Before four Jewish families arrived from Başkale, there was no Jewish community in Van. After Başkale was destroyed in the war, these families moved to Van, settled there, and founded the city’s new Jewish community. As soon as we entered the city, we asked where they lived and went to find them.
The families were overjoyed to see us. They welcomed us after the long journey and arranged places for us to sleep and live. One of them said, “If only a few more families would come, so that we could form a minyan.”
Many houses in Van stood empty, and we moved into one of them. Yet we had no work and no means of earning our bread, so we lived much as the four families before us did. During the war, about one hundred Armenian families from the area had been concentrated on Akdamar Island in Lake Van. After the war they were brought back to the city and returned to their former homes. These houses were among the last Armenian buildings still standing; the other Armenian quarters lay in ruins. The Muslim neighbourhoods had also been destroyed, and we were told that Armenian residents had done this after the Russians entered the city.
When the Russians withdrew, Muslims returned to Van and began killing the Armenians who remained. They moved into the houses that Armenians had abandoned or whose owners had been killed. These stood in the finest part of the city, close to the lake, where Van’s neatest and most attractive homes were located.
We became friends with an Armenian named Hayk and opened a shoe shop in partnership with him. After a new government was established in Turkey, we received identity papers registering us as natives of Başkale and describing us as “Jews of Başkale.” Fighting continued in the north around Kars, and my brother was drafted into the Turkish army. One month later, all soldiers of his age were discharged.1 When he returned, we thought of Mother, alone in Dilman, and decided that I should go and bring her to Van.
We had come to know Kurds who travelled in and out of Van. I hired two donkeys and set out with them for Iran. The Jews of Van asked me to encourage any Jewish families I met along the way to settle in the city and help enlarge and establish the new community. I described the situation honestly to each family and left them to consider and decide. Some later came to Van; others settled in Başkale, which had been abandoned for six years. Only ruins remained there, roamed by wild animals and many wolves. After I returned to Van with Mother, ten more Jewish families arrived and settled among us.
Shaban’s wife died in childbirth, leaving four of us: Mother, my brother, my elder brother’s son, and me. We continued our lives, working and earning a living. Our Armenian partner was a fine craftsman, but one day an order came from Ankara directing that all Armenians be expelled to Yerevan. We had to part from him, and the shop remained in our hands. Work increased and sales improved.
Mother began to worry about our future. “What will become of us?” she asked. “There are no Jewish girls here. Both of you are bachelors, and you will find no brides. Shimon should go to Urmia, where there are many. Let him go and bring you a wife.”
Shimon went to Urmia, where he met two sisters and planned that one would marry me and the other him. After reaching an understanding with them, he returned to Van to begin preparations, intending to go back later and bring them both.
On his second journey he stopped in Dilman, midway to Urmia. Among the six Jewish families still in the city he met his cousin Varda, daughter of Hanukkah, his mother’s brother.2 She invited him to her home, where he met her daughter, who had just returned from Tiflis. On the spot he decided to ask for the girl as a bride for me. His cousin disliked the idea. “She is still a child,” she said. “How can you take her to your brother?” Yet because Shimon was her relative, she did not wish to disappoint him and finally agreed.
They made their preparations quickly. Before continuing to Urmia, my brother decided to take the young woman and return to us by way of Başkale. From there he sent a short telegram: “I am bringing my uncle’s granddaughter with me as a bride.”
We did not know for whom the bride was intended. I was feeding the horses when my brother arrived, and we all went out to greet them. He then turned to me and said, “I brought this bride for you.” I was overcome with embarrassment. Among us it was not customary for the bridegroom to go out to meet his bride, so I hurried up the road towards the house and left the scene.
There was no rabbi in Van who could recite the marriage blessings. We wrote to the rabbi in Başkale — Malam Yona3 — and he replied that he could come only one month later. We had to wait.
The rabbi’s arrival was an event for the whole community. For the first time in a long while, the Jews of Van could eat properly slaughtered meat. Everyone used his visit as an occasion to eat, rejoice, and pray for the couple’s happiness.