The boy who was bought for a silver coin and other Armenian stories of survival

The following article appeared in The Sacramento Bee Sunday Magazine in October 1987.

By J.D. Lasica

In the distance, Mesrop Boyajian could see the shimmering outline of the city of Mardin. The sun was high, and it pressed down on the band of villagers as they crossed the desert the Syrians called Der-el-Zor. Soon, the Armenians would give it a new name: the Desert of Death.

Mesrop, a small boy from a small village in Armenia, had seen much in his 6 years. But the past few months — avagh!

He saw the men in his village of Khoolu rounded up and marched off; they would never return. Hidden in the home of a sympathetic Turkish neighbor, he saw Kurdish tribesmen descend on the Armenian women and children who remained behind in Khoolu. The Kurds who had guns used them; those without guns used their quick, scythelike knives. After a time, after the last cry was stilled, Khoolu lay silent.

Then came the waiting. Weeks passed before the government soldiers arrived. A Turkish soldier prodded Mesrop into a caravan of Armenian women and children, and he did not resist. Those in line, perhaps 500 in all, had survived the massacres in the surrounding villages. Mesrop noticed there was not a man among them.

For 15 days, the caravan of exiles snaked slowly across the desert. The march was long and hard, but Mesrop kept pace — he did not dare fall behind in the killing heat, as some of the others had. The soldiers, too, frightened Mesrop. Each day they would carry young women from the caravan into the fields; after a time, Mesrop would hear gunfire and then see the soldiers returning, alone.

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