Saylakkaya (Cibin) is a village of Şanlıurfa, Halfeti. With the deportation decision in 1915, Armenians living in this village had to leave their homes and go to Aleppo. Some families considering the difficulties and dangers of the road entrust their daughters to their Muslim neighbors they trust. About thirty Armenian girls grow up in Jibin and marry Muslim men. None of these girls are alive right now, but some of their children and grandchildren still live in Cibin. Many people from Saylakkaya are have Armenian mothers or grandmothers and they express this explicitly.
Hakob Grigoryan is an Armenian of Jibin origin living in Armenia. He is 52 years old, married and has two children. Hakob Grigoryan speaks Turkish and takes wedding, baptism and birthday photos in his studio in Yerevan.
Hakob, who had a great interest in the past and specifically in Cibin because of his grandfather, went to Cibin in October 2018 to trace the past with the children and grandchildren of those “entrusted girls”. He talked to those who remembered his family and recorded these memories.
As we watched his story in Cibin and Armenia, we saw that the past sufferings did not prevent dialogue between the peoples.