Aintab
Aintab/Aytab (Այնթապ)
Now known as Gaziantep (Veterans Ainteb) in honor of those who drove the last Armenians out of the city.
Ararat Eskijian Museum Hosts Lecture On Aintab
September 21, 2013
Asbarez / PanARMENIAN.Net - The Ararat Eskijian Museum in Mission Hills, CA, wore the image of Old Aintab earlier this month as fifty or more Aintabtsis and supporters gathered to hear a lecture by Umit Kurt, PhD candidate in the department of History at Clark University, Asbarez reports.
The lecture, titled The Emergence of the New Wealthy Class Between 1915-1922: The Seizure of Armenian Property by Local Elites in Aintab, focused on the importance of acquiring Armenian wealth and material possessions to the local Kurds and Turks in Aintab before and during the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
As to the lust for Armenian property that could act as a motive for the killings, Kurt described a "link between the role of stolen Armenian assets in the integration and stabilization of Turkification, which makes confiscation of Armenian properties a social process". The fate of the Armenians was not only linked to the Committee of Union and Progress party (CUP) orders, but behavior of the local elites.
Material rewards were given for collaboration at the regional level.
In Kurt's words, "the large distribution of Armenian property provided a useful incentive that strongly reinforced Armenian hatred and other political and personal issues."
Besides the local elites, many other state companies were also involved in the seizure of Armenian properties including auction houses, property assessors, trustees, and transportation companies in support of Turkish anti-Armenian policies in Aintab. The opportunities for success and growth facilitated the removal of Armenians, whereas the effects of the loss of properties to the victims were demoralizing and stigmatizing. Additionally, the deportation of Armenians to the Syrian Desert proved effective in separating them from their properties as they were made not to return. A new local wealthy class emerged and prospered through the obtainment of Armenian wealth and property.
After the lecture, Umit Kurt displayed a short film called My Father's Aintab and old and recent images of the Armenian quarter in Aintab.
The evening followed with a Q&A session where one of the audience members asked Kurt why he chose to research the destruction of Aintab's Armenians and their properties.
As a native of Aintab, when Kurt was younger, he did not know about the presence of Armenians or about the Armenian quarter in Aintab.
When one of his friends invited him to a unique coffee shop to meet, his life and interests changed forever. When he reached the coffee shop, he first noticed the intricately carved, monumental front door of the coffee shop and was amazed at the internal beauty and homey design, which contained every feature of an Armenian home. He asked the owner, who was Turkish, to show him around the place and the upstairs section composed of many rooms aesthetically extrinsic to his eyes. Kurt noticed the numbers "1894" (when the first Hamidian massacres took place) on the wall and asked about the previous owner.
The man replied, "I don't know, Armenians were here." Later, he discovered that a man named Nazaret Agha of the Kimia family owned the house, before it became a coffee shop. It became the groundbreaking point in his life where he sought out to research the history of the Aintab Armenians and in the meanwhile, also write his own story.
Umit Kurt is of Kurdish descent maternally, but is not certain of his father's side. He is a PhD candidate at Clark University and student of Taner Akcam, a prominent scholar on the Armenian Genocide. During the Q&A session, Kurt was asked if he received any objections or had been tried for "insulting Turkishness", in which he responded that he has not yet encountered any objections from the Turkish government regarding his research on the stolen Armenian properties.
In the last minutes, Kurt spoke words that made everyone smile. He said, "I don't work for Armenian people; I work for my own people to reckon their own historical wrongdoings."
