Sounds of Silence, The
Turkey's Armenians Speak

One of the strongest desires of the Hrant Dink Foundation, from the very first day it was founded, was to create a memory repository on the Armenians of Turkey, based on various documents shedding light on oral history records, culture and identity. This work is the first material outcome of that desire. It aims to recover the traces of the political and cultural memory of Armenians living in Turkey and of the Armenian community, to reveal the continuity in a cultural existence, to find out how individuals with an Armenian identity perceive themselves and the 'others', and in so doing, to reflect the reality of Armenians still living in Turkey in all its political, cultural and historical dimensions. To reflect this reality, it was carried out as an oral history research study. To this end a working group under the guidance of Ferda Balancar got in touch with Armenians living in Istanbul and in various cities of Anatolia. Interviews were held with 40 people, 21 of whom were women and 19 men. 12 researchers participated in this study. This book contains 15 of those interviews. You will read the stories of people ranging from 19 to 70 years of age as they themselves told them. You will see that the stories tell not only of their remembrance of history but of their lives today. Because today is important too... And since this is so, then the last word should go to Hrant: "Come, let's understand each other first... Come, let's respect each other's suffering first... Come, let's let each other live first..." Ali Bayramoglu, Foreword