Selected text
One day, my colonel said to me: “Lazar, look, there are a lot of boxes made of sheet iron here. The heavier rifles have their own boxes to cool down in, these are filled with water. These boxes deteriorate with time, crack and leak the water. Let’s return these to a useful state”. “With pleasure, sir, let me take 5 or 6, and examine them, and figure out a way to repair them. I will let you know of the results”, I said and took my leave. There was another tinsmith, a Jewish fellow countryman in the regiment named Moiz (I can’t remember his last name). Unfortunately he could not come to the workshop. I immediately found Moiz, showed him the material and said: “Look Moiz, there is a room full of these, we will disassemble them and rebuild them. What do you think? Can we do it?”. “Of course we can do it”. “How will we do it?”, I asked. “Really, we can only do this if we set up a workbench in our homes. You have a garden at your house, we will set up a counter there. We will melt these with a chemical solvent, procuce tin and bond them”, he replied. “Can it be done like this?” When Moiz said with certainty “Of course it can be done”, I went to the colonel and explained the situation. “Sir, here I have a friend named Moiz who is an expert on this subject, he said that we could only make these boxes in a workshop that we would set up in the garden of our house. What do you think?”
The colonel excused both of us. We took 6 of these boxes, and on our way back, bought the chemical solvent and the tin with our own money and arrived home. Of course the time it took for us to build the boxes was considered part of our military service. We set up our workbench rightaway, melted the boxes with the heat of the solvent, removed the dye, and tinned it to give the box its new shape. When we completed all of them, we went straight to our colonel: “Sir, what do you think? Are they done?”, I asked. “Of course, my dear Lazar, and they turned out very well, I congratulate you”. We could now do the rest. The colonel wrote, signed and stamped our permission slips with red ink (I don’t know why). We carried the material to my home with a truck. Of course, with the excitement of a 21-year old, we went in our civil clothes to meet our friends in Dereboyu to make plans for the weekend. A military policeman who was passing through there came and wanted to see our permission slip, I could not convince the orderly because it was written in red ink. I said to him
“Come, let me take you home so you can see the boxes etc.”. Finally he relented and said: “I will show this permission slip to my commander”. In this way they took me to the police station in Ortakoy, my friends followed me to the station. After that, they took me to the Military Police Station in Besiktas. I recounted the situation there once again: “Sir, my commander deemed it fit to write with this pen, can I tell him, “Sir, what are you doing? Write with a black pen?” Isn’t the important part the fact that this paper shows I have 15 days’ permission? I came to manufacture these boxes again”, and I tried to explain in detail the work that I do.
Just when I started thinking everything was going to be resolved, they started searching my clothes, a lot of pictures and letters came out of my pockets. They started examining everything one by one. The letter that my older brother Kemal had typed was among these. Of course they read all of it closely. In the letter he says: “Look my dear Lazar, now I tore a page out of the calendar, on the back is a beautiful saying from Ataturk that goes like this: “Struggle to work and to succeed, work hard”. O.K. then, what are we doing? We work very hard too, who do we work for?” The officer underlines this sentence from my brother with red pen and what do you know, he says “Whoever wrote this is a communist”. “For G-d’s sake, officer, why should it be a communist? What is it that puts you in doubt? My older brother only attributed to a sentence that Ataturk used. He says we work for our country too, he does not have any hidden agenda, you can be sure of that”, I said. The officer said: “No, this isn’t as easy as this. There is undoubtedly something behind these words. Put this person in jail”. They put me in jail for observation. As if this wasn’t enough punishment, whoever came by started beating me and cussing me. I was crying from the pain and in the meantime I am saying “My G-d, what was my sin that you treat me like this? I am working here and I am working for my country nevertheless” but they were blind with rage and didn’t even hear me. Finally I think I passed out, and I slept a little, in the morning before dawn (it was still 6 a.m.), they woke me up and said “Get up, you will sweep and clean the building thoroughly”. Of course I had to do it, I did not have a choice.
It was a Sabbath day and my family was waiting for me outside and they were crying. The next day they transferred me to Harbiye [The military barracks on the European side]. I had to stay in that jail with a lot of heavy moustached communists. We had to lie down on bunks next to each other, without mattresses. One more day passed, Monday came, in the meantime I had a heart-to-heart talk with a sensible person and he asked “What is your problem? Why are you here?”. I told him the situation. “Don’t worry, they absolutely cannot charge you, tell them what happened during the investigation as sincerely as you can. Don’t worry at all”, he said and made me feel better. My investigation started, after the usual questions, when they saw the letter from my colonel, the investigating officer said: “I cannot believe it, how can a colonel write like this?” I recounted what happend to the officer. Then it was my older brother’s letter’s turn. “Who wrote this? Where is he?” “My older brother wrote it, he is a transcriber in Ankara, in the Ministry of Defense. What he wrote to me about is a saying by our Ata. We also work for our country”, I said.
