Harry Terhanian.com

Bereft persons are described as misfortunate and on fire (or having a shirt on fire). Wearing a shirt that is on fire is a picture of dire devastation and personal harm. The phrase kheljuh ou guhrag is used to express the condition of people who are completely helpless in their misfortune and utterly devastated. The story of my mother left as an orphan after the Turkish massacre of Armenians in her hometown of Malatia, Turkey is a good example of this proverb. Sometime in April, 1915 the government of the Ottoman Empire began the systematic massacre of their Armenian population and forced marches of survivors. My mother’s father was jailed along with many other Armenian men of Malatia. She remembers taking him lunch to the jail. After some days, he disappeared. The local police and Turkish army officers issued an order that all Armenians should leave their homes. They were to be transferred to Del el Zor, a town in the Syrian Desert about 1000 miles south of Malatia. Most of the able bodied men had disappeared. Actually they had been taken out of town and massacred by the regular Turkish army and left in mass graves. The remaining women, children, and elderly were forced to pack up whatever they could carry and get ready to leave. Imagine the panic and hopelessness of the women who were without the protection of their husbands and at the mercy of Turkish soldiers or irregular troops who were often criminals. The forced march was a nightmare of robbery, rape, kidnapping, sickness, hunger, thirst, brutality, and death. The women and children were constantly harassed by their guards and marauding Kurdish men. Somehow my mother survived the march to Del el Zor. On arriving, her mother died in her arms and she was left an orphan in the streets of the desert town. Her condition was kheljuh ou guhrak.