99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 73

Nektar Alatuzyan | 07.01.1914, birthplace – Musa Dagh, Khdr Bek village
Our land was rich – we had a large house and territory. I planted 30 fig trees with my own hands.
It wasn’t cold during the New Year – even if it snowed, it didn’t last five minutes. We’d pluck
pomegranates, figs and grapes from the trees and put them on the New Year table.
My father was the hero of 7 villages, a rebel leader. The people from 7 villages would gather at our
house – the rebel meetings would be called at our place. The weapons for the whole group were
stored at our house. The Turks betrayed my father. Once, when I was still a small child, I saw them
come to our house to take away the weapons. I put the guns under the carpet, placed my toys on
them and sat on top, pretending to play. They came in, couldn’t find any weapons and couldn’t arrest
anyone. Before the self-defense battles of Musa Dagh, my father warned everyone that the Turks
were coming and said that they should go up the mountain to fight back. He took everyone up the
mountain and saved many people – he fought in the self-defense battles from start to finish.
After the fighting, we went to France and returned to Musa Dagh 5 years later, where we stayed
till 1938. The Turks tried to arrest my father several times, but they had no evidence. They said that
my father had a lover. Finally, the Turks killed her and placed his suit in that house. They eventually
sentenced him to 101 years of imprisonment, on charges of murder. I was 13-14 years old then. I
had just started going to school. I was forced to leave the first grade to help my mother raise 3
children. My father stayed in jail for 15 years, after which he managed to prove his innocence and
regained his freedom.
In Musa Dagh, I married Tigran, who had served in the French army. We went on a ship to Beirut
in 1938, where I had 3 children. In 1947, we came to Armenia. I had two more children here.
Later, my father and mother came with the remaining children to Armenia. They lived in Yerevan,
in Malatia, where they are now buried. My father, Tovmas Abdunuryan, was a real hero. There are
a number of books published about him and his picture now hangs in the National Gallery and th e
Tzitzernagabert Museum.
If I go back to Musa Dagh one day, it’ll probably drive me crazy… There is no other place like that land.

Nektar Alatuzyan's father, 1913.