Kessab. I was merely a boy then. They were 20,000 strong with
Mausers and other artillery. The men of our town fought back, my
father among them, with ancient hunting rifles. We lost 50 to 60
men before we fled. We returned 5 or 6 days later to find all of our
houses burned to the ground. It took us months to rebuild.
In 1915, we were the last to be deported out of Kessab because
we were Protestant. The American Ambassador in Bolis apparently
had secured guaranties for our safety, but we were deported
anyway. They took us toward Der-Zor-the interior Syrian desert.
Our whole family: my father, mother, four brothers, two sisters. I
was 20 or 21 at the time. We loaded everything we had on mules
and horses and set out under armed guards. They took us to
Meskeneh on the Euphrates River. Meskeneh was a huge outdoor
camp where tens of thousands of Armenians had been deported-bit
by bit they were sent to Der-Zor, to their death. We were there
for a while. We lived under tents along with many others from
Kessab. Most of the time we had nothing to eat. Sometimes my
father would buy bread from the soldiers but they had mixed sand
with the flour-so we ate this hard bread and sand crunched under
our teeth.
Meskeneh was a horrible, horrible place. Sixty thousand
Armenians had been buried under the sand
there. When a sandstorm hit, it would blow away a lot of the
sand and uncover their remains. Bones, bones, bones were
everywhere then. Wherever you looked, wherever you walked.
b. 1894, Kessab