AYSE SEVIMLI

AYSE SEVIMLI
Father's Name : Dervis
Mother's name : Hayriye
Place of Birth: Van-Zeve
Date of Birth : 1897

When the villagers heard that the Armenians were coming, they took as many precautions as possible. They dug positions in the hills. The inhabitants of seven villages filled up our village. There was little room in the village to manoeuvre around the people and carts. on the day that we heard the Armenians had almost reached the village, the men ran to take their positions and began fighting.

We had no ammunition or weapons assistance. When the Armenians entered our village, some of our men died fighting; others were burned in their homes. I hid with my mother and some others in a barn further away from the fighting grounds I got under a large basket. The Armenians killed everyone they found and also fired at the barns. A bullet hit my mother's scarf, but she was not hurt. I know of only two other women who survived.

The Armenians went to Bardakci before they came to our village. My God, when we went out at night, blood, gunfire, mourning, and wailing filled the air. I saw them torturing people by cutting "pockets" out of skin while mockingly telling them they were decorating them with medals. When we approached the Bardakci village, I saw that on the other side of the brook, in the field near Mehmet's house they had tied the arms of five men together and were shooting at them. When they fell to the ground, they stabbed them with bayonets. My mother handed them all of her money and valuables so that we would not be hurt. They then brought us to Van, and tortured the prisoners in unmentionable ways. We stayed in the military barracks for four months. We later became refugees and remained as such until April 1918.