Unfortunately they held me for another 3,5 days and transferred me to Selimiye (on the Asian side) with gendarmes. From there they delivered me to the commander of the regiment in Alemdag exactly 15 days later. My commander said “You couldn’t find another person to retain?” and took charge of me and my permission slip. The colonel, when he saw me in this state, exhausted with unruly hair and beard, said “Look, my dear Lazar, we are soldiers, here everything I have (on my desk, in my closets) is out in the open, the brigadier general comes, sits at my desk, cannot find anything on it. You rip and throw away everything you read, what business do you have to keep it in your pockets? Look, a letter written two years ago caused so much grief for you. Come on, go to your division now, clean up well, cut your hair and shave. Afterwards I will give you 15 days’ permission”. After this event, I was always under suspicion. “This is a suspicious man, he should not be given weapons” they said, and took me to court. Whereas my offense was to put on civilian clothes on my off day and to carry my brother’s letter in my pocket. Even though it sounds easy talking about those days now, living through them was very difficult. I had a captain who I transcribed for, after this event, one day he came up to me and said: “My dear Lazar, I am removing you from this job”. Despite my saying “ But, captain, what are you afraid of?”, I was removed from that job. After a while, because my hand writing was neat and because I was very meticulous about the work I did, I became the battalion’s transcriber. In this way, I started overseeing all the business of the battalion. On a day when I was off, my commander let me out early in the morning so I could distribute the salaries of the soldiers in our battalion who were on duty here and there. When my major saw me going on a bus at 10 in the morning, he called the closest military police station and denounced me saying “the soldier named Lazar Abuaf is out in the streets, detain him immediately”.
The major had not investigated the situation properly, I had the written document from my commander in my hand and because I was unaware of all of this, I distributed the money to the soldiers with a complete peace of mind and came home around 2 p.m., having finished my work. I took my bath immediately, and chatted with my family and had a good time. The next morning I returned to my duties early, the guard at the door of the military police said (at the entrance door): “For G-d’s sake, don’t let the major see you”. “Why? What did I do?” “In reality, he saw you going on the bus at 10 in the morning and he has been raging ever since. He called everywhere to get you detained”.
I could have hidden in the warehouse, but I thought how long can I run away and I did not have a reason to run away. I had gone on this duty with the permission of my division’s commander. I went into the cafeteria to eat my lunch, of course the major was there and called me next to him and asked: “Lazar, come here right now. How dare you leave the division at 10 a.m.? Even I can only go out at 5 p.m., how can you get on a bus outside at this hour?” I explained the situation to him with all the tact I could. “Why am I not aware of this?” “I am very sorry, major, I did not think about it”, I said. He said to the sergeant next to me: “Look, you will tell the division commander that as of today, Lazar will only be able to leave at 5 p.m. for any outside duties and return the next day at 9 a.m.”. After that day, my commander was very meticulous about my off-duty hours and I finished my military service in peace after that.
The colonel excused both of us. We took 6 of these boxes, and on our way back, bought the chemical solvent and the tin with our own money and arrived home. Of course the time it took for us to build the boxes was considered part of our military service. We set up our workbench rightaway, melted the boxes with the heat of the solvent, removed the dye, and tinned it to give the box its new shape. When we completed all of them, we went straight to our colonel: “Sir, what do you think? Are they done?”, I asked. “Of course, my dear Lazar, and they turned out very well, I congratulate you”. We could now do the rest. The colonel wrote, signed and stamped our permission slips with red ink (I don’t know why). We carried the material to my home with a truck. Of course, with the excitement of a 21-year old, we went in our civil clothes to meet our friends in Dereboyu to make plans for the weekend. A military policeman who was passing through there came and wanted to see our permission slip, I could not convince the orderly because it was written in red ink. I said to him
“Come, let me take you home so you can see the boxes etc.”. Finally he relented and said: “I will show this permission slip to my commander”. In this way they took me to the police station in Ortakoy, my friends followed me to the station. After that, they took me to the Military Police Station in Besiktas. I recounted the situation there once again: “Sir, my commander deemed it fit to write with this pen, can I tell him, “Sir, what are you doing? Write with a black pen?” Isn’t the important part the fact that this paper shows I have 15 days’ permission? I came to manufacture these boxes again”, and I tried to explain in detail the work that I do.
