Panian Karnig, Goodbye, Antoura. A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 2015

Jemal Pasha (center front), commander of the Turkish Fourth Army in Syria, and

Halide Edip (right front) stand with other dignitaries at the steps of the French

College at Antoura, Lebanon, 1916.

Source: Photo from the collection Dr. Bayard Dodge. Courtesy of Missak Kelechian, Collège Saint Joseph–Antoura.

The orphans playing in the courtyard of the Antoura orphanage, likely after the departure of the Turkish administrators and the arrival of the American Near East Relief workers, ca. 1919.

Source: Photo courtesy of Missak Kelechian, Collège Saint Joseph–Antoura.

Ray Travis (upper left, the only man wearing a Western-style hat), with the Armenian orphans at the Millet Khan Orphanage in Aintab, 1919. Travis (1906–1965), a missionary and civil servant, served in World War I in France, and then undertook relief work as a missionary in Aintab. He later became director of the Near East Relief Orphanage in Jbeil, Lebanon.

Source: Photo courtesy of Garo Derounian, Armenian Genocide and Orphans Museum at Birds Nest, Jbeil, Lebanon. Reprinted by permission.

Karnig Panian (seated, fourth from right) with some of the former orphans of the Orphanage of Jbeil, Lebanon, 1968. The Orphanage of Jbeil was governed by the American Near East Relief from 1920 to 1925.

L C H A P T E R 4 '

THE ORPHANAGE AT HAMA

ONE MORNING, I noticed my grandfather and Garbo Emmi in a corner, whispering to each other, looking very concerned and anxious. Soon they called over my grandmother, who joined their discussion.

“No! I won’t hear of it! I don’t want him taken away!” she cried. “I know we’re going hungry, I know we have no water, but it’s better to die together! Better that than separation!”

But after some time, my grandfather and Garbo Emmi convinced my grandmother.

Garbo Emmi walked over to me, grasped my hand, and prepared to lead me away. I didn’t know where we were going. My grandmother threw her arms around me and began to cry. My grandfather silently stroked my hair, then kissed me again and again. Finally, all four of us walked to the perimeter of the camp.

“Halt! Where are you going? Where are you taking the boy?”asked a guard. “We’re taking him to the orphanage in town,” replied Garbo Emmi. “Fine. But you come back right away,” assented the guard.

“I give you my word of honor,” answered Garbo Emmi, and we walked out of the camp, leaving my grandparents behind. Within minutes, we reached a one-story house. Garbo Emmi knocked on the door. From within I heard the shrieks and laughter of other boys.

6 6 C H A P T E R 4

A modestly dressed man stood in the doorway. After exchanging a few words with Garbo Emmi, he took me by the hand and led me inside. When I turned back after a few moments, the door was closed and Garbo Emmi was gone.

The man took me into his office and explained where I was. The other boys staying in the house were just like me—they had also lost their ­parents. This institution was an orphanage, and he was the headmaster. Soon he handed me over to a few women, who took away my dirty rags and clothed me in clean underwear, pants, shirt, and coat. They didn’t bathe me, because they had no water. When I was ready, the headmaster took me out to the courtyard. I saw fifty or sixty boys, all approximately my age. They all wore the same type of coat, which was used as a uniform, and their heads had been shaved. I remembered some of them, as well as some of the women who worked there, from the camp.

The building itself consisted of five or six large rooms, which doubled as dormitories and storerooms, as well as a larger room used as a kitchen and mess hall. We played outside, in the courtyard, which was fenced in by a high wall.

The headmaster was a Protestant pastor. He constantly patrolled the courtyard, keeping an eye on us. I marveled at his kindness. He never had to reprimand any of the boys; they all respected him so much that his mere presence was enough to ensure order.

This man spent almost his every waking hour with us: he supervised the preparation of the meals and the washing of the bedsheets, regaled us with stories and folktales, kept an eye on our health, and even inspected our scalps, looking for lice.

He was a sanguine, happy man. No matter what tragedies he encountered, he put his faith in God and never succumbed to despair—after all, everything was part of the Lord’s plan. He constantly read the Bible and often gave us sermons inspired by the Holy Book. There was no doubt that he loved children. Wasn’t his orphanage the noblest expression of that love?

My first day there, at noon, we all gathered in the mess hall for lunch. Each boy was given a large piece of fresh bread and a bowl of gruel. It was

delicious—absolutely delicious! I had not had soup for months.The women lunched with us, too.

After lunch, I had my first interactions with my new peers. They were from all different parts of the country, and some spoke dialects that I could barely understand. I met three boys named Hovhannes, Sahag, and Kalust, all from Sepastia.They were all slightly older than me, but they proved to be trustworthy friends. That first evening, several more new boys were brought to the orphanage, and the schoolmaster kindly welcomed them.

