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The History Podcast
Half-Life: 5. The Road Through the Mountains
00:28:21
Joe’s great-grandfather's letters, lead him to the silenced history of a massacre.
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- [00:01]
Joe Dunthorne
BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts it was mid February and my radio producer Elena and I were driving through the steep valleys of the Munzur Mountains in eastern Turkey. I had with me my great grandfather's letter from April 1937, in which he tried to help the Turkish government buy German capital chemical weapons. Our taxi driver stopped at the first of many military checkpoints and chatted cheerfully to a smiling young woman with an enormous gun. We ascended up a steep switchback road and arrived at a town with two different names, depending who you speak to. It's been 90 years since the government changed the town's name, just one of the policies intended to bring the region under close state control. In driving to our hotel, we passed the huge razor wired police barracks and navigated around the numerous officers walking the streets or leaning on their cars with blue lights flashing. In 1935, the government changed the town's name from Dersim to Tunjele, a decision that still sets the tone today. Tunjele means Ron's Fist. Next to our hotel was the local museum offering an in depth history of the region all the way from Paleolithic times right up to the modern day, with everything in both Turkish and English. We were the only ones inside the museum, walking slowly between the deserted rooms. And while I already knew not to expect a serious discussion of 1937 and 38, when thousands of der semi civilians were rounded up and massacred, I still somehow imagined I'd find some kind of acknowledgement. But the only clue, an accidental one, was the building itself. The museum was housed in a former army barracks built in 1937 in the German style. This was where some of the thousands of troops lived while conducting exactly the brutal killings the museum didn't mention. In the final room we sat and watched a promotional tourist video, drone shots zooming over beautiful hills and winding rivers. Tundele was the voiceover said, the perfect place to relax and let go. I'm Joe Dunthorne and you're listening to Half Life. This is episode five, the Road through the Mountains. Along with our local guide Metin and our interpreter Karem, we drove alongside the river until we had to stop at another checkpoint. Continuing through the valley, we could see on the peaks of the mountains above us, a sequence of military watchtowers. Metin explained there were more than 20 of them peering down. Prior to this trip, Metin and I had been chatting for weeks on WhatsApp, during which time I tried to reconcile his extensive use of silly emojis with a photo I'd seen Online. Across his back was an enormous Tattoo of an AK47. He'd spent two years in prison for his association with the Kurdistan workers party, the PKK, who since the 1970s have been engaged in violent battles for Kurdish autonomy in the east and are considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the eu, the United States and the uk. In an interview, Metin said the tattoo was not inspired by an actual gun, but by the dramatic ridged peak above Dersim, which was shaped like a Kalashnikov, a detail that I found reassuring. But now that we had a clear view of the ridge itself, I struggled to see the resemblance. We entered a tunnel through a cliff and soon emerged in the next valley where it was snowing. Big slushy clumps that made the windscreen wipers judder. The government of the 1930s wanted to control this region, but were challenged by the geography. Steep mountains protecting the communities within them. For the Elev people of this region, it was precisely this landscape that was central to their religious beliefs. The mountains, rivers, animals, people and plants all considered sacred. And yet roads were laid and tunnels drilled, making the kind of infrastructure you could drive a truck down. By the spring of 1937, around 25,000 troops were sent to the region, and the Prime Minister said that these mountains would soon feel just as though they were the streets of Ankara. After half an hour in the car, the nerve pain in my back was so bad that I was gripping the seat beneath me, counting down the minutes to when I could take my next dose of cocodamol. I was relieved when we pulled over in a lay by for what I thought was a chance to admire the beautiful view. Beneath us, the Munzur river curved sharply away into a steep canyon coiling between enormous boulders.
- [06:25]
Metin
Before I knew that this was the rakshaw 38, I came here with my friends. Just you see the people sitting there, or maybe, I don't know, chilling out there. I went there and sat with my friends and we had a bottle of beer together. And because I didn't know that people were killed there, and I went there, I sit there. I tried to like feel nature and try to feel calm there.
