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A voice from below said: "Listen to me"
"From now on this is no prison"
"This is a military school"
"This school will have rules"
"The military school has one goal"
"And that is making you Turks"
Aziz Karatas: After that they got a cord and fixed it to our genitals
In form of a chief in front and train behind
They got us into the corridor
In the corridor there were about 50 to 60 guardians
With truncheons and belts in their hands
I fell cause being chained to each other we all fell down
Nurettin Yilmaz (deputy): We had to kneel down
You will either drink this
This filth, this sewer water
Sorry, this dirt
Pieces of *** were in it
Either you drink it or I push your head in the "bath"
I could not drink it
Then all of a sudden my feet are pulled
And all of my head and face is in the dirt...
Tarik Ziya Ekinci: You will make sure that these kids learn the 3 texts by heart
I was not in a position to answer
I said, "Commander, this one cannot speak"
"The other one does not know Turkish"
He said, "Your problem, you'll teach them"
"In case of complaint, inform me"
"I shall give them the necessary lesson"
How could you complain
I had them learn the texts by heart
I told the kids at least to learn "I am a Turk, correct and diligent"
Let's see what happens
Because he did not know Turkish, could not read it was very difficult
Being constantly beaten, singing the national anthem
He reached a desperate stage and shouted at night
A midnight there were no soldiers
Had the soldiers been there he would not have shouted
He shouted in Kurdish
In Turkish it meant: There was a beast, what happened to it
Ralp-Raimond Braun: He explained Turkish history to me
With a soldier doing the interpretation
There were some boards and he said something about Turks
He talked about the State of the Sun
They came from Siberia, where mankind started
The Turks had the highest culture and everything came from them
This was one of the episodes
This sounded completely nuts to me
How can an educated man believe in this?
I had the feeling he believed in all this
All men in prison, everyone in the ward had to wear mono-type clothes
Blue training suits and sport shoes
The clothes were numbered
Everyone was shaven
The faces were turning yellow
One and half year we did not take a bath
After one and a half year they took us to the bath
It was cold as ice
In the cold of Diyarbakir they hosed us with pressurised water
Nuran Camli: "Eat this letter", he said
Meryem showed no reaction
They took the thing, the paper
Forced Meryem's mouth open
She did not open her mouth
She was a child of great resistance
A child, really a child
Two soldiers forced their fingers and the paper into her mouth
Her teeth seemed to be locked
They forced the paper into her mouth that looked swollen
She did not chew it
Esat got furious
"Chew it, swallow it", he said
"How can you write to your family, what is happening here?"
"You cut your hair, because you wanted to, didn't you, my girls?"
He was mocking with us
He wanted us to confirm what they had done to us
They could not convince her
She was subjected to rough beatings
I cannot forget that moment
Close it, close it
I was a tourist guide for Germans
The journey was in the South-East of Turkey
We went to Akdamar Island
I told the group something about Armenians
On the island is an Armenian church
I knew one had to be careful with Armenians, Kurds and subjects like that
Therefore I only told things about the Sultans such as Abdülhamit
After Atatürk, 1918 I would not say anything
But even that seems to have been too much
I went to the infirmary
A dentist dressed in white asked which of my teeth was aching
I showed it and he said "you don't know"
Your pain is not on the right, it's on the left
I insisted that this was my tooth aching
I received blows everywhere
and was told that my commander knew best about my pain
One of my teeth was aching
It may have been two, but presumably just one
They pulled out eight of my teeth
Eight teeth are gone
They pulled out eight teeth and... how do they say
Without any syringe or narcotic
They pulled out my teeth
Why do you pull out my teeth?
You are a physician, do not use narcotics, ok
We are in prison after all, you didn't have the opportunity
But why do you pull out eight teeth?
Nurettin Yilmaz (deputy):... and I was begging
My friends, please spit at me
Your spits don't bother me, please spit at me
Even if they died, they wouldn't spit at me
and then the same in Kurdish...
I said, "please spit at me"
But they didn't
There was a very long corridor
Often they dragged the prisoners over this corridor to the place for visits
I waited there with my back turned to them
A whistle was blown and I saw my family
For just a moment until the time for visit was over
Sometimes visits lasted for less than one minute
Of course, he had not seen me for many years
When I entered the cabin for visits he said to me in Kurdish
"Brother, how are you?" he said
During the time in prison I did not exchange one word with my mother
She came, looked and left again, because she did not know Turkish
I said "How are you?" and her tears ran down her cheeks
Over the cabins for visits it was written
"Speak Turkish, speak long"
The slogan had been invented and written there
It was forbidden to speak Kurdish
Haci Akyol (lawyer): Just like the families we talked to them
behind barbed wire
Mustafa Özer (lawyer): He did not have a chance to ask to go to the toilet
They were taken there at 9 in the morning and stayed until 6 or 7 in the evening
People sitting there for 8 or 10 hours
Believe me, sometimes the smell of urine was in the hall
Ahmet Türk (deputy): Sitting in custody I greeted someone silently
by moving my head like "how are you?"
On arrival they stripped me stark naked
They put me between 200 soldiers
Major Esat Oktay Yildiran took the truncheon
and started to beat me
When he got tired he called a soldier
Frankly speaking
he shouted "is there no one to go over him?"
A soldier came and continued beating
Adnan Özbingöl: I don't forget one day
We had been taken for outdoor exercises
They said, "undress"
We were stark naked
"Squat down", they said
Being on our fours, they put a cigarette between the buttocks
and set the cigarette on fire
Smoke came up
The old ones could not hold the cigarette
The cigarettes would fall on the ground
Then they complained to the commander about this
Selim Dindar (businessman): The whole things may not have lasted longer than two or three minutes
The flames went out
and we saw their heads together
Four people were lying there
We separated them and took them to the hall
Of course, I collapsed next the humans I knew
Their teeth were locked
breathing with a horrible noise
I bent forward and said "teacher"
I said something, they were taken their last breath
Of course, I said it in Kurdish
Earlier, when we had come together
I had been humming to them, singing in Kurdish
I had a nice voice at the time
Ferhat (Kutay) wanted me to sing the Kurdish love song Sevdaliye
The word sevdaliye means "my darling"
He said to me, "sing this song"
I had bended forward, close to his ear
Should I sing or not
I was forced to sing
I was singing and crying at the same time
He, of course, heard it
To stop me crying, to relieve my mind he smiled at me
Smiling at me the flesh fell from his cheeks