| This article contains text with a copyright from Asbarez. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |
Aintab city
Needs translation
Այնթապ, (Айнтап, Aintab), Աինթապ, Այնթապ Եփրատացվոց, Այնթափ, Այնթեփ, Անթաբ, Անթապ, Անթափ, Անթեպ, Անթեպ Անտիոքա, Անթեփ, Անտիոքա Ատթորում, Անտիոք առ Եփրատավ, Անտիոք առ Տավրոսիվ, Անտիոք Տավրոսյան, Գազիանթեպ Գերբեդիսոս, Հաթապ, Համթաբ, Հանթափ, Ղազիանթեպ —
A city in southeastern Cilicia, on the Marash-Aleppo road (ուղեգծ), on the banks of the Sachuri (Սաջուրի ափին), which is a tributary of the Euphrates (Եփրատ). The city spreads out in a highland valley (դաշտաձև բարձրադիր հովտում), which is surrounded on the north, west and south by hills containing limestone, կավճային and marble. Ունի գեղեցիկ գիրք, առողջարար, մեծ մասամբ ցամաքային կլիմա, խմելու և ոռոգելու առատ ջուր: Շրջակայքում կան խաղողի և պտղատու փարթամ այգիներ, քարհանքեր: Հայտնի է ընտիր խաղողով, ծիրանով, խնձորով, ընկույզով և ուրիշ պտուղներով: Մշակում են նաև հացահատիկ, բամբակենի: Հռչակված էր որպես առևտրաարհեստավորական կենտրոն:
In current day Turkey, the town was been renamed Gaziantep in 1921, and is the capital of the province of the same name, though most residents still informally refer to it as Antep. Ա թեև որպես բնակավայր հին է, սակայն նրա մասին առաջին պաշտոնական տեղեկությունները հաղորդում են խաչակիրները (11—12-րդ դդ), որոնք այստեղ կառուցել են ամուր բերդ և դարձրել իրենց ռազմական հենակետը: Միջին դարերում Ա մտնում էր Եդեսիայի կոմսության մեջ, հետո կարճ ժամանակով անցել է Կիլիկիայի հայոց իշխան Գող Վասիլի ձեռքը: In 1266, Cilicia's King Hetum I made two unsuccessful attempts to incorporate Aintab into his kingdom. In 1404 Aintab was destroyed by Lenk Temur. In 1516 the Turks captured Aintab. Aintab and its surroundings had a huge Armenian population from old times, who started a mass migration to this region in the 14th century from Armenia's and Pokr Hayk's (Փոքր Հայք) different regions (Mush, Malatia, Marash, Pehesni/Բեհեսնի, Atyaman/Ադյաման, Pirechig/Բիրեջիկ, Urfa). Ոմանք գտնում են, որ ք այդպես են անվանել Ալաշկերտի հովտի Այնթապ բնակավայրից ներգաղթած հայերը: At the end of the 19th century, Aintab had 43,000 residents, of whom 16,900 were Armenian. In the early 20th century the number of Armenians was approximately 36,000. The main occupations of the Armenians were business (առևտուր) and crafts (արհեստագործություն). Armenians were the majority of the jewelers, locksmiths (որմնադիրներ), painter/dyers (ներկարարներ), curriers (կաշեգործներ), and carpet-makers (գորգագործներ). The embroidery production of Aintab's women was delicate and tasteful, and had a good reputation (հայտնի) especially in Europe and the United States, and commanded high prices. Until 1915 Aintab had 6 Armenian churches including S. Asdvadzadzin (ս Աստվածածին), S. Yeghia (ս Եղիա) and others, 17 places of education (ուսումնարան), schools and varjharans (Վարդանյան, Մեսրոպյան սանուց դպրոցը, հիմն 1874 թ, Ադենական որբախնամ դպրոցը, հիմն նույն թ, Հայկանուշյան վարժարանը, հիմն 1877 թ, 1882-ին բացվել է Վարդանանց նախակրթարանը, 1896-ին Ա–ում բացվում է առաջին կիրակնօրյա դպրոցը, Այդինյան, Հոխիսիմյան վարժարաններն ու «կեդրոնական թուրքիո կոլեջը», 1912-ին հիմնվել է Կիլիկիայի ճեմարանը ցերեկային և գիշերային բաժիններով): Ա-ում հրատարակվել են նաև «Ենի Յոմուր» և «Հագիգաթ» Հայատառ թուրքերեն թերթերը: 1886 թ Vartanian Educational Institute (Վարդանյան կրթարանը) was publishing Mendor («Մենտոր») semi-monthly magazine in Armenian and Turkish. The Armenians of Aintab were like the other Armenian communities of Anatolia, removed, massively destroyed and pushed into the Der Zor (Տերզոր) desert. In 1918 the crumbs (փշրանքներ) of the Armenian community of Aintab returned to their homes, but were soon abandoned to the luck of their fate by the victors of WWI. In 1920—21, the Armenians put up a heroic 314 day resistance, in which they fought against Turkish slaughterers (թուրք ջարդարարների). Կենդանի մնացածները տարագրվեցին Սիրիա, Լիբանան, ԱՄՆ, նրանց մի մասը հետագայում հայրենադարձվեց Սովետական Հայաստան: Ա-ում է ծնվել բանասեր, Կիլիկիայի կաթողիկոս Բաբկեն Կյուլեսերյանը (1868-1936 թթ): Այնթապի անունը այժմ կրում է ՀՍՍՀ Մասիսի շրջ-ի նախկին Թազագյուղը:
Aintab province
Այնթապ, Айнтап, Ayntap, Այնթաբ, Այնթափ, Անթապ, Անթափ, Անթեպ, Անտիոքա Տավրոսի, Գազիանթեպ, Ղազիանթեպ — Գավառ (սանջակ) և գավառակ (կազա) Կիլիկիայում: Նախկինում մտնում էր Հալեպի նահ–ի (վիլայեթի) մեջ, կենտրոնը՝ Այնթապ ք (այժմ Ղազիանթեպ): 1919 թ Հալեպի նահ-ի կազմից հանվել և Այնթապի, Քիլիսի ու Հռոմկլայի գավ-ների հետ միասին կազմել է առանձին վարչական միավոր: Ա գավ-ի որշ մասը հնում մտնում էր Կիլիկյան հայկական պետության մեջ: Գավ-ի արմ և հս սահմանները Քյուրդդաղի և Ամանոսի միջև հր-հս ձգվող նեղ ձորն է, որը Գյավուրգյոլից երկարում է մինչև Գյոքսուի և Եփրատի միախառնման տեղը: To the easy is the narrow Euphrates (Եփրատ) canyon (ձոր). At the beginning of the 20th century, Aintab kavar (province) had 8 գ-խմբեր Օրուլ, Հեզեք. Ջիքդե, Կզըլ Հիսար, Կզըկ, Չարփն, Թլբաշար, Ռեշ՝ 202, այլ աղբյուրներում՝ 346 գ-երով and 87,000 inhabitants, of which the majority were Armenian until 1915. According to Turkish sources, Armenians were the majority in this region also in the 16-17th centuries. Residents occupations were երկրագործությամբ and animal husbandry. In 1915—1921 Aintab's Armenians were massively destroyed. Those who survived the genocide took refuge in Syria, Lebanon, the United States. Later, some of them repatriated to Soviet Armenia. In a few Diaspora communities, Aintabtsis have their own clubs (հայրենակցական միությունները).