Just when I started thinking everything was going to be resolved, they started searching my clothes, a lot of pictures and letters came out of my pockets. They started examining everything one by one. The letter that my older brother Kemal had typed was among these. Of course they read all of it closely. In the letter he says: “Look my dear Lazar, now I tore a page out of the calendar, on the back is a beautiful saying from Ataturk that goes like this: “Struggle to work and to succeed, work hard”. O.K. then, what are we doing? We work very hard too, who do we work for?” The officer underlines this sentence from my brother with red pen and what do you know, he says “Whoever wrote this is a communist”. “For G-d’s sake, officer, why should it be a communist? What is it that puts you in doubt? My older brother only attributed to a sentence that Ataturk used. He says we work for our country too, he does not have any hidden agenda, you can be sure of that”, I said. The officer said: “No, this isn’t as easy as this. There is undoubtedly something behind these words. Put this person in jail”. They put me in jail for observation. As if this wasn’t enough punishment, whoever came by started beating me and cussing me. I was crying from the pain and in the meantime I am saying “My G-d, what was my sin that you treat me like this? I am working here and I am working for my country nevertheless” but they were blind with rage and didn’t even hear me. Finally I think I passed out, and I slept a little, in the morning before dawn (it was still 6 a.m.), they woke me up and said “Get up, you will sweep and clean the building thoroughly”. Of course I had to do it, I did not have a choice.
It was a Sabbath day and my family was waiting for me outside and they were crying. The next day they transferred me to Harbiye [The military barracks on the European side]. I had to stay in that jail with a lot of heavy moustached communists. We had to lie down on bunks next to each other, without mattresses. One more day passed, Monday came, in the meantime I had a heart-to-heart talk with a sensible person and he asked “What is your problem? Why are you here?”. I told him the situation. “Don’t worry, they absolutely cannot charge you, tell them what happened during the investigation as sincerely as you can. Don’t worry at all”, he said and made me feel better. My investigation started, after the usual questions, when they saw the letter from my colonel, the investigating officer said: “I cannot believe it, how can a colonel write like this?” I recounted what happend to the officer. Then it was my older brother’s letter’s turn. “Who wrote this? Where is he?” “My older brother wrote it, he is a transcriber in Ankara, in the Ministry of Defense. What he wrote to me about is a saying by our Ata. We also work for our country”, I said.
Unfortunately they held me for another 3,5 days and transferred me to Selimiye (on the Asian side) with gendarmes. From there they delivered me to the commander of the regiment in Alemdag exactly 15 days later. My commander said “You couldn’t find another person to retain?” and took charge of me and my permission slip. The colonel, when he saw me in this state, exhausted with unruly hair and beard, said “Look, my dear Lazar, we are soldiers, here everything I have (on my desk, in my closets) is out in the open, the brigadier general comes, sits at my desk, cannot find anything on it. You rip and throw away everything you read, what business do you have to keep it in your pockets? Look, a letter written two years ago caused so much grief for you. Come on, go to your division now, clean up well, cut your hair and shave. Afterwards I will give you 15 days’ permission”. After this event, I was always under suspicion. “This is a suspicious man, he should not be given weapons” they said, and took me to court. Whereas my offense was to put on civilian clothes on my off day and to carry my brother’s letter in my pocket. Even though it sounds easy talking about those days now, living through them was very difficult. I had a captain who I transcribed for, after this event, one day he came up to me and said: “My dear Lazar, I am removing you from this job”. Despite my saying “ But, captain, what are you afraid of?”, I was removed from that job. After a while, because my hand writing was neat and because I was very meticulous about the work I did, I became the battalion’s transcriber. In this way, I started overseeing all the business of the battalion. On a day when I was off, my commander let me out early in the morning so I could distribute the salaries of the soldiers in our battalion who were on duty here and there. When my major saw me going on a bus at 10 in the morning, he called the closest military police station and denounced me saying “the soldier named Lazar Abuaf is out in the streets, detain him immediately”.
The major had not investigated the situation properly, I had the written document from my commander in my hand and because I was unaware of all of this, I distributed the money to the soldiers with a complete peace of mind and came home around 2 p.m., having finished my work. I took my bath immediately, and chatted with my family and had a good time. The next morning I returned to my duties early, the guard at the door of the military police said (at the entrance door): “For G-d’s sake, don’t let the major see you”. “Why? What did I do?” “In reality, he saw you going on the bus at 10 in the morning and he has been raging ever since. He called everywhere to get you detained”.
I could have hidden in the warehouse, but I thought how long can I run away and I did not have a reason to run away. I had gone on this duty with the permission of my division’s commander. I went into the cafeteria to eat my lunch, of course the major was there and called me next to him and asked: “Lazar, come here right now. How dare you leave the division at 10 a.m.? Even I can only go out at 5 p.m., how can you get on a bus outside at this hour?” I explained the situation to him with all the tact I could. “Why am I not aware of this?” “I am very sorry, major, I did not think about it”, I said. He said to the sergeant next to me: “Look, you will tell the division commander that as of today, Lazar will only be able to leave at 5 p.m. for any outside duties and return the next day at 9 a.m.”. After that day, my commander was very meticulous about my off-duty hours and I finished my military service in peace after that.
Period
Location
Çekmeköy/İstanbul
Türkiye
Interview
Lazar Abuaf