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
Further on an old woman had stumbled, and slipped down into the
mud. The gendarme touched her two or three times with his whip,
but she did not stir; then he gave her several kicks with his foot;
still she did not move; then he kicked her harder, and she rolled
over into the ditch; I hope that she was already dead.
These people have now arrived in the town. They have had nothing
to eat for two days. The Turks forbade them to bring anything with
them from Zeitoun, except, in some cases, a few blankets, a donkey,
a mule, or a goat. But even these things they are selling here for
practically nothing--a goat for one medjidia (3s. 2d.), a mule for
half a lira (nine shillings). This is because the Turks steal them
on the road. One young woman who had only been a mother eight days,
had her donkey stolen the first night of the journey. What a way
of starting out! The German and Turkish officers made the Armenians
leave all their property behind, so that the mouhadjirs (refugees)
from Thrace might enter into possession. There are five families in
----'s house! The town and the surrounding villages (about 25,000
inhabitants) are entirely destroyed.
Between fifteen and sixteen thousand exiles have been sent towards
Aleppo, but they are going to be taken further. Perhaps into
Arabia? Can the real object be to starve them to death? Those who
have passed through our town were going to the Vilayet of Konia;
there too there are deserts.
--th May.
Letters have come which confirm my fears. It is not to Aleppo that the
Zeitounlis are being sent, but to Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, between Aleppo
and Babylonia. And those we saw the other day are going to Kara-Pounar,
between Konia and Eregli, in the most arid part of Asia Minor.
Certain ladies here have given blankets and shoes to some of the
poorest. The local Christians, too, have shown themselves wonderfully
self-sacrificing. But what can one do? It is a little drop of charity
in the ocean of their suffering.
--th May.
News has come from Konia. Ninety Armenians have been taken to
Kara-Pounar. The Zeitounlis have arrived at Konia. Their sufferings
have been increased by their having had to wait--some of them 8,
some 15, some 20 days--at Bozanti (the terminus of the Anatolian
Railway in the Taurus, 2,400 feet above sea level). This delay was
caused by the enormous masses of troops passing continually through
the Cilician Gates; it is the army of Syria which is being recalled
for the defence of the Dardanelles.
When the exiles reached Konia, they had eaten nothing, according to
our news, for three days. The Greeks and Armenians at once collected
money and food for their relief, but the Vali of Konia would not
allow anything of any kind to be given to the exiles. They therefore
remained another three days without food, at the end of which time
the Vali removed the prohibition and allowed food to be served out
to them under the supervision of the zaptiehs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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