My grandpa's name was Gabriel. His parents -- Karmo and Birje -- were murdered. Grandpa had more than ten aunts and uncles. Only one survived the massacres. My grandma's name was Rakel. Her parents -- Yusuf and Manje -- were abducted before the genocide. Their further whereabouts are not known. They may have been killed. They may have starved to death. A hundred years have passed since the genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, when the Christian population was crushed. It sounds like an eternity. But in my Assyrian family, a hundred years equals no more than two generations. My grandma was two when her parents disappeared, my grandpa a little older. They grew up as orphans, a destiny they shared with lots of other children in the region today known as southeast Turkey. It has been estimated that more than one million Armenians and 300,000 Assyrians (also called Syriacs) and Chaldeans were killed. Most of them men. Many women were taken slaves, held for sexual purposes, or were forced in to marriage. Many were "adopted" by the perpetrators' families, or were looked after by their surviving older relatives. Anyone who has travelled across southeast Turkey will remember the red soil, the endless vineyards, the mountains that are home for a thousand year old churches, and villages where time seems to have been standing still. It is a place both dry and fertile, with a peculiar beauty. But then, a hundred years ago, the ground was drenched in blood. There are testimonies of corpses everywhere. Thrown in wells and latrines, floating in the rivers, lying along the roads. The cities were filled with dead bodies, as were the surroundings. Some villages were completely destroyed. In very few, the villagers were able to put up some resistance. This is the place where my grandparents grew up. The screams must have been unbearable to hear. And then, there was silence. There was a song written about grandma's father Yusuf, the handsome young man with his red moustache. He had been given the gift of beauty from God, I have been told. But the song? No, there are probably only one single relative left who might remember it. He lives in the small town of

Rakel Chukri is the editor for the section of culture, life and arts at Swedish daily Sydsvenskan in Malmo, Sweden. Translation to English: Andreas Ekstrom.