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First Deportation

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First Deportation

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THE FIRST DEPORTATION:

The German Railway, the American Hospital,

and the Armenian Genocide

Zeytun in springtime looking west against the backdrop of the barren peaks of the Taurus Range. The photograph taken from the southwestern heights show the vineyards in the foreground and a small grove
of trees behind the town, with a pathway on the right leading down toward Zeytun and another trail on the left in the background winding to higher elevations.

Nestled in the highest reaches of the Taurus Mountains that ring the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea, in 1915 a group of Armenians still lived in the last remaining fragment
of a medieval Armenian kingdom. In their inaccessible enclave, this holdout from a remote past dating to the time of the Crusades, Armenians of the town called Zeytun proudly retained
their sense of independence. All around them, and all across the historic provinces of Armenia, Armenians had submitted to Islamic rule. Zeytun singularly held out. Even its autonomy
was recognized by the Ottoman Turkish sultans who in the early 1500s extended their empire into the region known as Cilicia.
As a method for securing their dominion, Islamic rulers typically required the disarming of Christians. Because they were never obligated to submit to this requirement, the Armenians
of Zeytun faced constant pressure. Periodically assaulted by neighboring Muslim groups, again and again they demonstrated a capacity to defend themselves against all attempts to subdue
their tiny alpine principality and retained their rights to local self-rule. In the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire embarked upon policies of direct administration, bureaucratic control,
and suppression of minorities. However, unlike Armenians elsewhere across the Ottoman state who increasingly faced persecution and massacres during the autocratic rule of the Sultan
Abdul-Hamid II (1876-1909), the Armenians of Zeytun maintained their city and held off the forces sent to suppress their way of life.
When the Young Turk radicals, under the leadership of Enver, Talaat, and Jemal, established dictatorial rule in 1913, they embarked upon a transformation of Ottoman society by
promoting Turkism, a form of nationalism with the core principle of “Turkey for the Turks” that sought to reduce and exclude the role of Christian populations in the Ottoman Empire.
Among the plans they devised was also the eradication of the Armenian population. As they went about organizing their scheme, one of the questions on the minds of the Young Turk
leaders was the reaction of this most resistant group. In peacetime the Armenians of Zeytun had been prepared to defy the Ottoman government’s lawless conduct if it meant preventing
massacre and to combat their assailants in order to defend life and liberty. By the second decade of the 20th century, 19th-century-style heroics were long behind them, and the configuration
of forces that preserved a precarious societal balance in the mountain range had substantially altered.
In alliance with Germany, by entering in October 1914 the war then being waged on the European continent, the Young Turk regime effectively expanded the war into a global conflict.
Even in their remote fastness Zeytun Armenians were in full grasp of the state of anxiety created by the scale of the First World War. Appreciating the risks they faced, they sought to
defuse tensions by cooperating with the government, unaware that the Young Turk dictatorship was already seeking occasion to proceed with the implementation of their plans to deport
and eradicate the Armenians from their homeland. In contrast, Young Turk officials escalated their provocations through house searches, the abuse of women, arbitrary arrests, false
accusations, and harsh imprisonments.
With wounded pride, the divided community resisted providing Turkish officials a pretext for attacking its population. As the oppression of the regional authorities increased, the
central government’s decision to disarm the Armenian conscripts in the Ottoman army especially alarmed the inhabitants of Zeytun, who were more alert to the implications of this new
policy than the Armenian population at large.
With their hometown surrounded by an armed Muslim population consisting of Turks and Kurds pressing upon the Armenian enclave, and now especially distrustful of the Young
Turk government which had opted for war, dozens of Zeytun recruits deserted their units and sought shelter around their hometown. When they gathered in a monastery further above the
town, the Young Turk regime seized the moment to declare Armenians in a state of rebellion and began a region-wide systematic deportation.
The April 1915 deportation of the Armenians of Zeytun marked a watershed moment in the unfolding of the Armenian Genocide. The town of Zeytun was emptied of its Armenian
population in a matter of days. To Armenians, who as Christians were assigned second-class citizenship, and inferiority as infidels in the eyes of Muslims, Zeytun had remained a symbol
of the alternative to foreign domination. Its submission after centuries of stubborn resistance sent ripples across the Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire. To the Young Turks,
the elimination of Zeytun insured their supremacy and signaled that the Armenian population would succumb to their broader policy of removal, dispossession, and extermination.

