‘Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan: An Armenian Boy’s Memoir of Survival, 1915-1919’ by Aram Haigaz (Maiden Lane, 396 pages, $26.95)In June 1915, the entire Armenian population of Shabin Karahisar set fire to their homes and fields and headed to a fort on the mountain above the town. They had heard news of the deportations and massacres of Armenians across eastern Anatolia, so decided to stock up on food and animals and took to the old Roman castle. Up there, 5,000 held out against Ottoman battalions for one month until famine forced them to surrender.The 15-year-old Aram Haigaz was among them. Almost his entire family was killed in the siege, and he was sent with his mother on one of the forced marches leading to the Syrian desert. His mother was massacred and her body thrown into the Euphrates, leaving her son as the only surviving member of the family. He managed to survive by converting to Islam and was took on by a local Turkish master, proving his usefulness as a worker and as one of the few left who could read and write.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/an-armenian-in-the-mountains-of-eastern-anatolia.aspx?pageID=238&nID=89874&NewsCatID=474
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire