MEHMET SAAR

MEHMET SAAR
Father�s Name: Tevfik
Mother�s Name: Rukiye
Place of Birth: Van-Göllü
Date of Birth: 1901

I am from the Gollu village. The Armenians revolted when the army in Van retreated towards Erzurum. The Armenians killed all our parents. My father was a gendarme sergeant and he was among those who were killed. The villagers in Mollakasim, Amik, Sihayne, Gollu, Hidir, Kurtsatan, and Koprukoy were also murdered. Some of our villagers were hidden in Zeve and were later killed, but we were able to escape.

Armenians tortured and practiced all types of cruelties on the people they kidnapped. They cut up pregnant women and removed the unborn children with their bayonets. They raided and burned all of the Muslim villages, murdering men, women, children and the old. The Muslim population, which fled from the villages, I mentioned, tried to escape by crossing the bridge on the Ablengez River. The Armenians demolished the bridge, and threw the bodies of their prisoners into the river. In the spring when the snow melted, the bodies were carried away into the lake. During the day time, my mother, my two sisters, and I stayed in the hills. We knew that if the Armenians found us they would kill us. My mother died before we reached Diyarbakir. I later lost my two sisters, and was left all alone. I stayed in Diyarbakir for three years, and returned to my village the fourth year. Van and the Muslim villages were all burned and destroyed, we settled down in an Armenian village since they remained intact. We later returned to our villages which we rebuilt with our own hands.

Words cannot express the torture we suffered at the hands of the Armenians. We lost our homes, families, and possessions. After losing my mother, father, and two sisters, I also lost my cousin and other relatives who were trying to escape to Tatvan by ship with thousands of other people. All of the passengers on the ship were brutally slaughtered by the Armenians near the Parket village near Adilcevaz.