Genocide survivor recalls Turkish atrocities
Marie Stepanyan, 103, still remembers the assissanation of her grandfather Gevorg Eefendu. In 1915, she was a girl of 8 but she still remembers the horror and fear of the massacres.
Marie's grandfather was a respectful high-ranking official in Malatia. He was invited to a wedding ceremony in a neighbouring village and "thrown out of the window with his chair."
Marie was saved with her parents and grandmother thanks to their Turk neighbours who sheltered the family in their home at night.
Marie also recalls her father's execution with other Armenians followed by robbery, violence and atrocity.
"Prisoners were freed to kill Armenians, Kurds were ordered to break into our homes and rape our wives and daughters-in-laws,' recounted grandma Marie Stepanyan
Marie's mother became a protestant and was able to save her children. Marie married a Genocide survivor.
In constant fear and horror, the family resettled in Allepo in 1937, and in 1946 in the Soviet Union.
Like other repatriates, Marie's gradmother could not get accustomed to the Soviet orders. Many Genocide survivors were later exiled to Siberia by Stalin. "Thanks, God, were were not banished though we expected the sad news every night."
Living in the epoch of Stalin's repression, the family had to burn all bank documents testifying to their property in Turkey.
Today grandma Marie lives in Yerevan's Malatia-Sebastia community. She keeps abreast with latest events of Armenia and is against the opening of the Armenian- Turkish border.
"I had better eat bread and cheese than see a Turk in Armenia. Turks cannot be trusted. They have neither a soul nor God," says grandma Marie.
She told about the atrocities committed by Turks in Turkish for "the Turks to understand her better."
"Turks tore the belly of a pregnant woman, take her baby out and spit it saying, "Look! How well your baby is dancing."
Marie Stepanyan will never forget the violent scenes.