Armenians of Aintab
Armenians who were born or who have lived in Aintab:
Bedros Sevadjian, Luther Simjian, Yevnigue Salibian
Armenians who's ancestors are from Aintab:
George Deukmejian, Yevnigue Salibian
A beautiful mosque and the dark period of the Armenian genocide
The city of Gaziantep and the 'Liberation' mosque is a milestone on the journey between one great crime of the 20th century, and another seen during the Second World War
The ‘Liberation’ Mosque is a fine, neo-classical, almost Gothic construction with striped black-and-white stone banding, unusual for a Muslim holy place but a jewel in the Tepebasi district of the old town of Gaziantep. Its stone carvings and mock Grecian columns beside the window frames are a credit to another, gentler age. The minarets perch delicately – and I had never seen this before – on square towers that might have been church towers had there been Christians in this ancient city.
But of course, there were. What no-one will tell you in Gaziantep, what no guidebook mentions, what no tourist guide will refer to, is that this very building – whose 19th century builders were none other than the nephews of the official architect of Sultan Abdulhamid II – was the Holy Mother of God cathedral for at least 20,000 Christian Armenians who were victims of the greatest war crime of the 1914-18 war: the Armenian genocide. They were deported by the Ottoman Turks from this lovely city, which had been their families’ home for hundreds of years, to be executed into common graves. The murderers were both Turks and Kurds.
Altogether, up to 32,000 Armenians – almost the entire Christian population of 36,000 of what was then called Antep – were deported towards the Syrian cities of Hama, Homs, Selimiyeh, to the Hauran and to Deir Ezzor in 1915. The Muslim citizens of Aintep then apparently plundered the empty homes of those they had dispossessed, seizing not only their property but the treasures of the cathedral church itself. Indeed, the church, ‘Surp Asdvazdadzin Kilisesi’ in Armenian, was turned into a warehouse – as were many Jewish synagogues in Nazi Germany and in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe during the Second World War – and then into a prison.
Prowling around the church-mosque enclosure, I found some of the prison bars still attached to the window frames, although the building has been functioning as a mosque since 1986. The main gate was closed but I pushed it open and found not only that the structure of the magnificent building is still intact but that scaffolding has been placed against the walls for a renovation. Behind the church – and separate from the building – was an ancient stone cave whose interior was blackened with what must have been the smoke of candle flames from another era, perhaps a worshipping place because the cave appears to have been a tomb in antiquity. The caretaker came fussing up to us to tell us that the mosque was shut, that we must leave, that this was a closed place. But he was a friendly soul and let us take pictures of the great façade of the church and of the minarets.
The only sign of its origin is the date “1892” carved in stone on the east façade of the original church, marking the final completion of the work of the great Armenian architect Sarkis Balian – he was the official architect of the 19th century Sultan Abdulhamid II, a terrible irony since Abdulhamid himself began the first round of Armenian massacres of 80,000 Christians (the figure might be 300,000) in Ottoman Turkey just two years after the Armenian stonemason Sarkis Tascian carved the date on the façade. In the later 1915 Armenian Holocaust – even Israelis use this word for the Armenian genocide – a million and a half Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks. It is a shock to realize that Aintep’s vast toll of dead were only a small fraction of this terrifying war crime.
