Stories of Armenian survivors of 1915 compiled in new book

ISTANBUL

The stories of Armenians who survived the mass killings of the late Ottoman era have been gathered in a book titled “100 years… Real Stories.”

The 47 stories inside the book - which were collected as part of the “Turk Who Saved Me” project supported by the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office and realized by the Armenia-based Armedia Agency and the European Integration Non-Governmental Organization - are presented in the words of the survivors with minimal editing, bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos has reported.

The book has been translated into Armenian, English and Turkish, and will be distributed free of charge as part of the project.

Lilit Gasparyan, who translated the book into Turkish, said they had selected 47 stories for publication but received many more after initially calling for contributions.

“We deliver the verified, real stories of the people who survived the genocide thanks to the efforts of their Turkish neighbors, friends or ordinary Turks,” said Gasparyan.

Journalist Aris Nalcı, who coordinated the project, said similar projects also needed to be conducted in Turkey.

The year 2015 marks the centenary of the 1915 Ottoman Armenian mass killings during World War I. While Armenia and some countries legally refer to the incidents as “genocide,” the Turkish state does not accept the term and says the issue should be reviewed from a wider perspective.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ police overview, published on its website, states that Turkey “does not deny the suffering of Armenians, including the loss of many innocent lives, during the First World War. However, a greater numbers of Turks died or were killed in the years leading up to and during the War. Without belittling the tragic consequences for any group, Turkey objects to the one-sided presentation of this tragedy as genocide by one group against another."