Sir, - With reference to the letter from Engin Asula, First Secretary of the Embassy of Turkey (November 5th), I feel I must write on behalf of my grandparents and my mother, who were victims of the first genocide of the 20th century.
In 1915, my grandmother (whose own parents and brother had been killed by the Turks, along with thousands of other Armenians at the turn of the century, in retaliation for their petitioning for equal rights under the law) was living in Albistan in Turkey, when her husband was rounded up with all the men of the village and led away to his death.
My grandmother, who was only 18 at the time, along with her two-year-old daughter (my mother), her new-born son and her mother-in-law, was forced with all the women and children to walk to the Deir Zor desert. During this "relocation" many were raped, bayoneted, thrown into the rivers, buried alive or starved to death. My grandmother witnessed children being piled on top of each other and then burned alive. Her baby son and mother-in-law died. The Turkish soldiers shot the remaining survivors.
My grandmother was a remarkable woman of great courage and resourcefulness, and saved herself and my mother by lying on top of her pretending to be dead under a pile of corpses. After two more years of great hardship, including being sold to a Bedouin, they were finally rescued.
Three-quarters of the Armenian population in Turkey perished during this time, yet the Turkish government continues to deny that it ever happened, and continues to discriminate against Armenians. My parents were living in northern Cyprus when the Turks invaded the island in 1974 and were forced to leave their home. The Turkish government has denied them compensation even though they are naturalised British subjects. The Turkish authorities have told them this is because they are of "Armenian descent".
Ms Asula mentions that Armenians and Turks coexisted peacefully and shared the same geography for almost a millennium. The relationship with the Turks started in the 11th century when the Seljuk Turks invaded Armenian lands, forcing many Armenians to flee. This was followed, in 1236, by the Mongol invasion. In the 16th century Armenia was divided between the Persians and the Ottoman Turks. As Christians, Armenians lacked legal recourse for injustices, and were forbidden to bear arms in a country where murdering a non-Muslim often went unpunished.
Many Armenians and Turks did live together in peace and my grandmother knew many Turks who risked their lives to help their Armenian neighbours.
Hitler knew his history, and commented: "Who does now remember the Armenians?" when embarking on his policy of extermination of the Jews. For some reason the Turkish government still feels impelled to go against documented evidence, even to the extent of "persuading" some academics to distort the facts. Israel J. Charny, in his essay, The Psychology of Denial of Known Genocide writes that: "Denial attacks the historical spirit and morale of the survivors and the descendants of those killed and places further burden on their recovery." And so it goes on. - Yours, etc.,
Sophie Aghajanian, Marlborough Park South, Belfast 9.