Outside the church, I found an elderly Syrian refugee sitting on the pavement by the closed gate. He greeted us in Arabic and said that, yes, he knew this was once a church. Just over a century ago, the Arabs of northern Syria – the land now occupied by Isis – were among the only friends the Armenians found in the vast deserts into which they were sent to die. Some took Armenian children into their homes. Others married Armenian women – the degree of coercion involved in this ‘charitable’ act depends on the teller — although more than twenty years ago I met a Syrian man and his ‘converted’ Armenian wife near Deir Ezzor, both around a hundred years old and both of whom has lost count of their great-great-grandchildren.
A Turkish man in a shop below the cathedral was less generous. Yes, it had been a church, he said. But when I asked him if it had been an Armenian church, he chuckled – dare I call it a smirk? — and looked at me, and said nothing. I suppose a kind of guilt hangs over a place like this. So it is a happy thought that some Armenian families have in recent years – as tourists, of course – visited the city that was once Antep and have spoken with warmth to members of Turkey’s leftist parties and celebrated the work of American missionaries who cared for both the Armenian and Turkish Muslim population here before 1915. One Armenian identified his old family home and the Turkish family who lived there invited him in and insisted that he should stay with them and not in a hotel. For this was also his home, they said.
But tears of compassion do not dry up the truth. For when the First World War ended, Allied troops marched into Antep. First came the British, led by the execrable Sir Mark Sykes – of Sykes-Picot infamy – and then the French in October 1919, who brought with them, alas, elements of the Armenian volunteers who had joined their ‘Legion d’Orient’ in Port Said. The Muslim elites who had taken over the town – and the Armenian homes and properties – feared the newcomers would demand restitution. Fighting broke out between Muslims and the French and their Armenian allies and the Muslims discovered a new-found enthusiasm for the independence struggle of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Thus began the false history of the city.
Perhaps the greatest font of knowledge on this period is a young Harvard scholar, Umit Kurt, of Kurdish-Arab origin, who was born in modern-day Gaziantep. Mr Kurt is now an academic at Harvard’s Center for Middle East Studies and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Armenians of Antep from the 1890s with a special focus – this is the important bit for readers – on property transfers, confiscation, deportation and massacres. Mr Kurt’s conclusion is bleak.
“The famous battle of Aintab [sic] against the French,” he says, “…seems to have been as much the organised struggle of a group of genocide profiteers seeking to hold onto their loot as it was a fight against an occupying force. The resistance…sought to make it impossible for the Armenian repatriates to remain in their native towns, terrorising them [again] in order to make them flee. In short, not only did the local…landowners, industrialists and civil-military bureaucratic elites lead to the resistance movement, but they also financed it in order to cleanse Aintab of Armenians.”
They were successful. The French abandoned Antep in December 1919 and the Armenian volunteers fled with them. The new Turkish state awarded the Muslim fighters of the city with the honourific Turkish prefix ‘Gazi’ – “veterans” – and thus Antep became Gaziantep and the great church of old Sarkis Balian would eventually be renamed the ‘Liberation Mosque’ – “Kurtulus Cami” – to mark the same dubious victory over the French and Armenians, the latter being defamed as killers by those who had sent the Armenians of the city to their doom in 1915.
Not much justice there. Nor in the official Turkish version of that terrible history of the Armenian Holocaust in which – this is the least the Turkish government will concede – Armenians died ‘tragically’ in the chaos of the First World War, as did Muslims themselves. German military advisers witnessed the genocide. Hitler was later to ask his generals, before the invasion of Poland and the destruction of its Jews, who now, in 1939, remembered the Armenians. The official Turkish account of the fate of Gaziantep’s original Armenians refers to their “relocation” – a word used by the Nazis when they sent the Jews to their extermination in eastern Europe.
No, we shouldn’t contaminate the Turks of modern Turkey with the crimes of their grandfathers. Umir Kurt wrote his dissertation for the brilliant and brave Turkish historian Taner Akcam, whose work on the Armenian genocide has revolutionised historical scholarship in Turkey. Last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan deliberately moved the date of the 1915 Gallipoli commemorations to the very day of the anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide in an attempt to smother any memory of the crime – but the government allowed Armenians to parade through Istanbul in honour of their 1915 dead. Yet if the historical narrative from the 20th century’s first holocaust to its second holocaust is valid, then the path upon which the first doomed Armenians of Antep set out in their convoy of deportation on 1st August 1915 led all the way to Auschwitz. The ‘Liberation’ Mosque is a milestone on the journey.Prowling around the church-mosque enclosure, I found some of the prison bars still attached to the window frames, although the building has been functioning as a mosque since 1986. The main gate was closed but I pushed it open and found not only that the structure of the magnificent building is still intact but that scaffolding has been placed against the walls for a renovation. Behind the church – and separate from the building – was an ancient stone cave whose interior was blackened with what must have been the smoke of candle flames from another era, perhaps a worshipping place because the cave appears to have been a tomb in antiquity. The caretaker came fussing up to us to tell us that the mosque was shut, that we must leave, that this was a closed place. But he was a friendly soul and let us take pictures of the great façade of the church and of the minarets.