- [06:54]
Joe Dunthorne
Rising from the water were the cliffs of Halvori, what the locals call them the rocks of 38.
- [07:02]
Metin
And then I learned that it was actually a grave for thousands of people. During the genocide in 1938, many villagers from around this place were gathered here. As you see, it's a flat place compared to the surroundings. And there is a cliff here and all the people, men, women, children, kids Whatever, the soldiers would just either kill them and throw them or throw them alive. So it is like a place where many people were killed during the massacre.
- [07:41]
Joe Dunthorne
From the perspective of the Turkish state, the killings occurred when the army was sent here to suppress a Kurdish rebellion. According to official data released by the government in 2011, nearly 14,000 De Simi civilians were killed in a series of massacres across the region in 1937 and 1938. Other historians suggest the death toll was three to four times this number.
- [08:15]
Metin
He says that probably, most probably this place had like a military base nearby and the soldiers would gather all the people from different villages, they would come here and rebels or not, it's not important. Everyone was killed because you cannot, from the state perspective, you cannot differentiate between the rebels and non rebels. Whomever lives here is rebel from their perspective, of course. But of course this includes 5 year old kids or even unborn kids and women and the elderly. They just forcefully walked them until here to this point and they killed, massacred them all. And Metin says it was not just for once, several days, several times. And that's why most people say the river was flowing blood. It was not water, it was just blood. In every rock, every mountaintop, every part, every corner of this river, there is such stories.
- [09:28]
Joe Dunthorne
Are there any memorials for the massacre?
- [09:34]
Metin
There is no official memorial here, any place around here, because there is no, there is not much official record, There is not much proof, only the oral tradition, only the pains in the eyes of the people, of the survivors, which are like just a few. The survivors are just a few because it has been almost, almost 100 years, so it's difficult to find those who experience the massacre here.
- [10:10]
Joe Dunthorne
As we spoke, we were aware of the watchtower on the far hill and the military helicopter passing overhead. Metin did not look up.
- [10:20]
Metin
They put their soldiers, their representatives in some certain places, they put lots of observing towers, panopticons. They turn your habitat into prisons. And that's why you feel threatened always, all the time. You feel like you are being observed always. And I feel the same about the view. Yes, it's beautiful scenery. But I always, when I think about all the happenings here, all these massacres and acts of genocide here, I definitely feel overwhelmed. You feel like it's. There's a word for this, I think in psychology it's unhomely, unhelp. You know that it's your home, but you also feel disconnected from that place because of the pain, because of the suffering. It feels unhomely. It's not home anymore because you know that it's a grave. It's a graveyard. The whole place, actually the whole surrounding is a graveyard. It's a mass graveyard. There's another place of massacre. We can go there if you like.
- [11:43]
Joe Dunthorne
Okay. Before coming to Dersim, I'd made sure that Metin and Kerem and everyone we hoped to talk to were aware of my family history. I had no intention of surprising anyone with the news that I was the descendant of someone who may have facilitated a local massacre. Above all, I wanted to give them the opportunity to tell me not to come at all. Part of me was even hoping they would say that instead I experienced nothing but kindness and hospitality. And that was, in its way, harder to accept. We drove further into the hills. Metin had been worried the roads would be blocked by snow, but most of it had already melted. That was lucky, because ours was not a vehicle you'd want to rely on. Metin had borrowed a battered pickup truck from a friend. The air vents weren't working, so we took turns wiping away the condensation with his red beanie hat. Matin parked up by the river, the cliffs rising steeply all around us, a line of bare birch trees along the bank. Amazing place, huh? He pointed across the water to where a slit of light shone from a sheer ravine, a gap barely wide enough for one person to clamber through.
- [13:20]
Metin
Yes, this is the place. This valley you see here between these two mountains. It is called Lush Valley. People start to get afraid of the actions of the government and the military personnel. And they just to save their lives, they start to come here, to this valley, because it is a difficult place, place for the soldiers to enter and to like, harm people. So many people came here.
