Armenian Genocide: The Armenian actor Nazaraeth Peshdikian

“Turkey wants to make people forget but we will never forget that they slew two millions of people.

 Big Armenian poet Petros Dourian says

‘My death is when I forget my memories.’

 We won’t forget.”

Armenian actor Nazaraeth Peshdikian, 94, who was born in Zeytun/Maraş and witnessed many tragedies of the 20th Century

Armenian actor says genocide recognition late but useful

Renown Armenian actor Nazaraeth Peshdikian, 94, who was born in Zeytun/Maraş, witnessed many tragedies of the 20th Century. He lived the second world war and the Armenian Genocide in 1915 first hand. Stating that people don’t draw a lesson from the bloody history, Nazaraeth Peshdikian says; “We must not forget the genocides and the wars. We must draw a lesson from the history so that it won’t repeat.”

When the genocide started, he was a 6 year old child playing on streets with friends in Zeytun/Maraş. He was an orphan. He remembers neither his mother nor father. He had been living with his uncle until the Ottoman soldiers gathered them that day and exiled them to the hot deserts of Middle East. They were left without food and water, harassed and tortured all the way.

Peshdikian doesn’t remember his parents but he doesn’t forget the genocide, his pains and his memories, either. “I remember as if it was yesterday. I was a child. I was afraid. I was walking on the corpses.”says Peshdikian and adds; “That day, Ottoman soldiers gathered us. They firstly took us to Maraş. This was a maneuver but most of the people accepted going. They were not revolutionary people, they did not resist. I lost my uncle in Maraş. Then, an Armeniam family took me along. There,with thousands of Armenian families, we were taken to Antep and then to Aleppo, towards Syria deserts...”

Having walked from Maraş to Antep, then to Aleppo, Baghdad and Jerusalem via the hot and hard deserts, Peshdikian tells that the Ottoman soldiers laid everyone bare and left in the desert close to Aleppo. Peshdikian records that they kept walking in hunger and thirst for days and tells that they could hardly find any waste and grass and tried to survive by living on animal carcasses.

Peshdikian tells; “They ordered us to take offour clothes. I left my short on. They raped a number of women and killed many people. Everywhere was like hell. I was walking on corpses. They left us in the middle of the desert and went away. We had no staying power even to bury the corpses. We left the corpses to bruise like animal carcasses.” Telling that many people died in the desert, Peshdikian says that he later on got lost and a shepherd he came across, gave him milk.

Peshdikian states that he later met the survivor Armenians and they together went to Baghdad with the hope to find bread and life circumstances. He says that people there gave them a back and gave them food and work on fields.

Peshdikian says that they lived in Baghdad till 1918 and returned to Maraş with the end of the war. An Armenian guerrilla from Zeytun, who refused to go in 1915 and resisted against Ottoman, recognized Nazaraeth Peshdikian and took him to Zeytun, where he was born. When they returned to Zeytun, Peshdikian saw that their homes and properties had been rifled and the settlements in the region had been devastated. “Among 35 thousands of people, there were only 3 or 4 thousand survivors. Everywhere had been devastated.”says he.

Recording that Armenian people tried to forget their pains and arrange their homes, yards and life again,Peshdikian adds; “This silence, however, didn’t last long. In 1919, Mustafa Kemal started to gather Armenians again. They claimed that we supported Russians in the war and accused all of us with treason.”

Peshdikian records that the life in Mesopotamia got back into circulation after the war but the survivor Armenians weren’t left in peace. With the order of Mustafa Kemal, Armenian intellectuals and notable people were gathered again and tens of them were executed.

Peshdikian says that they at the meantime heard that the Red Cross gathered Armenians and took them to concentration camps to save them from the attacks of Turks. Joining a leaving group, Peshdikian is again taking to the roads.

*Theater adventure

Peshdikian tells his national drama as follows; “They were afraid that Turks would kill us and the rest too. They gathered 30-40 thousands of orphans. They took us to the orphan camps in Beirut. Life was very difficult there too. People were dying of hunger and illnesses. I learned that my uncle, whom I lost in Maraş, was in the Saint-Jacques Armenian canvases in Jerusalem and decided to walk alone from there on.”

Walking from Beirut to Palestine, Nazareth Peshdikian finds his uncle in Jerusalem in 1925. Peshdikian says that he met shepherds on mountains and an Armenian young girl gave him bread and milk. “I came across that young girl in Jerusalem but I was too young to take her in my arms.”

Peshdikian starts with theater training in Jerusalem that he calls old city. Earning his living by shoe-making, Nazareth Peshdikian performed in the evening and played football in the morning. He didn’t have any possibility to go to school but he often went to libraries and tried to learn many things he heard and saw. The sufferings and dramas he faced teach him what a big miracle the life is. Reading books and learning Arabic at odd moments, Peshdikian says; “I learned to read and write in my mother tongue there. I learned the language by myself because I had understood that life was very valuable.

Mentioning that Arabs, Armenians, Christians, Muslims and many other people lived fraternally in Jerusalem, Peshdikian smiles and expresses his feelings, saying; “I was very happy there because there was no war at that time.”

In Jerusalem, Nazareth Peshdikian meets the famous actor Razo who invited him to Paris for theater training. Naver losing his hope for a better life, Peshdikian accepts the invitation gladly. He leaves Jerusalem in 1930 for a professional theater training and comes to Paris that he calls “big magic city”.

*Taking place in fight against Hitler fascism

In Paris, Peshdikian on one hand made shoes, on the other hand followed on his theater training. He formed his own theater group and takes to many big stages. His first child, his daughter was born in 1933 but this happiness doesn’t last long. War again, this time second world war...

“Dramas started again” says Nazareth Peshdikian, who was a socialist and added in communists. He took place among French resisters against Hitler fascism. In Paris, he published and distributed the l‘Humanite Dimanche newspaper. Stating that he did his best material and spiritually throughout the resistance, Nazareth Peshdikian adds that many of his friends were killed and died at the front.

Peshdikian says that people mustn’t forget about the experienced genocides, wars and deaths so that they won’t happen again, adding; “I witnessed the second world war. Again, there were many wars. And now they want to make the third world war. I am against wars as they bring only pain to everyone.”

*Kurdish struggle gladdens me

Carrying the deep traces of the wars despite his 94 years, Nazareth Peshdikian reminds that Kurdish people were also exposed to constant genocides and holocausts in Mesopotamia just like Armenians. Peshdikian says that Kurdish and Armenian people also have the right to live freely like all other people. Peshdikian tells that he went to Armenia this year, met Kurdish people and institutions there and was glad with the freedom fight of Kurdish people. He says; “Kurdish people have mounted up. They were organised. They are fighting and resisting. Armenians and Kurds have the most claim on those lands.” Peshdikian describes the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by some countries-even too late- as a positive development in the sense of not forgetting historical realities.

Saying that some want to make people forget about the Armenian Genocide to legitimize their bloody histories, Nazareth Peshdikian puts an end to his words as follows; “Turkey wants to make people forget but we will never forget that they slew two millions of people. Big Armenian poet Petros Dourian says ‘My death is when I forget my memories.’ We won’t forget.”

02 May 2011

Translation: Berna Ozgencil

ANF / PARIS

ANF NEWS AGENCY

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