Middle East Revised marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide until the end of this year – with various reports, books recommendations, articles, testimonials.

The following is an excerpt from Karnig Panian’s Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide (English translation by Simon Beugekian).

/photo via sup.org/

At night, elderly Turkish women patrolled up and down the rows of beds, trying their best to make sure we were all asleep. Some of us slept four to a bed, others eight to a bed, covered by one single blanket, breathing into each other’s faces. On cold nights, boys sometimes pulled the blanket off the others, starting an argument. The commotion would wake up everyone in the dormitory, and the women would do their best to restore order.

Often, the boys cried out in their sleep, or they woke up from a nightmare. When that happened, the Turkish women…