Bey is downhearted, bearing the psychological burdens of
captivity.//
19 December 1916
Tuesday
The weather is
nicer than yesterday. The clouds have lessened. News:
writers are commenting on all the notes
that have been issued…the
Allied Powers’ writers are interpreting things such that by giving
these
proposals the Germans have lost their will for war. In the afternoon
Halis and I went to
Malaşova for a visit. We sat and talked. Everyone’s
thoughts were on the matter of the war’s
prolongation. Over there we
spoke with Süleyman, who’s in detention, while standing. Toward
evening we returned. We worked on German halfheartedly at night.
There was quite a pain
in my soul this evening. I’m thinking about the
future, wondering about my poor family and
how they are and cursing
the fleeting days of my youth…I don’t know, when will a happy day
come? When will we poor wretches be saved from these torments and
emotions? When will we laugh
again? Halis and Salah almost had an
argument in the morning. Fortunately, it quickly passed.
Halis gets mad
like a child. Anyway, Salah is a trouble-maker, a lowdown
fellow.
20 December 1916
Wednesday
The weather is
overcast. It’s cold just like every other day. Holding at -20
degrees. News: the
notes in question have
been given to Italy via the Pope.
It says that it cannot respond until after
consulting with the Allies.
The
Commander came in the morning and said that typhus has reared its head
again in Russia and that
we must be especially careful that it doesn’t
spread from the mujiks to the
prisoners. Trabzonlu Ethem,
who lives in
our house, asked the Commander if he could move to the house
across
from the post
office in consideration of his suffering from rheumatism.
In mid-afternoon he
left with all his
belongings. The real reason for his
move is not rheumatism but rather his
fights with his fellow townsman
Salah.
Supposedly, Salah is forever saying bad things about him. Ethem
was affected by this and couldn’t
take it anymore. Even though Ethem
has done some bad things to me, I felt sorry for him. We didn’t
have a
lesson at night. All I think about is my family. I went to bed late at
night.
I read Halis some
of the portions of my notebook that pertain to
Sarıkamış. I had a mixed-up
dream. A wolf chased me.
I was hidden in
a room in the house in Ankara. Then they threw the wolf outside
the door. My
mother brought a bed of straw, upon which there was some
snow. A few other
things…
21 December 1916
Thursday
The weather is
cloudy, bad. Snow fell toward evening. The Commander
sent our old ustarşi (Russian supervisor) to us
in the morning and told
him to have us clean our house. He relayed this to us.
Çerkes Mehmet
then
gathered us all together and told us that rather than hearing this
thoughtless
Russian talk we should pay
more attention to things ourselves
and appoint a duty officer. We agreed and
Hikmet became the first
duty
officer. He had us clean our room and the big room until evening. I didn’t
work on German today.
It was non-stop aggravation. If I’m idle for a
moment I fall into thought.
Halis is in a bad mood,
too. I wrote in my
notebook in order to
ease the aggravation but just the opposite occurred.
I erased
some redundant places and closed it. I sat for a long time at
night before
going to bed. Just as I
fell asleep a horrifying scene
confronted me. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t
scream. I thought I
was
nearly going to lose my mind. In any event, I was able to scream
and woke up.
But right at that
moment someone next to me said ‘stop!’.
I couldn’t see the face very well. Only
from the clothes could
I guess
that it was Hasan or Zühdü. Anyway, I tried to sleep after this
frightful
dream. With
difficulty I was able to fall asleep very late.
22 December 1916
Friday
The weather is
still overcast. The cloudiness eased somewhat toward
evening. I spoke with a
fellow Townsman named
Ahmet Efendi
yesterday. He’s also a reserve officer candidate. He’s a native of Ankara.
Emin, a
teacher, came to our house when Ethem Efendi moved and
went to his old place again.
Disinfection continued today. We finished
the small room,wiped it down. Again,
I’m quite aggravated. I’m
constantly thinking about my family and sketching out what will happen
in the future. Sometimes
I’m hopeful and sometimes I’m caught up in
fierce storms of gloom. I can’t remember the last
time I had a nice
thought. Whichever way I turn there’s sadness; whatever I grab hold of
I see
calamity. In short, since throughout my life I’ve never had a time
that secured and provided
happiness, now too I can’t be saved from such
thoughts. With these thoughts in my mind, I wrote
three letters to
Istanbul today – one to my aunt, one to my brother, and one to my father.
I wrote
that although I’ve been a prisoner in Russia for ten months and
have sent them many letters I
haven’t received any replies from them. I
went to bed early tonight because I
feel bad and I have
nothing to do.
Again we couldn’t get a lesson from Franz.
23 December 1916
Saturday
The weather is
cloudy. The streets are covered with snow. News: as a
result of the note given
to Russia there will
be a meeting in St.
Petersburg and the foreign ministers of Italy, England,
France and those
of
Belgium, Serbia and Romania will be there. The negotiations will
occur among
the foreign ministers
of the four states and the others will
listen. According to rumors, the crushed smaller states
will say to the
big ones ‘we’ve been destroyed for your sake. Now save us.’ In
the
morning half a
ruble was collected from everyone based on a request
from the other house. This money will be sent
to the German and
Austrian soldiers who are prisoners working in the kazarma (main
barracks),
on the occasion of our allies’ holiday. Around noon I got
a letter from Hakkı
Efendi written in French
with some of the words
I had sent to him. I wrote a letter to my father
completely in French.
Again,
aggravation. We practiced German with Franz in the evening.
I went to bed quite late. I saw my
father, mother and brother in a
dream. Halis and a few other fellows were with
me. I asked my father
‘have you received the letters I sent you?’ and he replied ‘yes, I have.’
Then
while talking about some
things we read a declaration which
supposedly stated that the entire world
would come against us
and
our allies. Consequently, however many men there are available
they were
all summoned to war. I
asked my father for Halis and I
to be in the same detachment and a few other things…I woke up.
24 December 1916
Sunday
The weather is
bad, bitter cold. News: nothing new but there’s hope that
the Allied Powers
will move toward peace. They’ve
asked for peace,
too. But they want to act tough and slander us…today I sent the letter
I wrote
to my father yesterday. Again, we didn’t work on German
because of Franz’s holiday. In the
evening we celebrated Franz and
Joseph’s holiday. Then Salah, Hikmet and I sat
in the Hungarian
doctor’s room for a bit and congratulated him on the holiday in the
name of all
the fellows. We
chatted. At night Halis and I had a one-
on-one talke about our country…during
the night, I must have
laughed a couple of times in my sleep but I wasn’t aware of it. As
I lay down I
got a terrific headache.
As the result of it I had trouble
falling asleep.
25 December 1916
Monday
Like every other
day, the weather is cloudy. There’s a light wind
and snow mixed with rain is falling. I have a headache
again today.
In order to get some fresh air I went out by the front door. It
passed,
not without
difficulty, by evening. I’m deep in thought again today.
That’s why I wasn’t
able to work on my lessons. The
day passed
lost in thought. I’m thinking about my family, on the one hand, and
on the other I’m
thinking about my bad luck and the fact that I haven’t
been able to enter a
profession yet. And there’s
the probability that
I’ll have to face who knows what kind of obstacles and what
kinds
of curses in my
life ahead. Then I thought quite a bit about a third
thing – slanders and
wrongful accusations…but
what’s the use, we
have had no fundamental training. Later I consoled myself
by remembering
that these slanderers are known. I went to bed late.
//END of PART LIII//
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