REMEMBRANCES ~ The Assassination of Talaat Pasha

As told to Vahan Minakhorian, Translated from Armenian and annotated by Bedo Demirdjian, Preface by Carla Garapedian

An epic story of gigantic proportions, this is an account of one of the great assassinations of the 20th century, the killing of Talaat Pasha, the architect of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The assassination took place in Berlin on 15 March 1921. Tehlirian was subsequently tried and found not guilty.

I could not close my eyes that night. As I dozed off, I would imagine horrible scenes, as if my mother was in the cave at the village of Sigounis. It was as if all our children were around the tonir, screaming in unison, as if my brother, his head crushed, lay dead in the garden ... and every time I came to my senses, I could see Talaat’s puffy, satisfied face in front of my eyes, an image I had seen for the first time in Van. I had visions of catching him, tying a noose around his neck, dragging him like a dog to the last of his slaughterhouses, and let him bleed in front of the dying victims .... From that day onwards, I began to be ill with periodic bouts of dizziness and fainting...

If I had had any hope that my relatives could survive the desert, even that hope was fading now. Only one thing remained for me to do: go to Constantinople and find Talaat...

Gomidas Institute (2022)