and his cohorts what captivity deep in Siberia is like.
Meanwhile, the drama of the "3 lovesick fellows"
continues but the camp commander seems to be
remarkably understanding about the episode.//
16 October 1916 Monday
The weather is bad. Again light rain now
and then. Kazim was sent to
the hospital in the morning and admitted. Today Halis went
to the
Kazarma (main barracks) along with Çerkes Mehmet to give the boots
for repair.
At night I began to feel very strange. I got depressed thinking
about the past, the
future and especially my parents. I felt bewildered.
Halis came. After quite a while I was able
to compose myself. Halis
kept asking me what I was thinking and showed concern. Finally, I
convinced him that nothing was wrong. My thoughts are like they
always are…today we
heard that the families of the married officers
will go to Istanbul. I had an idea that I
might be able to give them a
letter to put in the mail at the Istanbul post office. If this were
possible,
it would make my family, who haven’t had any news about me for
nine months,
happy. Tonight the Hungarian doctor told us about
what he had witnessed of Siberia and the
Kyrgyz. He said Siberia is
deathly hot in the summer and the winters very harsh, with
temperatures of -45 degrees. The Kyrgyz there eat only sheep and horse
meat. Bread is unknown there.
Their lifestyle is living in shanties and
earthworks during the winter and in tents during the
summer. They’re
rich and they love Turks. But they use their wives like prisoners.
17 October 1916 Tuesday
Another day in our lives wasted. The best
days of our youth are
passing in a stifling calamity. In the true sense, since we are living this
captive life each day we see nothing other than what’s around us, our
minds are unable to make sound
judgements. Our lives pass with
emptiness. Our hearts beat with pulses that spurt fever. Sometimes
we’re consoled, as when the hope of our beloved Turkey and the
Turkish race’s greatness smashes
into our thoughts. We think about
it, find it conceivable and we’re happy with the certainty of this
hope.
We don’t wilt under the ongoing effects of the Russian newspapers
that want to extinguish
our hope and break our spirit. Even if we go
to sleep with the genuine poison of hopelessness at
ever being able
to live and bring forward enlightenment, we are comforted in knowing
that we will
live with the hope we expect from God and with the
certainty that we will work for this end.
God willing, we will happily
return to our beloved country once there is peace. News: our nation
is on
the attack on all fronts. Children and old people, older
than 50 and younger than 16, from
opposition countries will return
to their nations. The Germans have invented bullets that scatter up to
100 meters where an enemy is in a defensive position. The Germans
are also inflicting damage on
the English with their submarines. At
night the Hungarian doctor came and said he would teach us
German.
Halis had a sadness about him tonight. No matter how much I insisted
he wouldn’t tell me the
reason and he kept on moaning under the
effect of it till morning. Finally, he was able to say
that he was
thinking about his family.
18 October 1916 Wednesday
The weather is bad and has been for ten
days. There’s a light rain
sometimes. Since we’ve come to this house (Aralsof house) there
has been
some whispering going on. Salah is involved. There’s no
love lost between him and our house
supervisor Çerkes Mehmet,
who is somewhat prideful and domineering. Salah is against him and
probably should keep quiet. So that’s why they oppose each other. In
particular, Salah wants to take
him down, to break him, and this is
what he’s thinking about. He no doubt wants to win the day by
getting
everyone to join in his efforts. What foolishness!!...Halis and
I pay it no mind and don’t get
involved. Kazim came from the
hospital today. There’s no trace of the madness anymore. When we
asked the Hungarian doctor to teach us German he gave us some lame
excuses, saying it would
have to wait until tomorrow. Whoever we ask
to teach us language it’s always like this…the
Commander came at
night and said we will come to the Command at 9 o’clock tomorrow.
19 October 1916 Thursday
We went to the Command in the morning at
the appointed time. The
roads are muddy, terrible. We spoke with Osman and Şerif. Osman’s
wife
will go to Vienna. I asked Osman ıf I could give him letter for my
father to be mailed from the Vienna post office. But because the
Russians conduct such
thorough searches I understood that this would
not be possible. It seems like
luck is always against
me. Anyway, the
Commander came and it was all about the three lovelorn fools.
He realized that
their action was not an escape attempt but done for a
girl. Then it turned out that money had
been given to a Russian soldier.
The Commander was angry and said that we had trampled on the good
intentions he had shown us. He
accused us of inhumanity. Responding,
Major Mehmet said
that we were embarrassed by what the
Commander had said. The Commander explained that his
words were
directed at the three people in question. The Commander thanked
Major Mehmet for his friendly remarks. A bit
later we came back to
the house (around noon). I went to bed late at
night. The reason was
that I was thinking about the future and how a young
fellow like
me with no
profession will find an appropriate one for himself. I’m
very troubled that my
age is increasing and
time is passing with
nothing to do. Perhaps these empty hours are a great
opportunity
to work on
language, so I made that decision. But I’m alone and I
can’t do this job
without help.
20 October 1916
Friday
The weather is
clear, nice. The sky is cloudless, sunny. The sun warms
us. I wrote quite a lot
of German words in
the morning. The laundry
came in mid-afternoon but it hadn’t been washed. I tried to sew
some
holes in the clothes. At night we changed the laundry. We got
permission
to stroll in front of
the door during daytime. The three
lovesick fellows were there and their
informers came too. Winks
and
nods. Hikmet was able to get a letter again. The swine, he’s married.
He
has a beautiful wife
and a child…a crime…but Çerkes Mehmet
was told about Hikmet getting the letter. As the ‘ustarşi’
(supervisor)
he told Hikmet that when the girl comes he’ll no longer be allowed
to
go down and meet
her. Hikmet became angry and (with a comical
declaration) cried out that he
would commit suicide.
Çerkes Mehmet
returned just as he screamed this and the two had a heated
exchange.
Hikmet displayed
cowardice with his words. He wouldn’t commit
suicide in any case. He’s a
hypocrite and deserves what
he got. Too
bad he’s a Turkish officer.
Çerkes Mehmet’s
Adventure
21 October 1916
Saturday
The weather is
overcast. All around nature is showing itself. I wrote
some German words today.
News: our allies are on
the attack
everywhere. The Kaiser’s plan is to bring Romania completely under
his sway. The Russian
newspapers believe that this will be very bad
indeed for Romania. They’re
saying Romania will be in
the same boat
as the passive Italians. I’ve been able to free myself of the
thoughts
and depressions
that come now and then. At night Çerkes Mehmet told
us about his life and
adventure. He was a Russian citizen but escaped
and came to
Turkey in 1317 (1901). He then joined the Turkish
army. We got a
ruble from Salah that he owed us today. I had a shave,
we chatted…I went to
bed.
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