The exhibit THE FIRST DEPORTATION: THE GERMAN RAILWAY, THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL, AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE is a project of the Armenian National Institute, Armenian Genocide Museum of America, and Armenian Assembly of America.
Concept research and presentation: Rouben Paul Adalian; Exhibit design and project associate: Joseph Piatt; Exhibit graphics: Aline Maksoudian; Project consultant: Aram Arkun
Dedication: In remembrance of Charles N. Mahjoubian (1907 Konya – 2004 Philadelphia) and in memory of Boghos Der Boghossian (1887-1952), an Apostolic Institute graduate. © 2014, Armenian Assembly of America
1 / 24
ONCE AN ARMENIAN KINGDOM
The deportation of the Armenians of Zeytun began on April 8, 1915. The
evacuation of the town and nearby Armenian-inhabited villages was largely
completed by the end of May 1915. Twenty-two thousand Armenians were
on the road of exile, starvation and slaughter. More than ninety percent
perished. After all the killing ended, less than a thousand remained alive.
Before the empire-wide arrests and deportations began on April 24,
1915, and thereby informed the rest of the world that the Ottoman state
had embarked upon an internal campaign of annihilation against its civilian
Armenian population, the initial phases of the Armenian Genocide had
already been implemented and completed.
The fate of Zeytun might have gone unnoticed but for the decision of the
deportation authorities to divide the community and exile the mountaineers
into two opposite directions. While one part was sent east toward the
Syrian Desert, where hundreds of thousands of Armenians were to follow in
succeeding months, another part was marched west to the Plain of Konya, in
central Anatolia, an equally flat and barren region.
The city of Konya was located on the Berlin-Bagdad rail line. Under
German management, the railroad constituted the main transport route between
Anatolia and Syria. As the rail line was still under construction through the
Taurus Range, hundreds of German, and Swiss, engineers, and other civilian
and military officials, witnessed the deportation of the Armenians. With
the removal of the Armenians of western Anatolia starting in July of 1915,
many of whom were first shipped by train, Konya station transformed into a
massive concentration camp. The few thousand Armenians of Zeytun were
soon joined by tens of thousands dispersed across the entire length of the rail
line from Konya to Bozanti, where the line ended. From there the deportees
were marched on foot through the mountain passes to head east toward Syria.
When the authorities decided to evacuate the camps along the Konya line,
the remaining Zeytun Armenians were swept with them to be marched again
back across the Taurus mountain passes.
German witnesses reported and documented the mistreatment of the Armenians. While the German military authorities focused their attention on the construction of the rail line
and operations on the military fronts, the scale of the atrocities made the persecution
and destruction of the Armenian population unavoidable and many German civilians
registered their indignation. Many of the stations along the unfinished stretches of the
line were constructed by Armenian slave labor.
Even more compelling evidence was gathered by the American medical personnel
who manned a hospital in Konya. One of them, Dr. Wilfred Post, took the risk of
photographing the condition of the deportees. His compelling images constitute one of
the rare sets of photographs taken in the course of the deportations and attest to the state
of misery to which the deportees were reduced before ever reaching their purported
destinations. He testified in words and pictures to the exhaustion, exposure, starvation,
epidemics, and the brutal treatment by Turkish state and local officials that exacted a
rapidly rising death toll among the deportees.
An American-funded school called the Apostolic Institute headed by Dr. Armenag
Haigazian, a Yale alumnus, was also located in Konya. As with all American and
Armenian educational institutions across Asia Minor, the Apostolic Institute was shut
down by authorities in 1915. Miss Emma Cushman from the American Hospital, who
remained in Konya throughout the war years, transformed the school into an orphanage
whose charges were photographed in December 1919. She was joined by American relief
workers who rescued the children. They were unable, though, to save Dr. Haigazian.
He survived deportation only to be killed in 1921 by Nationalist Turks, who assumed
power in Anatolia upon the flight of the Young Turk triumvirs to Germany at the end
of the war.

