Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Leyla Kiralp, who has been living in the house of Mr. Akis has found out that he passed away in April this year, with a longing in his heart for his house… Leyla, whose husband had been killed in the massacre of Tochni in 1974 by EOKA-B, has been a refugee from Zygi where they had set up their house in Zygi… Leyla is originally from Mari… She has been living in the house of Mr. Akis in Famagusta, after coming to the northern part as a refugee…
I asked her to write her feelings about this… Here is what Leyla Kiralp wrote:
"The people of Cyprus has gone through so many traumas over half a century… Amongst those traumas was becoming refugees, those taken from the roads or from their houses and made to "disappear", those still "missing", those who had been raped and those who were made to leave their homes and not being able to go back to their homes…
Each one of them has different traumas connected with it…
And the negative impact of these traumas still continue…
Unfortunately there are some circles who celebrate these traumas as a "victory"… Even though "looting" for them might be accepted as a "victory", for some the result is tears, pain and psychological problems…
After the war in 1974, I could only cross to the northern part of our island in May 1975. And I got settled in the house I live in till now in August 1975. It is at Kato Varosha, Agia Paraskevi ("the 9th of March Avenue") number 34/A.
The house was brand new but was empty. There was no furniture that belonged to this house. But those who had seen it previously with its furniture were saying that "Some very rich people used to live here…"
It took me a very long time to settle and get used to living in this house. This house that had been allocated to me by the "Settlement" authorities had been OCCUPIED by a person who would become an MP and a minister years later. In those days if someone OCCUPIED a house that had been allocated to another person was called an "OCCUPIER". And the late Shemmedi who worked as a civil servant for the "Settlement" authorities would come with a policeman and would throw out the occupier away from the house and would settle the person who had the document that he or she had been allocated that house. In those days being an OCCUPIER was a crime. The occupier would be thrown out of the house he or she occupied very quickly. Nowadays why are some people reacting against the word OCCUPATION? An occupation is taking a place unlawfully, that does not belong to you. So what is there to get mad or angry at this? If you are doing something unlawfully, you would have to pay for it eventually…
In those days the looters were the talk of the town… Shiploads of Greek Cypriot goods were being carried to Turkey… Yachts, cars, gold, money, furniture… The locals too were looting… Some of them were looting in order to be able to survive, some of them were looting in order to become rich… And this "culture of looting" still continues today…
The house where I settled in August 1975 was a new and beautiful house. My house in Zygi that I left was also beautiful and brand new. I lived in my house in Zygi for less than a year – I had been newly married when war broke out in 1974 and my husband was taken from our house in Zygi and then he disappeared on a bus together with those from Tochni. He would go "missing" and we would have to leave Zygi and become refugees on our own land… We would be settled in Famagusta in this new house…
It would be very difficult for me to get used to this house and to live in this house in Kato Varosha. The house is beautiful. But its beauty would not be enough to help me recover from the traumas of the war… On the contrary, this beauty would make me more unhappy and more depressed and hopeless…
The house was "alien", the town was "alien", the people were "alien". And the culture was "alien" too: The "culture" of "looting"…
I would feel in every room, at every corner the sigh of the owners of this house that I did not know. Who were the owners of this house? Were they alive? Or did they too become victims of a massacre and turned into "missing persons" like it happened to my husband? I wished to find a piece of furniture or a document that belonged to them…
The person who had occupied this house before me and later who would become an MP and even a minister was a citizen of Turkey – as he was being kicked out the house he occupied by late Shemmedi from the "Settlement" department, he had turned to me and said:
"In Zygi, you had no house! You were living under the carob trees!"
I had a house in Zygi and I had a business there. And today our place became one of the most famous fish restaurants in Zygi: The place of Koumparis fish restaurant had belonged to my husband…
The person who occupied the house I was being settled in, in Kato Varosha, what did you have in Turkey that you wanted this house in return?
I was really curious about the owners of this house where I was settled in Kato Varosha. I got married again in 1981. In 1986 our son Shevki Kiralp was born. Until now he grew up in this house and continues to live in this house. His childhood, his school, his games, his friends are all in that house. Whatever my house in the village means to me, this house means the same for my son…
But he learned from a very early age as a child that this house is not our house and that the real owners of this house are Greek Cypriots.
When the checkpoints opened on the 23rd of April 2003, for days we waited for the owners of the house to come and visit. Each time there was a knock on the door, we would be excited.
First their daughters Ioanna and Dina would come. They would come inside the house very graciously… In a shy way they would go to the bedrooms. They looked around and started crying… We embraced each other and cried together. As we were having coffee in the living room, they would call their father:
"The house is in very good condition, just as we left it. And the people living here are very good people" they said.
Then came Mrs. Lenia and Mr. Akis. We embraced each other and we cried together.
Mr. Akis would sit in the living room. He would not go around the house. His wife Lenia would go around the house with tears and longing… She wanted to embrace her memories, but her arms would embrace the emptiness!
Humbly, Mr. Akis would say, "The construction of this house had finished in 1974. We could only live here 6-7 months. The adjacent house is also ours. We lived in that house for 13 years…"
I gave the keys to the house to Mrs. Lenia.
"This house is yours. If you want to live here, here are the keys, we can immediately leave this house" I said to her. And she said to me:
"How about Denktash?"
Until now we continue our relationship with Lenia. We call each other on special days and ask how we are doing. She had participated at my first book launch and she would take the microphone and speak.
We did not have a chance to see Mr. Akis too much because he was a very hard working and very busy person.
Mr. Akis in whose house we have been living for the past 44 years was a good businessman, a good family man. He was from Varosha but after 1974 he was settled in Limassol. He had enormous knowledge about the shipping sector that he served for more than 60 years. He had been the president of the Cyprus Maritime Companies Union, Famagusta Lions Club president, he was a member of the Famagusta Nautical Club, he was a member of Industrialists and Employers Federation, as well as a member of the Famagusta Trade and Commerce Chamber… He was also a member of Cyprus-UK and Cyprus-China trade relations chambers, as well as a member of Cyprus Travel Organisation.
Mr. Akis was the uncle of our dear friend Charoulla Marcou and unfortunately, he passed away on the 17th of April 2018.
We were very sad as a family to learn about his death. We called his wife Lenia and his daughters Ioanna and Tina to share our condolences. I could not speak. I was so emotional. The words would be locked up in my throat. Only a whisper would come out of me: "Another Cypriot said goodbye with longing to his house, to his place in his heart…"
Goodbye Mr. Akis! May you rest in peace! You lived in your house for seven months and we are living in your house for the past 44 years. But you know quite well that it was not our choice to live in your house.
Dear Lenia, Ioanna, Tina and our dear friend Charoulla! My husband Mustafa, my son Shevki and myself wish you patience, knowing what sort of big pain and big emptiness the death of Mr. Akis has created – we share your sadness and we send you our love…"
(LEYLA KIRALP – 19.7.2018)
Photo: Mr. Akis…
(*) This article was published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of August 2018, Sunday. The same article was published in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper in Turkish on the 23rd of July 2018 and here is the link:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/bay-akis-12703yy.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment