“My Armenian Issue..”

The Turkish journalist Bekir Coskun wrote in his column in the “Hurriyet” Turkish newspaper on Sept. 27, 2005, an article under the title “My Armenian issue...”. The following is my translation of the Armenian text of the article.

“I have no information on what happened to one million Armenians.
I have one Armenian.
(…)
After the death of our mother, my father, who was an official, put me and my sister on a horse’s back and took us to our grandmother. That big home was near Urfa in Tulmen’s vineyards. Our grandmother liked us a lot.
No matter that my childhood’s memories had disappeared from my mind, but I remember well the amount of tenderness our grandmother showed towards us.
Our grandmother didn’t look like my aunts or other women living in our home there. She was tall, slim, and blonde and had blue eyes…
All the family members showed respect towards her, along with admiring her. They used to ask for her opinions and accept her ideas. My father, a learned man who had tough manners and used to enforce his will, had confidence and respect towards her. This attitude was always attracting my attention.
We got big.
As we got big, we knew that she was not our real grandmother. Our real grandmother was dead when this grandmother came to our home.
She was an Armenian girl.
After the death of my (real) grandmother, my grandfather took her from among the Armenians who were deported and exterminated on the way from the coast of Euphrates River to Syria, and married her.
All my family members were admiring and accepting her as the grand of the family.
When I got a little bigger and got acquainted with the facts, I better understood the melancholy look that ever existed in her eyes…
I saw on her face that unconcealed anguish.
That is my Armenian issue.
I don’t know what they had done with the Armenians. I also do not know the meaning of these quarrels, or what the fact is.
But I want to know who parted our (Armenian) grandmother from her home and her nest.
I want to call to account all those, who sent my grandmother to deportation that she was compelled to hide her sadness, didn’t show her infinite longing, and maybe she concealed her tears from all of us every night.
I don’t know the one million, I have one Armenian; that sad woman who was very lovely to me..
My Armenian".