Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
I travel through time, thinking of Eleni, desperately trying to conceptualize what sort of person she was, whether she was short or tall, beautiful or ordinary, chubby or slim, dark or blonde... Days pass by and I carry Eleni in my mind and in my heart, thinking of her tragic fate, trying to find clues to what might have happened and why... Throughout the history of Cyprus, there have always been intermarriages but Eleni had to pay a high price... Why? I continue to speak with people and try to find out who might remember her, trying to find out as much information as possible...
In Ahmet An's book, a researcher and writer, (Ahmet An: Kıbrıs'ın yetiştiği değerler 2. S, 188 - The valuable people raised by Cyprus), I find out that Eleni was the daughter of Chrisostomos Kumis, she had been born on the 1st of April in 1910 and her family was from Trikomo. From a friend who's from Famagusta, I find out that she had had a sister, Despinou who was also married to a Turkish Cypriot, just like Eleni – my friend from Famagusta remembers Despinou whose husband was Kemal – Mr. Kemal was the director of railways and held a very high position in those times... I find out that Eleni and Despinou had had another sister called Panayota, who lived in Varosha...
Eleni would fall in love with Mehmet Huseyin Djon (`Con` in Turkish) but his family would not approve so he would leave his home and start living together with Eleni... Later on he would go to London to work but would return and then make peace with his family, again living together with Eleni... Mehmet Con, together with his father Huseyin Remzi, would start producing the famous coffee of Turkish Cypriots called `Con`... Their shop would be in Nicosia, just next to Halkin Sesi newspaper whose owner was Dr. Fazil Kuchuk who would be the Vice-President of the Republic of Cyprus. In 1956 in October, together with Suheyla Kuchuk, the wife of Dr. Kuchuk, Eleni would go to the Cypriot Mufti, Mr. Dana, in order to change her religion from Orthodox Christian to Islam and her name from Eleni to Suzan. The Mufti would give an advertisement in Halkin Sesi, announcing that the daughter of Chrisostomos Kumis from Trikomo, Eleni, has changed her religion and her name... Eleni, now called Suzan would marry Mehmet Huseyin Con and they would live in the Koshkluchiftlik area of Nicosia... Close by would be the bakery of Kurtumbellis family...
In the `Con Coffee`, an Armenian called Agop would be director – he would speak Turkish with Turkish Cypriots and Greek with Greek Cypriots and both the British, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots would buy the `Con Coffee`... According to the researcher-writer Ahmet An, Agop would work there until 1960...
When the inter-communal fighting would begin at the end of December 1963, Eleni would start getting threats and Mehmet Con would take her to Neapolis to stay with his sister Meserret... But Neapolis would come under attack and all Turkish Cypriots living in Neapolis would leave and would go inside the walled city of Nicosia in order to take refuge... So Mehmet Con's sister with her family would also leave her house and they would come back to stay at his house in Koskluchiftlik...
During this period, that is in January 1964, one night Turkish Cypriot soldiers would come to their house, would knock on the door and ask for Eleni. They would say `We will take her to ask her some questions...` and despite her husband's protest they would take her and leave... Her husband, Mehmet Con would go searching for her next day and then the following day and then the following days... He would search desperately, going in different military camps, asking for information about Eleni... No one would say anything: Eleni, his dear wife would become a `missing person` since that night in January 1964... He would leave Cyprus to go to live in London... His nephew Metin Shadi would tell his story to me:
`He had such a broken heart, my uncle... He had been so disgruntled and so disappointed with Cyprus that he did not want to live here... He would live in London, thinking of his dear Eleni and what had happened to her... Years later, he would come back to Cyprus and continue to work and just before he would die in 1979, he split the `Con Coffee` between the children of his brothers... My uncle died with a broken heart because of what happened to his wife Eleni...`
I would write the tragic story of Eleni some years ago, not understanding why she had been killed since there had been many other Greek Cypriot women who had been married to Turkish Cypriots and nothing had happened to them... I would find advertisements in the newspapers of 1958, announcing that Greek Cypriot women have accepted Islam and changed their names – Spiridona, the daughter of Costas Panay' from Omorphita would become Ismet on the 27th of August 1957, Polixeni, the daughter of Ioanni would become Emine in June 58, Anna Andreou from Famagusta would become Ayshe Ibrahim and many others like that... So why Eleni would become `missing` among all those who had no such tragic fate?
The answer would appear to come a few weeks ago when I would meet a Turkish Cypriot reader...
He would tell me that after taking Eleni from her house, they had taken her to the bakery, close to her house and he had heard that they had killed her in the bakery... Was she buried somewhere there or taken elsewhere?
My reader says, `There had been rumours that she had been killed in the bakery. Was she buried somewhere around the bakery or was her body taken elsewhere? That's for you to investigate... All we heard was that she had been taken to the bakery...`
I would discover that this would be the same bakery of the Kurtumbellis family where three Greek Cypriots had been killed in December 1963... Back in 2007, with the help of my friend Nouritsa Nadjarian, I had met the daughter of Kurtumbellis, Kriti who had told me the story of the bakery...
Charalambos Kurtumbellis had died in 1959 and his wife Evrou would continue to run the bakery in Koskluchiftlik in Nicosia... On the 23rd of December 1963, armed Turkish Cypriot thugs would attack the bakery, killing the mother of Evrou, an old woman from Paphos, from the village Inya... Evrou's mother Katerina had come from Paphos to Nicosia because of Christmas to see her daughter and help her in the bakery... They would also kill two workers in the bakery, Andreas and Charalambos... This would be the time when Armenians and Greek Cypriots living in this area of Nicosia would be pushed to leave... Those would be days of the partition of Nicosia, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots would be pushed to leave the joint neighbourhoods so that the gradual separation of the two main communities of the island would be furthered... This process that already started in 1956 would continue dramatically in 1963-64 and would be completed in 1974, wiping out any mixed life on the island...
Through enquiries, I realize that Mehmet and Eleni-Suzan Con's house had been just round the corner from the bakery... I start calling the nieces of Mehmet Con, asking what they had heard about Eleni...
One of the relatives of Mehmet Con explains to me her theory of why Eleni had been killed:
`This is just an assumption but I sense that she must have witnessed the murders at the bakery... She must have seen what had happened... That's why she was being threatened and finally killed` she says...
This seems logical since other Greek Cypriot women married to Turkish Cypriots had no such fate in 1963 as Eleni did... If she saw who had killed Katerina, Andreas and Charalambos, she had become a living `threat` to the killers... So she had to be silenced...
What about a photograph of Eleni?
All the nieces and nephews of Mehmet Con say they don't have any pictures...
I even call Suheyla Kuchuk, the wife of Dr. Kuchuk... She had known Eleni well...
`She was a kind woman and got along well with her neighbours` she says, `but I don't have any pictures of her...`
Not even a single photograph of Eleni has remained... And no one is actively searching for her...
I will continue to try to find out where she might have been buried even though no one might claim her remains even if we find them...
Eleni-Suzan had no children... Her sister Despinou, married to Kemal also did not have children... Perhaps I can find some Greek Cypriot relatives of her who might at least have a photo of her...
But with or without a photograph, her story has been engraved in my heart and will remain with me forever...
25.2.2012
(*) Published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 4th of March 2012…
And the story continues:
http://sevgululudag.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-story-of-eleni-continues.html
http://sevgululudag.blogspot.com/2016/06/blog-post.html
Photo: Despinou on the right, Eleni on the left…
No comments:
Post a Comment