Armenieninfo.net

Introduced, translated, and annotated by Matthias Bjørnlund

Introduction

The following is a handwritten account in Danish found in an exercise book in the archives of the Danish missionary organization Women Missionary Workers (Kvindelige Missions Arbejdere; KMA).[1] The exercise book contains several other detailed survivor accounts or testimonies, all written down by Karen Marie Petersen, Danish KMA missionary in Mezreh (Mezereh, Mamouret-ul-Aziz, Elazig), Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire, during or immediately after World War I and the Armenian genocide; the handwriting, for instance, matches that of signed letters and postcards. More of these accounts will be published here. The narrator of the present account about the trials and tribulations of Digin Versjin is also in all likelihood Petersen. Furthermore, the account is likely to have been written down in a hurry relatively shortly after the events described therein – note, e.g., the somewhat ‘messy’ use of past and present tense and the abrupt ending. Perhaps for the same reason, the account also contains a number of typos, etc., so the translation has been silently and carefully edited for spelling and style.

Karen Marie Petersen was director of the Danish orphanage Emaus at Mezreh from 1909 until 1919, when she left the Empire with Danish KMA colleague Maria Jacobsen as the American ABCFM (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions) missionaries returned to Mezreh and Harput (Kharpert, Harpoot) to take over protecting and caring for literally thousands of Armenian survivors where the Danes left. Petersen, Jacobsen, as well as most other Scandinavian missionaries in the region had planned return to their posts as soon as they had recovered, but it quickly turned out to be impossible due to the rise of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and his nationalist movement, especially given the radical anti-missionary and anti-Armenian policies which this movement pursued. Instead, Petersen went to work for KMA in Syria and Lebanon for years to come, at times in direct connection with the prominent U.S. organization Near East Relief (NER). Like most of her colleagues, Karen Marie Petersen was relatively well educated and spoke (besides Danish) German, Armenian, Turkish, and, it appears, English. She was born 1881 in the provincial Danish town Nykøbing Sjælland. Little is known of her early years, but it is likely that she had middle class background, as she was daughter of an inspector of customs (‘toldforvalter’). Like Maria Jacobsen and several other missionaries, she adopted an orphaned Armenian survivor during the latter stages of the war, a girl she named Hope.

Who was Digin Versjin, then? The Armenian word ‘Digin’ translates into ‘Mrs.,’ or, more broadly, ‘the female head of the household,’ at times apparently roughly connoting something like ‘Lady.’ Digin Versjin was in fact member of the local Armenian ‘elite’ in the Mamouret-ul-Aziz region. In the sources that I have seen not many other Armenian women are referred to as ‘Digin’ by European and American missionaries (let alone by Armenians or Turks), so she must have been perceived to be something out of the ordinary. Digin Versjin, a.k.a. Vergene, was originally from Adana, Cilicia, as mentioned by U.S. missionary Tacy Atkinson in her published Harput diaries from before and during the Armenian genocide. The following diary entry is dated 20 July 1916; it is basically a brief summary of Digin Versjin’s life and fate:

I have been to call on Digin Vergene this morning. Her husband was a man of some wealth. Twenty five years ago he went to America and became a citizen, then he went to Liverpool ten years ago and married this girl from Adana. He retained his American citizenship but just before the war he with his wife and children returned here, and he took again his Turkish citizenship in order to regain some property here. Then the war came on and he lost his right of American protection. Last July he was sent in the ‘Sevkiat’ [‘deportation,’ MB] with his wife and children. He was delivered into the hands of a powerful Kurd whose men were sent to do the killing. This man was taken from the araba [a horse- or oxen driven carriage, MB] and killed before the eyes of his wife and children.

The Kurd saw the wife who is a pretty woman. He took her to his home and wanted to marry her, but his own wife made such a fuss that he soon decided not to marry her. She also refused to marry him, but she was in his power and was not allowed to go out. She soon became pregnant. In May he offended the Vali [Sabit Bey, MB] and was put in prison. Then her baby was born, she begs him to let her go as she will not marry him, but he refuses, says he loves her. When her baby was born he sent her money from the prison but it never reached her. She was almost starving. Now his brother has come and given her money for food. She wants to run away as he comes out of prison in ten days. She seems a beautiful Christian. She has her English Bible and hymn book. She has well to do relatives in America who would help her if they knew. Her body has suffered every shame but her soul is untouched.[2]

It is no coincidence that Karen Marie Petersen, like Tacy Atkinson, would take a particular interest in a woman like Digin Versjin and the fate she met. A well-educated, Protestant Armenian woman could not help but attract the attention and sympathy of Western missionaries, especially in a rather small, provincial town such as Mezreh. Petersen, though, records her encounters with Versjin in much more detail than does Atkinson. From a scholarly point of view, it is notable that Petersen’s written account does not contradict that of her American missionary colleague. Rather, is supports it and adds depth, nuances, as well as context to it. It is, in my opinion, an important early account of, for instance, life as an Armenian woman in captivity in what was commonly referred to at the time as a Muslim Harem; of missionary encounters with and perceptions of ‘the Other,’ as academic lingo critical of the Orientalist persuasion will have it; and of center-periphery dynamics, more precisely about Hadji Raja, an important local genocide perpetrator, his role in the extermination of the Armenians, and how he would fall in and out favor with Ottoman regional and central authorities (see also discussion in endnote 6). In Karen Marie Petersen’s words:

“Digin Versjin. One of the most pleasant women! A Madonna-like beauty; a quiet, modest woman and a true Christian believer. For seven years she and her husband had lived in Liverpool, and they had now come to the husband’s home in Mezereh. The home [had] a certain European character, they were rich and she had many pieces of jewelry and even a piano. There was a little 7-year old girl. The husband and his family were Catholics, while she, who as a young girl had attended the college in Adana,[3] was a Protestant.