The only sign of its origin is the date “1892” carved in stone on the east façade of the original church, marking the final completion of the work of the great Armenian architect Sarkis Balian – he was the official architect of the 19th century Sultan Abdulhamid II, a terrible irony since Abdulhamid himself began the first round of Armenian massacres of 80,000 Christians (the figure might be 300,000) in Ottoman Turkey just two years after the Armenian stonemason Sarkis Tascian carved the date on the façade. In the later 1915 Armenian Holocaust – even Israelis use this word for the Armenian genocide – a million and a half Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks. It is a shock to realize that Aintep’s vast toll of dead were only a small fraction of this terrifying war crime.
Outside the church, I found an elderly Syrian refugee sitting on the pavement by the closed gate. He greeted us in Arabic and said that, yes, he knew this was once a church. Just over a century ago, the Arabs of northern Syria – the land now occupied by Isis – were among the only friends the Armenians found in the vast deserts into which they were sent to die. Some took Armenian children into their homes. Others married Armenian women – the degree of coercion involved in this ‘charitable’ act depends on the teller — although more than twenty years ago I met a Syrian man and his ‘converted’ Armenian wife near Deir Ezzor, both around a hundred years old and both of whom has lost count of their great-great-grandchildren.
A Turkish man in a shop below the cathedral was less generous. Yes, it had been a church, he said. But when I asked him if it had been an Armenian church, he chuckled – dare I call it a smirk? — and looked at me, and said nothing. I suppose a kind of guilt hangs over a place like this. So it is a happy thought that some Armenian families have in recent years – as tourists, of course – visited the city that was once Antep and have spoken with warmth to members of Turkey’s leftist parties and celebrated the work of American missionaries who cared for both the Armenian and Turkish Muslim population here before 1915. One Armenian identified his old family home and the Turkish family who lived there invited him in and insisted that he should stay with them and not in a hotel. For this was also his home, they said.
But tears of compassion do not dry up the truth. For when the First World War ended, Allied troops marched into Antep. First came the British, led by the execrable Sir Mark Sykes – of Sykes-Picot infamy – and then the French in October 1919, who brought with them, alas, elements of the Armenian volunteers who had joined their ‘Legion d’Orient’ in Port Said. The Muslim elites who had taken over the town – and the Armenian homes and properties – feared the newcomers would demand restitution. Fighting broke out between Muslims and the French and their Armenian allies and the Muslims discovered a new-found enthusiasm for the independence struggle of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Thus began the false history of the city.
Perhaps the greatest font of knowledge on this period is a young Harvard scholar, Umit Kurt, of Kurdish-Arab origin, who was born in modern-day Gaziantep. Mr Kurt is now an academic at Harvard’s Center for Middle East Studies and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Armenians of Antep from the 1890s with a special focus – this is the important bit for readers – on property transfers, confiscation, deportation and massacres. Mr Kurt’s conclusion is bleak.
“The famous battle of Aintab [sic] against the French,” he says, “…seems to have been as much the organised struggle of a group of genocide profiteers seeking to hold onto their loot as it was a fight against an occupying force. The resistance…sought to make it impossible for the Armenian repatriates to remain in their native towns, terrorising them [again] in order to make them flee. In short, not only did the local…landowners, industrialists and civil-military bureaucratic elites lead to the resistance movement, but they also financed it in order to cleanse Aintab of Armenians.”
They were successful. The French abandoned Antep in December 1919 and the Armenian volunteers fled with them. The new Turkish state awarded the Muslim fighters of the city with the honourific Turkish prefix ‘Gazi’ – “veterans” – and thus Antep became Gaziantep and the great church of old Sarkis Balian would eventually be renamed the ‘Liberation Mosque’ – “Kurtulus Cami” – to mark the same dubious victory over the French and Armenians, the latter being defamed as killers by those who had sent the Armenians of the city to their doom in 1915.
Not much justice there. Nor in the official Turkish version of that terrible history of the Armenian Holocaust in which – this is the least the Turkish government will concede – Armenians died ‘tragically’ in the chaos of the First World War, as did Muslims themselves. German military advisers witnessed the genocide. Hitler was later to ask his generals, before the invasion of Poland and the destruction of its Jews, who now, in 1939, remembered the Armenians. The official Turkish account of the fate of Gaziantep’s original Armenians refers to their “relocation” – a word used by the Nazis when they sent the Jews to their extermination in eastern Europe.