World War I ended in November 1918. The Armenian Genocide continued.

City of Zeytun highlighted

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia

In a wartime atmosphere inflamed by the proclamation of jihad by the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic declaration of religious warfare against non-
Muslims, the leader of the Armenian Christians of the region of Cilicia, the Catholicos Sahag II Khabayan (1849-1939; pontiff 1902-1939), feared that the
Young Turk authorities were only seeking an opportunity to repress the entire Armenian population. From his seat in the town of Sis, the former capital of
the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, he continuously implored the inhabitants of Zeytun to deny Ottoman officials any excuse to ignite mass reprisals. Only
six years earlier a general massacre of Armenians in Cilicia had resulted in nearly 30,000 casualties. The Catholicos hoped to avoid a repetition at all costs,
unaware that the new policy of the Ottoman government called for the wholesale deportation of all Armenians. Trusting the assurances of Jemal Pasha,
governor-general of Syria, and a member of the Young Turk triumvirate, the pontiff’s interventions even persuaded some deserters to hand themselves over
to the authorities in order to spare the inhabitants of the town from impending disaster. He had been told by fellow Armenians that lower rank officials
were less reassuring, some having been told by Young Turk extremists, as he reported: “The goal is your destruction and extinction.” Upon meeting Jemal
privately, according to the Catholicos, Jemal informed him that “During the deliberation over this matter in the council of ministers, I tried very hard to
argue that instead of deporting and exiling the entire Armenian population, only the writers, intellectuals, and Armenian political party leaders—say fifteen
or twenty people from each town—should be exiled. I felt that the helpless common people should be spared, but I am sorry to say that I was not able to
make my voice heard.” Catholicos Sahag II Khabayan

“My hometown, the city of Zeitoun, is 3,500 feet above sea level. Mountainous and surrounded by beautiful scenery, it belongs to the province of Aleppo. It was inhabited solely by 26,000 Armenians. It was built upon
rocky hills. The river Shughur flowed from the northeast. This river was formed from the seven cold streams that sprang from the mountains named “Seven Brothers.” The “Dry Stream” flowed from the southeast mountain
of Berzinga. It was overflowing in the spring and bone dry in the summer. The city of Zeitoun lay between the Shughur River and Dry Stream.” - Khoren K. Davidson, Odyssey of an Armenian of Zeitoun

“The scenery between Marash and Zeytun is of the ‘terribly’ impressive order in winter, the ground bare, the
trees leafless, and the mountains shining with frosted snow; stunted oak, swart dwarfish pines and an occasional noble
cedar form the whole desolate vegetation. This extends over immense vistas of rocky mountain land, and although not
beautiful has an effect which pleases more than one would expect.” - Sir Mark Sykes

“The inhabitants [of the city of Zeytun], some eight thousand in number, deserve mention on account of their courage, in which they happily differ from the rest of their [Armenian] brethren.” - Sir Mark Sykes

Zeytun in wintertime with the mountain slopes and rooftops covered with snow. Wedged upon a promontory at the fork of two rivers, the site of Zeytun formed a natural fortress separated from the surrounding
country by deep ravines. The steep slope upon which the town was built was further endowed with massive rock formations with sheer cliff sides upon which fortifications had been constructed centuries earlier.
Nowhere else across all of Ottoman Turkey was there another defensible location of the like exclusively inhabited by Armenians.