1 July 1915, they had to watch the destruction of this home and the scattering of their belongings in all directions, and they themselves became refugees. They were, together with the Catholic congregation, the first group that left Mezereh. They had been promised special protection by the Vali.[4] When the convoy of carriages left Sevang the next day, the Kurds fell over them, separated the men, and chopped them down. Her husband ran to the carriage and sat down next to her, probably hoping to be in hiding, but the Kurdish chief, Hadji Raja,[5] came and dragged him out of the carriage and killed him right before her eyes. Then he took Digin Versjin and all her belongings back to Sevang and demanded that she should become his. The other women were plundered too, even the novices, and they were stripped and abducted.

This man, then, took her and the little girl to a house in the town. I heard about this, found the house, and tried to get to speak to her (on August 1 [1915]). I had to knock on the door in vain for a long time; finally she came and opened the door herself. It turned out that we could not enter and that she was only allowed to speak a few words with us. This was because the Kurd was home, [he] had been on a trip to Istoli [sic: Isoli] (naturally to direct the killings there.)[6] He has his home in Istoli, has [a] wife and children, and now this lovely young woman has to live as his wife. She has told him that she will not abandon her faith, and she has her Bible which she reads and takes comfort in. She also has the little girl; when the Kurd calls at her – the child says, ’I will not come to you, you have killed my father.’ Can anyone understand how it has been for such a sensitive lady to be a prisoner in the house of such a man?

During the winter he brought his Kurdish wife and children from Isoli and this was the greatest humiliation, having to live together with this woman who naturally disliked her. She had to see all her jewelry in the possession of this wife, but one day, when [the Kurdish wife] took out the jewelry, something must have touched her heart, and she gave the little girl two sparkling gems to use as earrings! But the Kurdish family travelled back to Isoli and the husband persuaded Digin Versjin to travel with them to that home, something she adamantly refused.

At the end of May [1916], she gave birth to a little girl. The husband was in prison at the time as he had slandered the Vali to Enver Pasha. He was imprisoned here [‘here’ most likely meaning Mezreh, MB] for several months, but during this time he had gotten his 2 brothers to watch Digin Versjin so that she would not run away. But he did not give her enough to eat – she sold as many as possible of her clothes to buy more food, but she did not have milk for the child who cried because of that. She had an elderly Armenian woman to help her doing the housework, and she stuck to her with a touching devotion. She came to me in tears and told about Digin Versjin’s unhappy condition. I then visited [Versjin] and gave her money for milk and nutritious items, but I could sense that it was difficult for her, who had been rich and [one illegible word], to receive them. It was wonderful to see that despite her hard fate she had not lost her faith in God’s love, but was reading the Bible and praying all day long. She hoped that God would give her an opportunity to escape, but she had no friends who could hide her. We read and prayed together that God would show a way.

By the end of September, I was once again very worried about her condition. The Kurd had got out of jail, and because of a hostile relationship with the government,[7] he was in a difficult position. [Note in original text: ‘*The government demands some money he owes because he had controlled the ferry service and the mail service.’]. His family in Isoli tried to persuade him to get rid of Digin Versjin and take care of them instead. Digin V. herself has no greater wish than to be free, but even though he, too, has reasons to wish to be free, he cannot let go of her. He does not want her to fall into the hands of another Turk [sic] or maybe to suffer want. Whether these are just empty words, or whether he really means it, I do not know. I could imagine that she by her quiet and mild ways has influenced him in a good way, and that true devotion and love has found a place in his evil and cruel heart. As a solution she proposed to travel to Aleppo where she has an aunt; at first he rejected it, but afterward he accepted this with such an eagerness that she became suspicious and began to believe that he was thereby planning something: namely to have her attacked and killed on the road. This way she would not later be able to call him to account for his evil deeds toward her, or for her money and jewelry that he had acquired.

We were leaning toward believing that he would have her done away with, and thought it to be the right thing to do if she escaped from him. We managed to find a woman in Harput, poor and insignificant, who would hide her, and, as Digin V. was not familiar with the road up there, she was to be disguised, and I should escort her. It had been planned where I should meet her, and the date had been decided upon (9 September [1916]), and I was tensely awaiting her at the appointed time, but she did not come. She had not dared to escape after all, not because she feared for herself, as no price could be too high for her to pay to get out of his hands, but she feared for the person who was willing to hide her.

It turned out that she had told the Turk [sic] that she would walk out herself, he did not have to worry about her anymore – but then he had said – ’Do not think about leaving or hiding. I will find you even if I have to burn down the whole town – and pity the person in whose house I find you.’ After this threat Digin V. would rather wait and see if she could make him let her go voluntarily.

But this period of waiting was hard and nerve wrecking. One evening in early October the Kurd gets home late and the male servants who slept on the ground floor were asleep and did not open for him. The old woman walks down and opens the door, but, furious about having to wait, he takes the old woman, puts her outside, and locks the door. She knocks on the neighbor’s door, and the neighbor lets her in. Digin Versjin was beside herself, fearing that something should happen to the woman, and the husband then says that she had to go down there herself and let her in, but she feared that someone would stand outside to kill her.