No, we shouldn’t contaminate the Turks of modern Turkey with the crimes of their grandfathers. Umir Kurt wrote his dissertation for the brilliant and brave Turkish historian Taner Akcam, whose work on the Armenian genocide has revolutionised historical scholarship in Turkey. Last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan deliberately moved the date of the 1915 Gallipoli commemorations to the very day of the anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide in an attempt to smother any memory of the crime – but the government allowed Armenians to parade through Istanbul in honour of their 1915 dead. Yet if the historical narrative from the 20th century’s first holocaust to its second holocaust is valid, then the path upon which the first doomed Armenians of Antep set out in their convoy of deportation on 1st August 1915 led all the way to Auschwitz. The ‘Liberation’ Mosque is a milestone on the journey.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-gaziantep-armenian-genocide-a7362771.html
| This article contains text from a source with a copyright. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |
The Lost Armenians of Gaziantep
The provenance of a house reveals a sordid history of oppression Ümit Kurt December 23, 2021
Ümit Kurt is a historian of the modern Middle East and Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
A citizen of the Republic of Turkey, I was born to a Kurdish mother and an Arab father in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, formerly known as Aintab (35 miles to the west of the Euphrates and 28 miles to the north of today’s Turkish-Syrian border). Growing up in a multilingual household but being taught only Turkish, I was a living manifestation of the national pattern of the oppressor, which continued over the course of my entire education.
After my graduation from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, I found myself again at my parents’ house in my hometown, where I escaped the stifling heat and passed the days dozing on the sofa.
One day I was woken up from my nap by a call from an old friend: “Ümit, where have you been? It’s been ages! I know a great place in Kayacık where we can catch up.” Though I was born and raised in Aintab and hadn’t left the city until college, the word “Kayacık” did not mean anything to me. It was just another district in the city, a neighborhood I had never visited, of which I knew nothing.
She said she would wait for me at Papirüs Café and gave me directions. I took a bus to the Kayacık neighborhood and upon arrival found myself dazed by the charming atmosphere, letting myself get lost in the side streets, leaving my poor friend waiting. Transfixed, I found myself asking: “Where am I? What is this place?”
I was on a narrow street with beautifully constructed stone houses lining each side, taking me back to a simpler time. Tucked away among the high-rise concrete apartment buildings of “modernized” Gaziantep, this neighborhood, with its traditional architecture, was like a mirage. I felt nostalgic for a past that was never mine.
Eventually, I found Papirüs Café, which turned out to be located in one of those traditional houses. Like most of the houses on the street, it had been converted into a café as part of the process of “restoring” the city. When I entered, a few letters carved at the top of the majestic gate caught my eye. Not recognizing the script, I assumed these were Ottoman characters.
Inside, I was once again left speechless. A spacious courtyard with staircases on either side leading up to two large rooms welcomed me. The rooms were filled with antique furnishings, and the high ceilings were adorned with frescos and engravings similar to Florentine cathedrals. The experience was a kind of historical voyeurism, like stepping into a living museum.
Feeling a surge of pride in my hometown and ancestors, I decided to talk to the owner to learn something of the house’s history. I approached him, intending to begin by complimenting his establishment. But before I could stop myself, I asked: “I was just wondering, from whom did you get this place? Who was here before you?”
He warily explained that he inherited the building from his grandfather. It must have been especially strong coffee they were serving that day, as I was emboldened to press further. “And how about your grandfather? From whom did he buy this place?” The man hesitated before murmuring softly to the ground, “There were Armenians here.” Confused, I blurted out a series of questions: “What Armenians? What are you talking about? Were there Armenians in Gaziantep?” He nodded, but I was getting annoyed with the opacity of his answers. “So, what happened to them? Where did they go?” He retorted indifferently: “They left.”
As I rode the bus back home, I pondered why the Armenians — why anyone — would just leave and hand over such an exquisite property to someone. I was a bit naïve — an ignorant, 22-year-old university graduate unaware of the existence of Armenians in my hometown.
A few years later, I would find out that the house belonged to Nazar Nazaretian, honorary consul to Iran, who was a member of Aintab’s wealthiest and most prominent family, and that he, his children and his grandchildren used to live in the house. Those letters above the gate were not Ottoman but Armenian, spelling out the surname of Kara Nazar Agha, the person who built the house. Years later, I would also have the chance to meet the youngest member of the family, Shusan, whose grandmother was deported at the age of 1 during the 1915 Armenian genocide. Shusan kindly spoke Turkish to me in the Aintab dialect.
That building is no longer Papirüs Café for me. For me, it is the house of Kara Nazar Agha, the Nazaretians’ home, the house where the grandmother of Shusan was born.
In Turkish, there is a saying: “Mal sahibi, mülk sahibi, hani bunun ilk sahibi?” Roughly translated, it means, “Landlord, property owner, where is the original owner?” Armenians of Aintab were torn away from their homes, neighborhoods and the city where they were born and raised. Their material and spatial wealth changed hands and was transformed. The entire Armenian dispossession produced the homogeneous Turkish city where I grew up. The fortunes of wealthy families today were built by robbing the Armenians and often murdering their neighbors. Sealed in stone as well as blood, it was a criminal bargain that constituted the wobbly foundations of Turkish society.
