Germany, Turkey, and Armenia: A Selection of Documentary Evidence Relating to the Armenian Atrocities from German and other SourcesAnonymous
History
Germany, Turkey, and Armenia: A Selection of Documentary Evidence Relating to the Armenian Atrocities from German and other Sources
Anonymous
Armenian question; World War, 1914-1918 -- Armenia
The Armenian children in the German Orphanage at H. were sent
away with the rest. "My orders," said the Vali, "are to deport
all Armenians. I cannot make an exception of these." He announced,
however, that a Government Orphanage was to be established for any
children that remained, and shortly afterwards he called on Sister
DA. and asked her to come and visit it. Sister DA. went with him,
and found about 700 Armenian children in a good building. For every
twelve or fifteen children there was one Armenian nurse, and they
were well clothed and fed. "See what care the Government is taking
of the Armenians," the Vali said, and she returned home surprised
and pleased; but when she visited the Orphanage again several days
later, there were only thirteen of the 700 children left--the rest
had disappeared. They had been taken, she learnt, to a lake six hours'
journey by road from the town and drowned. Three hundred fresh children
were subsequently collected at the "Orphanage," and Sister DA. believed
that they suffered the same fate as their predecessors. These victims
were the residue of the Armenian children at H. The finest boys and
prettiest girls had been picked out and carried off by the Turks and
Kurds of the district, and it was the remainder, who had been left
on the Government's hands, that were disposed of in this way.
As soon as the Armenians had been deported from H., convoys of other
exiles began to pass through from the districts further north. Sister
DA. did not see these convoys, because they made a detour round the
town, and she never left the town precincts; but she talked with many
people who did see them, and they gave a terrible description of their
plight. The roads near the town, they said, were littered with the
corpses of those who had died of sickness or exhaustion, or from the
violence of their guards. And these accounts were confirmed by her
own experiences last April (1916), on her journey to Aleppo. On the
road to Aleppo from Ourfa she passed numbers of corpses lightly buried
under a layer of soil. The extremities of the limbs were protruding,
and had been gnawed by dogs. She was told by people she met that
unheard-of atrocities had been committed, and that there were cases
of women who had drowned themselves to escape their tormentors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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