My father was born in the 1930s, in a place that once seemed to me like the edge of the world, and yet it was deeply entangled in the forces that shaped the twentieth century. His life began not in stillness, but in the aftermath of upheaval. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire did not simply redraw borders; it fractured lives and scattered communities. His own father fled after the destruction of his tribe and died soon after, worn down by loss. My father was two years old. What remained was not continuity, but fragmentation, a quiet disintegration in which families lost one another as if language itself had failed.
His story cannot be separated from the history that surrounds it. It carries the memory of a people repeatedly pushed outward, until marginality became a condition of existence. Survival required restraint, silence, and the ability to endure without recognition. And yet, beneath this endurance, something essential persisted: a sense of dignity that could not easily be taken away. Homeland, in this context, ceased to be a stable place. It became an uncertain promise, always vulnerable, always at risk.
He grew up in a world where violence was not exceptional, but always possible. The village seemed to exist under a constant, unspoken tension. Fear was not discussed; it was simply present, absorbed into everyday life. Childhood did not offer protection, but rather an early initiation into necessity. At the age of ten, he began to work, not out of duty, but because there was no alternative. A sick mother, a blind stepfather, a younger brother: these were not circumstances to be reflected upon, but realities to be carried. Responsibility was not an abstract idea, but a physical burden.
Gelhok, our village, could appear almost idyllic from a distance. Its earth-colored houses rested on a green hill, surrounded by fields of lentils and wheat, by wildflowers and slow-moving water. As a child, I experienced this landscape as something close to beauty. For the adults, it was a space of endurance rather than belonging. Openness and confinement existed side by side, closely intertwined, shaping a life that was both expansive and restricted at once.
Daily life was defined by labor and repetition. There was no electricity, no paved infrastructure, and little to separate one day from the next except the degree of exhaustion. Evenings brought quiet rather than rest. Conversations unfolded sparingly, often interrupted by fatigue. Beneath this routine, there was a constant awareness of vulnerability. As Yazidis, they lived with the knowledge that difference alone could place them at risk.
My father developed a way of holding things together. Order, for him, was not a matter of preference, but of necessity. His strictness did not emerge from distance, but from the fear that without structure, everything might collapse. He carried responsibility without possessing the language to express his inner life. The strength he embodied had no visible softness, perhaps because softness had never been available to him. His connection to his mother and his faith offered him a form of grounding, yet there was a persistent sadness in him, something that resisted articulation. The past did not recede; it remained active within him, shaping his presence in ways that were often silent.
My mother, by contrast, moved through the same environment with a different kind of awareness. Her ability to read and write set her apart, and others sought her out when they needed clarity or guidance. She lived within the same limitations, yet she was not defined by them. There was a quiet autonomy in her actions, a refusal to be fully contained by circumstance.
The relationship between my parents did not follow a familiar narrative of love. It emerged gradually, shaped by shared responsibilities and by the recognition that survival depended on cooperation. What developed between them was not expressive or demonstrative, but steady and reliable, rooted less in emotion than in mutual endurance.
Yet the past remained ever present. Family stories returned repeatedly, not as distant history, but as something unresolved. The name Ibrahim Pasha Milli carried particular weight. My father’s tribe, including my grandfather, had aligned themselves with him in resistance against the Ottoman Empire, driven by a desire to alter their conditions. That moment of defiance, however, did not lead to liberation. It resulted in loss.
Land was taken. Families were separated. Lives were cut short. What followed was not closure, but a lingering absence that extended across generations. This history persisted in gestures, in silences, in the spaces between words. My father carried it as something inseparable from himself.
The violence of the past remained present in subtle ways. It appeared in cautious decisions, in hesitation, in the awareness that safety was never guaranteed. When these memories were spoken of, the atmosphere shifted, as if the weight of what had happened could still be felt. My father spoke about persecution, about the fragility of coexistence, and about the complexity of belonging. He often insisted that people were connected, that they belonged together despite divisions, yet he was deeply affected by conflict within his own cultural and linguistic community.
Alongside these memories, there were other forms of storytelling. In the evenings, by the fire, narratives of light, of angels, and of sacred rhythms offered a different perspective. The sun was understood as something more than a physical presence, and the earth itself was imagined as living, resting, and renewing. These stories did not erase fear, but they provided another way of relating to the world, one that suggested continuity beyond suffering.
The decision of my mother to leave for Germany marked a turning point. She went alone, entering a world that was unfamiliar in every sense. For my father, agreeing to this step required a form of courage that was not easily expressed. His consent came with consequences, and the physical act of punishment that followed reflected the tension between individual decision and collective expectation.
When he eventually followed her, we remained behind, children separated from our parents and from any clear sense of continuity. My own memory begins to shift at this point, becoming less structured, more immediate. I remember the moment of departure not as a sequence of events, but as an image: their figures moving away, gradually dissolving into distance. I remember running, calling out, attempting to hold on to something that could not be held. They did not turn back, and their disappearance marked a rupture that was difficult to understand at the time.
Only later did it become possible to interpret that moment differently. Their departure was not an act of abandonment, but an attempt to create a future. It was shaped by the intention to return, to rebuild, to bring us into a different life. For them, it represented hope. For me, it remained a loss.
In Germany, their lives were defined by work and persistence. They built something new under conditions that demanded constant effort. My father continued to carry responsibility, but he also introduced a different possibility for us. He insisted on education, not as an abstract value, but as a means of preserving dignity and creating autonomy. His encouragement to read, to learn, and to think marked a shift that extended beyond his own experience.
His pride was expressed quietly, without emphasis. It was visible in the way he spoke about us, as if our development confirmed that the past did not determine everything that followed. There was a sense, in his attitude, that transformation was possible, even if it required endurance.
Now, as a father myself, I see how these dynamics continue. My children relate to him not only as a grandparent, but as a figure of origin, a source of stability that they carry within themselves. The idea of homeland, in this sense, becomes less about geography and more about presence, about what is transmitted across generations.
The broader history behind his life reflects experiences that extend beyond a single community. Loss, displacement, and silence are not isolated phenomena. Trauma does not exist only in memory; it continues through what is not spoken, through patterns that persist without explicit acknowledgment.
In my own professional work, I have encountered many such stories. Again and again, I recognize elements of my father in them: a form of endurance that resists articulation, a capacity to continue despite fragmentation, and a quiet intensity that does not seek attention.
The image that remains with me is not one of dramatic expression, but of a subtle, persistent presence. There was a quality in him that could be described as a kind of inner light, not something that demanded recognition, but something that endured.
This presence shaped his life, and it continues to shape what follows.
When he died, his passing was almost imperceptible, as if the tension that had defined much of his life had gradually released. What remained was the sense of a life marked by difficulty, but also by continuity, by a form of commitment that did not depend on recognition.
He was not someone who spoke in grand terms, yet his way of remaining, of not withdrawing despite everything, can be understood as a form of love that does not require declaration.
What he leaves behind is not limited to memory. It exists in the ways we act, in how we understand ourselves, and in how we relate to others. It is present in our children, in our decisions, and in the quiet persistence of certain values.
To live with this legacy is not to repeat it, but to carry it forward in a transformed way. It involves acknowledging its fractures while also recognizing its strength.
If there is a space beyond this life, it is possible to imagine him there, no longer defined by the weight he carried, but in a state of release, connected perhaps to the same quiet force that accompanied him throughout his life.
Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan is a psychologist, author and publisher, an expert in psychotraumatology, trauma, terror and war, transcultural psychiatry, psychotherapy and migration.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.