- [13:49]
Joe Dunthorne
The Lash Valley was the last refuge for the people fleeing the massacres. They chose it specifically for its inaccessibility, hiking far into the mountains and hiding in caves they hoped the army couldn't reach.
- [14:07]
Metin
And the caves are also in the valley where the gas poisoning happened. They say this place is. The gas poisoning was more intense here. There are other places as well. But here, because the soldiers could not, like, enter and take the control, they did whatever they can. They either bombed it, they gas poisoned it, they did whatever they can due to this place. People who tried to hide themselves here.
- [14:42]
Joe Dunthorne
I knew from speaking to the historian Jamal Tash that human bones can still be found on the cave floors.
- [14:51]
Metin
Such a beautiful place. And so many pain. So much pain.
- [15:07]
Joe Dunthorne
The state had always denied using chemical weapons. But in 1986, an aging Turkish politician let something slip in an interview. They used poison gas, he said. They poisoned them like rats from inside the entrance to the caves. Since then, military documents have slowly started to emerge. A document was recently uncovered that showed the Turkish government signing off on the purchase by secret negotiation of 20 tons of German tear and mustard gas in 1937. The following year they bought planes from America and from the Heinkel factory in Oranienburg, the town where my great grandfather used to live. The caves they couldn't reach from the ground were attacked from the air. These revelations made headlines in 2023among Istanbul's left leaning newspapers. But the news did not trouble the mainstream press. What was missing in terms of documentation was corroboration from whichever German company made the sale. Documents like the one my great grandfather wrote to his old boss. The four of us huddled at the side of the road. The fading light had turned everything black and white and I was increasingly worried that every pair of passing headlights must be those of the military coming to interrogate us. Until at last they were.
- [16:46]
Metin
It's military. Just hide it under your scarf.
- [16:50]
Joe Dunthorne
A large armored truck trundled past, then stopped a few meters down the road. Its full beams lit up the cliffs. The vehicle itself was so non reflective as to be almost invisible. A highly aggressive nothingness. On its roof, a radar jammer rotated at the speed of a turntable. The soldier wound down his window. Metin crossed the road to speak to him, standing beneath the door as they talked. What did the. What did the soldiers say?
- [17:34]
Metin
They asked what we are doing here? And we said we just walk, see, show nature to our friends. And the soldier said what? Nature, nature. And Mithin said, nature you see. Even the soldier cannot see nature, you see. This also tells something. I don't know if I can explain it, but this itself is like. It's like a self declaration of blindness to many things. This basic conversation, you see, with just a couple of sentences shows the way we look at each other, the way we see each other. For them we are just potential dangers. And this place is potential like, I don't know, potential place of crime. But for us it's not.
- [18:29]
Joe Dunthorne
We drove back in the dark and the watchtowers had switched on their floodlights so that they glowed in the mist on the hilltops. Like spaceships, I said. Like the eye of Sauron, Metin said. The next day, Metin wanted us to meet Ali Akbar Kaya, the former president of the local human rights association and someone who had dedicated his life to documenting events in Dersim. As we walked through the town. It was raining so hard that the Munzor river had turned reddish brown and opaque, filled with sediment washed down from the hills. Ali was 61, soft voiced and watchful. His second floor office looked out at the high walled police compound over the road.
- [19:30]
Metin
He says since the massacre, his generation is the third one, the first generation and the second generation did not even talk about the massacre. And he gives the specific word genocide. He says this was definitely genocide. And the third generation, his generation started to become more politicized. He says he has worked for long years as part of the Human Rights organization and he has been persecuted and imprisoned as well.
- [20:06]
Joe Dunthorne
As we talked, I noticed a police officer chatting on his phone at the opposite window. Ali sat with his back to the wall in a small pocket of privacy where he couldn't be seen through the tangled strip blinds.
- [20:20]
Metin
This region is the only city in Turkey which is observed from every single angle. In every hill or mountain you will see a tower for observation for the soldiers.