In the aftermath of the Turkish-French War in 1921-22 (known as Antep Harbi), there was a town crier who walked around town, inviting those who had participated in the war to come to Tuz Hanı (The Salt Caravansary). Many locals of Aintab, including Ali Beşe (a prominent member of the Aintab gentry), headed over. A man told them to line up in twos, as they would let people in two at a time. When it was Beşe’s turn, he went in and saw some keys placed on a rug. “Each person takes two,” the man in charge commanded. There were also medallions lying on the rug. After a quick glance, Beşe said, “So, that’s what we saved Aintab for? For two keys and a piece of tin? Thanks,” he said. And he left, seemingly of the view that he deserved a greater reward for his efforts. The keys on the rug belonged to the Armenians whose homes now stood vacant.
Beşe played a pivotal role in the deportation of Armenians and liquidation of their properties. Trusted by Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Beşe had close ties with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), then the Ottoman government, and political elites in Istanbul. He wielded influence in the post-war and republican periods and took charge of helping the fledgling nation-state raise a group of entrepreneurs in Gaziantep.
From 1922 to 1928, some of the houses that belonged to Armenians were used for charitable purposes, distributed at no charge by the state and the Aintab municipal authority to Muslim families who had lost their own dwellings during the Turkish-French War. According to a local, these impoverished Muslim families were given small or neglected Armenian houses. This was the fate, in 1922, of the house owned by the father of Harutyun Nazarian, who was forced to leave Aintab and settle in Aleppo along with the rest of his family when he was 15. In a memoir, Nazarian recalled the event:
“Before we left the house, a state official accompanied by two women came into our yard early in the morning. Then the official said, ‘As you are leaving Aintab and the houses of these two women were demolished due to the battle and bombardments, and in addition to that, since the state and local government have authorized you to leave Aintab, your house along with other empty houses will be occupied by others.’ He also asked these two women how many rooms there were in their wrecked houses. In this manner, our house was registered onto the list of other occupied houses.”
The remaining properties were also distributed among newly resettled immigrants. Several years after the war, Armenians’ abandoned houses and estates were still being used to settle immigrants and muhajirs (refugees). A telegram on Aug. 17, 1924, sent by the Ministry of Population Exchange, Development and Settlement (Mübâdele, İmar ve İskân Vekâleti İskân Şubesi) to Gaziantep province reported that there had been 19,500 Armenians in the province, whose houses and estates, following their departure, could accommodate a large number of muhajirs, and directed that these muhajir families be settled on these properties according to their needs. As late as 1928, the distribution of Armenians’ land and housing to Muslim immigrants in Gaziantep continued. For example, on Nov. 3, 1925, the Ministry of Interior approved an application submitted by Hasan Effendi, an immigrant from Kars, to settle in Gaziantep. On Nov. 7, the provincial government was instructed to provide housing for Hasan Effendi and his family from the stock of abandoned properties.
In the immediate aftermath of the Turkish-French War, prominent and affluent local elites looted large, Armenian-owned houses with impunity. Ali Api obtained Garuc Karamanougian’s mansion in 1924. After changing hands a few times, Hasan Süzer, a businessperson from Aintab, bought and restored the building in 1985. It was then donated to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on the condition that it would serve as Hasan Süzer Etnografya Müzesi (Hasan Süzer Ethnography Museum).
Individuals with connections to state organs were also well placed to take advantage of the situation. Ahmed Hurşid Bey and Nuri Patpatzâde, both members of Aintab Central Committee and financiers of local forces (kuva-yı milliye), seized Armenian estates. Ahmed Hurşid Bey claimed Pirenian’s large house in 1922 and later paid a symbolic price for it at an auction. Meanwhile Patpatzâde usurped the houses of Hagop Bezjian and Harutyun Aghian in 1923.
Starting in the 1920s, the state organized auctions through the Gaziantep Municipality and Gaziantep Internal Revenue Office to complete property transactions. The auctions, however, were largely symbolic; they facilitated the embezzlement of the spoils while lending an air of officiality to the process. From 1930 to 1935, these so-called transactions were even announced in the local newspaper, the Gaziantep Gazetesi, the notices of which detailed the quantity, date, time, approximate location, type, value in liras and — most important — previous owners of properties. However, information on the buyers was not provided. To illustrate, a parcel of land owned by Hanna Kurkchuian, valued at 250 liras, was auctioned for 30 liras in 1934; a parcel of land owned by Avedis Nacarian, valued at 60 liras, was sold for 10 liras in the same year; Zenop Bezjian’s shop, valued at 216 liras, was auctioned for 150 liras in 1935; and around the same time, Abraham Babikian’s vineyard was sold for 15 liras, far below its actual value.
