the long walk against fascism
200.000 people. Occasional loud protests. Peaceful and determined. A historical walk against fascism.As we walked, I thought about the Armenians walking through the roads of Anatolia, their children, their beloved thorn away from them.
As we walked I felt that our walk was a symbolic gesture at re-enacting their walk and experience of agony and desperation.
My nanny Maryam had to walk out of Şebinkarahisar leaving her father's family behind. She also lost her daughter on the way. In 1942 my father found her in Samatya and took her home to look after me. I remember her telling me about the fruit gardens, about the church, and about the village life in Şebinkarahisar. Her father was a priest. In the 1950s a letter from her daughter revealed that she was first taken to Greece and then was deported to Armenia. One night MIT (National Intelligence Organization) members came to our apartment on Şakayık Street, Teşvikiye and interrogated us regarding the source of the letter. For the first time I experienced the despotism of the State! Maryam's daughter was inviting her mother to Armenia. She was old and fragile and afraid to move out of our house and it was almost impossible to travel to SSCB. We were her family. Early 1970s she died in Yedikule Hospital. The last time I visited her, she did not recognise me! She is always in my dreams.