The next morning, right after breakfast, a barber headed straight for me. My hair had grown very long, and he sheared it all off, leaving me practically bald, like all the other boys.

There were knocks at the door—more new orphans came in. Within a few days, our number reached a hundred. We still had enough food for everyone, and we slept three to a bed. Given the circumstances, we felt like we were living in the lap of luxury.

At noon, the headmaster appeared at the doorway, a bell in his hand. When he rang the bell, all the boys lined up before him. At a gesture by the pastor, we moved forward into another room, and we each took a seat at a chair with a bowl before it. One of the older boys stood and recited the Hayr Mer. At the end of the prayer, he made the sign of the cross, a movement mimicked by the others. We began eating. We had another delicious hot meal: potato soup. We were even allowed seconds. I almost felt embar- rassed—it had been so long since I had eaten to my heart’s content.

“Keep eating! They’ll take the food away soon!” said the boy to my left as he shoveled soup into his mouth.

I couldn’t eat any more, so I left my bowl unfinished and ran out to the courtyard to play.The others had already separated into different groups and were playing all kinds of games. Our joyful voices proved that we still had the ability to enjoy life. We had almost forgotten that we were exiles and that the remnants of our families were still stuck in that terrible camp. We were children again.

But at night, I often dreamed of my family. I felt an acute sense of guilt: I was enjoying a clean bed and full stomach, while they were still suffering,

still hungry and sleepless, still tormented by thirst and the desert heat. Were they getting any bread and water? Had Krikor recovered from his latest violent encounter with the guards? Who was dead, and who was still alive? Had the bodies of my mother, brother, and sister been lost under thousands of new corpses in those horrid, fetid ditches?

.

One day, while we were in the courtyard, we heard wild screams from the outside. The terrible, chaotic din grew louder with every minute, coming closer and closer. For the traumatized boys, it was a reminder of what they had escaped. We froze in our tracks, listening in terror, conjuring hellish scenes in our imagination. Many of us had heard similar sounds on our way to the deportee camp, when caravans had been attacked by sword-wielding crowds of bloodthirsty Turks. What was happening out there? Were they killing again? Robbing?

As the cacophony approached, panic overtook some of the boys. It sounded like a mob was coming straight for us. We heard sounds of running feet, objects striking the outside wall, and people pushing and shoving. We heard women and children begging for their lives, and we heard some of them silenced in mid-sentence.

At any moment, this mob might break down the gates and pour in. What would happen to us?

The pastor appeared among us, his expression betraying his own terror. The orphans surrounded him, hoping that his presence would somehow protect them. We clung to his arms and legs. By now, all of us were in tears. We were lost, or so we thought.

Fortunately, over the next few minutes, the noise faded away, and the mob moved on. Nobody broke in. The pastor took a deep breath of relief and tried to reassure us that we were safe.

Later that day, he received visitors who explained that starving people had gotten wind of a shipment of bread that had arrived in town, destined for the army at the front. The civilian population attacked the soldiers guarding the shipment and tried to steal the bread. The mob pleaded with

the soldiers, begging for pity.The guards aimed their guns at the crowd, and according to some they fired, which ignited complete chaos in the streets. Most of the victims were local Arabs.

The Armenian deportees weren’t the only ones who were dying of hunger. Famine gripped the entire city of Hama—which implied, of course, that no bread had been sold to those in the camp, including the few remaining members of my own family.

Soon, hunger infiltrated the orphanage, too. In the beginning, we had received three meals per day. Then we started getting two meals a day—a light breakfast of bread and tea, and supper at four in the afternoon, consisting of bread and a few pieces of potato with chunks of meat, or rice and meat. Fruit disappeared from our diet. Still, we were content with what we received, as we had experienced much worse in the camp.

At this point, the orphanage was still accepting two or three new orphans per day. The pastor didn’t have the heart to turn anybody away. Our number rose beyond a hundred and fifty and approached two hundred.

In the shops and the market, food became more and more scarce. Fruit and cereals were rare and, when found, exorbitantly expensive. Our caretakers were sent out on a daily basis, and they usually returned empty-handed. Even the children realized that famine was a real threat. Two hundred of them had to be fed every day, and there was fear that the number of daily meals would be decreased to one.

One morning we woke up and found that the pastor had left the orphanage without saying a word. The period of his absence was a nightmare for the boys. We asked the caretakers where he was, but they didn’t know.

A day passed, then two, then three; still, the pastor did not reappear. Thankfully there was enough to eat in the storerooms of the orphanage, and some kind people from the city brought us bread. We had bread and tea in the morning, and in the afternoon we ate beans, potatoes, or lentils without meat. We didn’t protest. All of the boys were on their best behavior, while the women all continued to treat us as their own children.

On the fourth day, the pastor finally appeared. When he walked into the orphanage, looking the worse for wear, we quickly surrounded him. We were