― William Saroyan
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| Aleppo, Syria WWI |
April 24th commemorates the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. In 2012, France recognized the Armenian Genocide yet the United States refuses to accept the atrocities and systematic massacres and deportations of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey.
Growing up, I attended a small parochial Armenian school in Woodside, New York. St. Illuminator's was a bilingual school, which placed great importance on Armenian language and culture, and is the reason I am still able to converse and write in my mother's tongue over a decade after graduating the sixth grade.
I am a Syrian-Armenian. I have a story.
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| Sateneeg, Mustapha, My Grandfather (Fuad) to right of his father |
My great-grandmother, Sateneeg and her Armenian-American husband (born in New York City) and their two children, Souren and Araxi (also born in New York City), were on vacation in Turkey, when the Genocide broke out. They were visiting Sateeng's first husband's kilim (rug) factory, when he was shot point blank in front of her and his children.
Sateeneg became a widow in an instance and was in her teens with two children. The options were slim: face a march through Der Zor (known as Ad-Deir to Syrians and neighboring countries), which has become synonymous with Armenian Auschwitz or swallow poison to escape capture.
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| Mustapha Chelebi |
As luck or fate would have it, my great-grandfather, Mustapha Chelebi, an ophthalmologist from Aleppo and close friend of Sateneeg's husband, found my great-grandmother and her two children, and lied to Turkish authorities. He was a doctor in the Turkish Army and risked his own life by claiming Sateneeg and her two children were his own. He wrote a letter to his mother and sisters in Syria, and sent Sateneeg, Souren and Araxi to Aleppo. Souren and Araxi would be known as Ali and Fatima and would begin living as Muslims with a family they never met, living on my great-grandfather's word.
The war persisted for 4 years, and for 4 years they lived behind a veil of secrecy. During this time, Mustapha saved 23 Armenian women, by claiming he needed nurses to treat wounded Turkish soldiers. One by one, he sneaked these women out to safety. I still have letters from the American Red Cross (dated 1917), thanking Mustapha for all of his efforts. His heroic rescue of the Armenian women is captured in an Armenian book called, "Antranig."
During the course of the World War I, Mustapha was eventually captured by the Russians; seeing his value as a doctor educated in Lyon, he spent part of the war in St. Petersburg, where he taught himself how to speak and read Russian.
My mother used to tell me that she would find him reading this strange language,when she was a child, and he would tell her that it was Russian. Even after the war, my great-grandfather remained fascinated by Russia; I still have a samovar (literally "water-boiler" used to make tea) that's traveled and survived the Diaspora to make its way into my dining room.
After the Treaty of Versailles was signed, and peace was restored, Mustapha returned to Aleppo. He told his mother and sisters the truth; four years had passed since he had sent Sateneeg and her children to safety. Mustapha gave my Sateneeg a choice (a fiery redhead, who had been somewhat of a free spirit, who went on hunting excursions, was outspoken, the prized and rebellious only daughter of a wealthy Armenian coal mine owner): she could return to New York City or she could do him the great honor of becoming his wife.
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| The Chelebi Family, Aleppo Syria |
Sateneeg chose to become his wife. She and Mustapha would have 5 children, and lived a highly eccentric and uncharacteristically modern and Western life. Santeneeg became his right hand in the desert. Though illiterate, my grandmother said that she knew all of the medicines and would join Mustapha in his safari hat and his Jeep to go out ton treat the poor free of charge. Mustapha was somewhat a modern-day Robin Hood: he'd overcharge the rich, and treat the poor for free. Their cook, Mahmoud was a man who would have gone completely blind had it not been for treatment. My grandfather took a liking to him, and offered him a cook's position, which he accepted. My mother grew up with Mahmoud, who listened to the radio as he cut onions, she'd ask him questions, and grew up in a highly unusual environment due to the cultural influences that were penetrating the Middle East in the late 1950s.
Eventually, my grandfather, Fuad (Frank) would become involved in politics; my mother, her brother and my grandmother would move to Lebanon during the outbreak of the war, while my grandfather was imprisoned. His sister, Belkis would help him escape by distracting the prison guards; he would leave the country in the back of a car trunk, and with the help of the American Government, would enter New York as a stateless citizen.
This is a story of Hope. My maternal great-grandmother's side wasn't so lucky. All of her family members were massacred save for herself and her father. The atrocities are documented by several foreign observers at the time, there are photographs, and their survivor stories.
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| The Chobanian Family (my maternal grandmother's family: next post will feature her story) |
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