- [20:39]
Joe Dunthorne
Do you mind ask, was he imprisoned in connection with his work?
- [21:06]
Metin
Because of thoughts, ideas, opinions, which are like common things for us. He like tells it with a joke as well. We are used to being imprisoned for our democratic rights, like talking to the press or walking on the streets for some demonstrations, for some protests. He says he has never been involved in any sort of violence or violent act and the reason he was imprisoned was always ideological or for his as punishment for his ideas and opinions. And he adds, we are used to this. We are accustomed to being persecuted in this way. It's not something interesting for us. And by the way, he also has a pending punishment for six years. If it is like, approved by the court, he will be imprisoned for six years again.
- [22:06]
Joe Dunthorne
A year after this conversation, Ali was imprisoned, sentenced to six years for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. A conviction his brother says was based on an undisclosed statement from an undisclosed witness.
- [22:26]
Metin
Okay, he says that we basically opened the door for the next generation. What we did is just to open the door and we started to let people know that this happened here, this genocide. He insistently uses the word genocide.
- [22:42]
Joe Dunthorne
I was planning to give Ali a copy of the document I had in my backpack. My great grandfather Siegfried's letter, dated April 1937. I thought it might make a contribution, however small, to the growing evidence of what happened here. Ever since speaking to Professor Akcam, I had even held onto the idea that my letter might be quietly revolutionary, the decisive rupture through which the truth would come rushing in. Standing there in Ali's office, his walls posted with the faces of the unremembered. I began to understand the absurdity of thinking that all they needed was just more evidence. For the last 10 years, he had been helping to translate from Zazaki, his mother tongue, some of the 800 hours of witness statements from survivors of the massacres.
- [23:38]
Metin
He translates them into Turkish and he says that during the day when he translates them, he always feels to give some break for this emotional crisis of his, because what he's being told that he has to translate is so unbearable emotionally, very unbearable for him. He has to give breaks to digest what he has translated. And he doesn't know if this is going to be harmful to his psychology in the future either. I mean, he's worried about his own psychology. And every day he says he has to give breaks for some calming down and letting the emotions come out, and then continues again. And he adds that he has to do this. This is his responsibility for the next generation.
- [24:32]
Joe Dunthorne
Yeah, it's a hugely selfless act, given that, and must be very painful, as he says, and physically and psychologically demanding to go through that.
- [25:02]
Metin
Your great father got involved in this massacre, in this genocide. If he has any single role in this genocide, we forgive him for your inclination.
- [25:23]
Joe Dunthorne
I had to listen back to the interview recording afterwards to even be sure that I'd said it, a clogged sound from the back of the throat. Even less audible was the embrace he gave me, reduced on tape to the shush, shush of our clothes moving against each other, the synthetic fabrics coming together and then pulled apart. After meeting Ali, we walked back through the town and I numbly followed Metin and Karim and my radio producer, Eleanor, as they navigated between the police officers in the street. I had the sensation that someone was standing inches behind me, staring into the back of my head. I could feel the proximity of feelings that were beyond my capability to feel. Which explains my response when Eleanor asked how I was getting on. It's just very. I could hardly just feel a bit like I can't even really. I feel like I can't even, like. Yeah, it was a lot. It was clearly just coincidence that as soon as we arrived at the airport to catch our flight home, my back suddenly felt better. It had nothing to do with me no longer having to talk about all the things I really did not want want to talk about. Just hours after my conversation with Ali, I could already feel my brain distancing itself. Who had we spoken to? What had we seen? I was struggling to remember. I feel, had my memory wiped. This as I was learning was an inherited talent. Half Life was written and presented by me, Joe Dunthorne. It was Produced by Eleanor McDowell and mixed by Mike Woolley. The music was composed by Jeremy Walmsley, the story consultant was Sarah Geiss and the executive producer was Alan Hall. It was a Falling tree production for BBC Radio 4 and the History podcast.