Bashhalan (Başkale)

When we reached Başkale, twenty-eight Jewish families were living in the town. Years of hardship, hunger, and suffering had left their mark on the people’s faces. The children had eaten so much grass that their bellies swelled like those of pregnant women, yet the time of want had still not ended. The population was small; everyone knew and respected one another. At night people shut themselves inside their homes, while wolves and jackals roamed the streets in search of food, preying on dogs and stray cats.

Our first home was a simple space enclosed by four walls. An exceptionally wide door let in the light, and an opening had been left in the roof. At the centre was a deep oven sunk into the ground¹, which we used for warmth, cooking, and baking bread. Above it we placed a table with short legs. Winter in Başkale was long and severe², but the townspeople were accustomed to it. We called the entire arrangement — the oven, the low table, and the room with its opening in the roof — the kursi. We spread rugs and mattresses around the table. During the cold months we sat there beneath large woollen coverings, warming our feet under the draped table with the heat of the oven. At night we all slept together on those same mattresses.

Once we began to earn a little from my brother Shimon‘s work as a tailor, our circumstances improved.³ That summer we enlarged the house, added two rooms, and built a stable for the animals outside. We made attractive windows for the rooms with our own hands, since there was neither a specialist nor a builder in the town. To our neighbours we became an example of innovation and progress; they came to see the rooms and learn from us. The town gradually expanded, and in time a government office building had to be erected.

Before the war, Başkale had what we called the status of a “mutasarrif.” The authorities now intended to enlarge the town, raise it to the standing of a city — a “shahir” — and prepare it as the seat of a vali.⁴ The borderland between Iraq, Iran, and Turkey was sensitive, however, and Simko was in Iraq. It was also said that the British planned to establish a city nearby. The authorities therefore decided to direct their attention to Hakkari and designate it for expansion. Hakkari, whose name was then said to be Armenian, was at the time even more ruined than Başkale. Our town consequently remained a kaza.

We were told that Simko had been well received in Iraq, that the British had given him several villages, and that he had eventually found a place for himself in the Mosul region.⁵ Nevertheless, after some time we heard that he had again reached the Turkish frontier to ask the Turks for asylum.

The frontier lay very close to Başkale, and an urgent order arrived from Ankara to form a delegation that would meet Simko, receive him into Turkey, and allow him to settle in villages of his choosing. The delegation included a property official and the mufti. Since few people lived in the town, I too was appointed at the mufti’s suggestion. While we were preparing to leave, we learned that the Iranians had formed a similar delegation to welcome him. Simko was a man who calculated what lay ahead: he knew that if he fell into Turkish hands it would be difficult to escape, whereas he could more readily flee from the Iranians. By the time we reached the frontier, we had already heard that he had accepted the Iranian offer and crossed over with sixty thousand of his followers to settle in a town called Salbak.⁶