Some notable locals collaborated to decrease the price of the abandoned properties, allowing many of today’s prominent families to enlarge their fortunes by purchasing these assets for a pittance. Among the buyers of these auctioned properties, Daizâde Mahmut is of particular interest. As a member of a leading wealthy Aintab family, he served as the chair of the Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce from 1921 to 1924. In 1923, he purchased Garabed Nazaretian’s house, which was put up for sale by the Gaziantep Municipality. By this time Garabed Nazaretian was deceased, but his daughters, who held Iranian citizenship, submitted a formal objection to this sale through the Iranian Embassy. Thereupon, the embassy sent an oral notice to the Istanbul Office of the Foreign Affairs Commissariat of the Turkish Grand National Assembly on Feb. 5, 1923, requesting a halt to the sale of the property. The sale procedure, the Iranian Embassy added, was illegal, and the property in question had to be returned to its rightful owners. This oral notice was later presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but to no avail. Despite this protest, the sale transaction was finalized.
A former employee of the Nazaretian family, Daizâde Mahmut became an affluent merchant and lived in the mansion until it was donated to the military to be used as a gendarmerie station in 1965. After the departure of military forces in 1967, the Daizâde family sold the house to its current owner Abdülkadir Kimiazâde (today known as Kimya), a wholesaler and real estate agent. The building was used as a residential house, warehouse and drying room until the 1980s. The Kimya family rented the dilapidated house in the 1990s. Until its restoration in the mid-2000s, it was used as a dormitory. Today, with its eight owners from the Kimya family, it is the Papyrus Café. Both the Daizâde and Kimiazâde families actively supported and participated in the deportations in return for Armenian properties.
Additionally, Daizâde Mahmut bought Nazaretian’s other estates in Aintab. For example, the Kara Nazar Inn, later called Büyük Pasaj (Grand Bazaar, still standing at the city center, replete with a myriad of shops), was transferred to the Gaziantep Internal Revenue Office as a national estate and sold to Mahmut Daizâde for a nominal price. A few years later, at a 1934 auction, his son İhsan Dai purchased the house of the prominent Armenian Sarkis Krajian.
A house belonging to Dr. Avedis Jebejian was acquired by the Konukoğlu family, the wealthiest industrialist family of Gaziantep. In 2011, the family donated the house to the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality. Two years later, the municipality opened it to the public as Gaziantep Atatürk Anı Müzesi (Atatürk Memorial Museum of Gaziantep). In 1989, one of the Nazaretian houses was converted for use by the Konukoğlu Vakfı (Konukoğlu Foundation). One of the houses that belonged to Hagop Aslanian’s family before their deportation in 1915 is now being used as a hotel, the Anatolian Houses Boutique Hotel.
In another example, the buildings of the Atenagan School and Surp Bedross Yegeghetsi (Second Catholic Church) were passed on to the National Estate after Armenians were forced to vacate the city. Later, in 1933, these buildings were turned into Veliç İplik ve Dokuma (thread and weaving factory) and given to Cemil Alevli, then a young native of Aintab, by special order of Atatürk, as part of the effort to create a class of entrepreneurs and capitalists in the city.
With a Western education as his “social capital” and with Atatürk acting as his “venture capitalist,” Alevli became the biggest textile supplier of Aintab in the Turkish Republic. He admitted that he had learned the textile business from Aintab’s Armenians. “Since my childhood,” Alevli said, “I used to watch how Armenians in my neighborhood worked on their textile looms for hours as I headed back and forth to school. I was amazed to follow how Armenian weavers created beautiful fabrics by combining various tones of red, yellow, green, blue and white thread cones.”
Known as the “founding father of the textile industry” in Gaziantep, Alevli later became a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and served as the president of its Gaziantep bureau from 1941 to 1946. Additionally, he served as a CHP deputy in Parliament from 1946 to 1950. His factory was officially named as Ömer Ersoy Kültür Merkezi (Cultural Center) after its restoration in 2008. After acquiring the buildings left behind by the Armenians, brothers Ömer and Mahmut Ersoy also established a yarn factory under the name of “Yüzbaşızâdeler Mahmut and Ömer Mensucat (textiles)” and began production in the formerly Armenian populated Tepebaşı neighborhood in 1927.
As a native son of Gaziantep who has explored the city’s history, I have become aware of the consequences of Armenians’ physical and material destruction at the hands of their former Muslim neighbors. Aside from offering insight into local history, my account also contributes to the broader story of the Armenian genocide.
Unseen in the archived letters, telegrams and property lists are the trauma and suffering of Armenian survivors repeatedly subjected to attacks on their lives, culture, assets and social status. The base motives of their former neighbors left some of the most indelible wounds, which more than a century later remain unhealed.
Source: https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/the-lost-armenians-of-gaziantep/
| This article contains text from a source with a copyright. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |
Map
<googlemap lat="37.064766" lon="37.388363" zoom="14"> 37.064766,37.388363, Aintab </googlemap>