful man,
Walked to work at dawn Never came back to mourn,
Has been taken from there,
Slaughtered unsown.
When my grandma Zaruhi,
Twenty-four spring years, then
Heard that her husband had vanished,
With most relatives’ kin keen,
Started thinking
how to protect her four kids
Within her heartbroken domain.
Grandmother—innocent, simple-minded,
Confused, how to secure an elder daughter’s life.
She took my mother, Victoria, to her great uncle’s hive (Garabed Dabaghian,*
famous lawyer in town),
In high-ranked areas,
Thinking the child will survive.
My mother started crying,
Obsessed to return home—dive.
As she was only four years old,
Attached to Mother’s Park,
The tiny blond girl had fear
Of nightmares and the dark.
She said I had real luck.
My obsession kept me alive to lark.
[My grandfather named her Victoria as she was born in the Victorian era.]
After she returned home
From her uncle’s family dome,
Old women, brides, children, toddlers
Vanished the next day at the “earliest crack at dawn.”
The gendarme invaded at night and stood at the door
After counting all households, one by one in the core.
More than thirty humans, living in a large house. So no one can leave,
no one can escape rouse.
They took them in carts, nobody knows where,
Disappearing from Diyarbakir’s century-home mare.
Who were the gendarmes?
Not government men?
Was he not Turkish?
Probably a spaceman!
He was a police officer
sent from police headquarters
To the influential families
to kill and confiscate
As much as their hands can catch;
Hence, from a small pin to a large ranch.
Written to be halal**
in their fatwa***
known the Hamidian.****
Killing, raping, searing,
even hanging, torturing,
Using belongings
of massacred Armenians,
Adding literary books,
burning treasured words down.
Grandma was terrified and started escaping
From hand to hand, from roof to roof,
Bribing endlessly
the Turks aloof,
To keep their lives hidden— just a few days more;
Prayers were not to reach the “genocidal cart”—
To be thrown in Der Zor desert to starve and die!
Till they arrived in Aleppo to a safe Arab land.
All her jewels were gone, with Ottoman Liras in gold,
Started working
in a factory stitching clothes;
To look after four kids—
diseased, hungry, shocked.
With her, old Mother Manoosh
lamenting sons, daughters, relatives, and neighbors she lost.
My uncle Haig
was only a few months old; Grandma used to cover
his mouth with a cloth
To stop the baby’s crying sound, loud and odd,
So the gendarme
cannot hear come close to kill;
As he was hungry,
breast milk dried alone;
He remained small and short with starved bones.
Another child,
Eugene, she was two years old;
She vomited continuously for days
Died later on, reaching Syria, maybe from cholera!

These are my childhood stories, hearing them every night;
We never heard stories
of a happy fairy-tale land.

But was replaced by murderers, the way that they killed,
The ways they raped
innocent girls, angels, sweet,
Incised the throats
of young lads clever and dear.
For sure, every gendarme
was one by one paid,
Bribed by the well-known Ottoman government,
Killing every Christian, swiftly head after head.
How we can forget
disheartening childhood stories!*****
Our brains impregnated
with endless fears since!
Dreaming, the devils like in excess greed
After hearing tales that impede the heart-beats
From Granny, so kind and cherished,
More accurate yet horrible than recent movies.
In that era,
there was no TV to watch, near to cheer,
Other than a large radio on a high table to hear…!

From my Recent Historical Poetry Book,
“Pedicide ISS Genocide is on Amazon 2024
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*Garabed Dabaghian: A very clever lawyer; he used to win almost every court case. He returned confiscated lands to real owners. Since real owners won the court with his help, they used to give him a piece of land, as they could not meet the expenses of the Ottoman Lira, which was gold currency. For that reason, he became the owner of a vast amount of land in Diyarbakir. We still have all the documents (called ‘taboo’ in Turkish) signed by the Ottoman Empire. Can we claim our lands back?
**Halal: Accepted by religious law.
***Fatwa: A formal legal opinion or religious decree issued by a Turkish Islamic leader, which differs in every ethnic Islamic community. For example, Arab leaders never issued such a fatwa to kill Armenians. On the contrary, the king of Arabia, King Husain bin Ali (king of Makkah), on month Rajab 18, 1336 AH (July 1918), issued an order to all Arab princes, specifically to Prince Faisal and Prince Abdul-Aziz Al Jarba (Sheikh Al Shammar) to look after Christian Armenians, ease their problems and supply them with anything they need. He said, “You are courageous and able to do so, and God will help to complete your guided mission.” King Hussain was at war with the Ottoman Empire, facing endless atrocities, as they ruled Arab lands for 400 years.
****Hamidian Massacres of Armenians (1895–1898): named after Sultan Abdul-Hamid: “The Red Sultan,” known as a great assassin.
*****Hovanes Ouzounian: My grandmother’s brother-in-law. He was a merchant, surviving by his intellectual ability till the end of the massacres. In the end, when he saw all the relatives escaped and killed, they advised him to change his religion to become Turkish Muslim. When he decided to change his religion, the Turkish authority refused because his wife, Gadhar, could not 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, north of Iraq, and opened a wine factory (Hadba Wine Co. sometime in the 1920s). The factory continued production till it was closed in 1964.
The Turkish fatwa, or legal opinion at that time, indicates that even if you want to change your religion, you can’t do so if you don’t have offspring. In the end, many Armenians started to become Muslims, but some were not accepted unless they gave their daughters or sisters to marry the governor’s son or to become a second wife. It was well-known that Armenian girls were pretty, educated, and good homemakers; when their kin refused, they were deported or killed. Such laws are never written in Arabic religious books.