“The whole area is very rough

and rocky, but there are wonderful
views…Near Zeytun itself, three
narrow mountain valleys run together.
The entire character of the area is
uncommonly desolate and wild. You
understand automatically from the
sight of these dark mountains that a
people living here must be hard to
tame, war-like and much attached to
their freedom…The cottages are stuck
onto the steep mountain slopes like
swallow’s nests; the very narrow alleys
passing between them are so steep
that it requires an effort just to climb
them on foot.” - Eberhard Count
Wolffskeel Von Reichchenberg,
April 17, 1915

Wolffskeel was the German

officer assigned as chief of staff to
Fakhri Pasha, second in command
to Ahmed Jemal Pasha, Young Turk
triumvir with Enver and Talaat, and
Commander of the Ottoman Fourth
Army based in Syria and Palestine

“At the beginning of the war General Fakhri Pasha removed the company of soldiers stationed
at Zeytun against the advice from the Vali [governor of the province] of Aleppo, Jelal Bey, and
replaced them with Islamic gendarmes from Marash, who were partly personal enemies of the
inhabitants of Zeytun. The latter were handed over to them; Zeytun is an exclusively Christian
town. Several times men were mistreated and women molested while both the captain of the
gendarmerie and the Kaymakam [district governor] tolerated and even favored such abuses.”
- Walter Rössler, German Consul in Aleppo to the Foreign Office in Berlin, April 12, 1915

“Contrary to the old-established custom, a levy was made at Zeytun at the time of the August
[1914] mobilization, and they did not offer the slightest resistance. Nonetheless, the Government
has played them false. In October, 1914, their leader, Nazaret Tchaoush, came to Marash with a
“safe conduct” to arrange some special points with the officials. In spite of the “safe conduct” they
imprisoned him, tortured him, and put him to death. Still the people of Zeytun remained quiet.
Bands of zaptiehs (Turkish gendarmes), quartered in the town, have been molesting the inhabitants,
raiding shops, stealing, maltreating the people and dishonoring their women. It is obvious that the
Government is trying to get a case against the Zeytunlis, so as to be able to exterminate them at
their pleasure and yet justify themselves in the eyes of the world.”
- March 14, 1915, Exiles from Zeytun, from the diary of a foreign resident, M. Pierre Briquet
on the staff of St. Paul’s Institute, in the town of Tarsus on the Cilician Plain

“Looming over the city on the east slope are the barracks, a solid stone construction…”
- Eberhard Count Wolffskeel Von Reichenberg, April 17, 1915

Looking down on the town of Zeytun from the height of the Ottoman barracks. The Turkish officers and soldiers with large-shell mortars posted at the Ottoman barracks above
the Armenian town of Zeytun

In 1916 in the course of the First

World War, with French diplomat
François Georges-Picot, Sir Mark
Sykes (1879-1919) signed the secret
Sykes-Picot Agreement dividing up
the Middle East into French and
British zones of influence upon the
expected defeat of the Ottoman
Empire. More than a dozen years
earlier, Sykes, a military officer
himself with the rank of lieutenant-
colonel, was the guest of the commandant of the Ottoman
barracks that had been constructed upon a height
overlooking the town of Zeytun. Reflecting British
policy of that particular time, in his 1904 account of this
visit Sykes wrote favorably of his hosts and the Ottoman
government, stating: while no excuse can be made for the
conduct of the Turks in slaughtering Armenians, it should
be remembered that massacres is still a recognized method
of policy throughout the East.” He wrote less flatteringly
of the Armenians, whom he described as “living in deadly
and hopeless fear of them,” namely the Turks. The Great
War (1914-1918) completely changed the long supportive
British attitude toward the Ottoman Turks. By 1917
Sykes was speaking vituperatively of the belligerence
of governing cliques in Germany and Turkey: To the
Prussian came by natural attraction the Hungarian and
the Turk—the two races which believed in dominion by
violence. The Hungarian believed in a merciless minority
crushing an enslaved majority. The Turk, who in the last
ten years had thrown back to the primitive Turanian
conqueror, was not content with dominating, but was
now engaged in exterminating the Armenian, the Syrian
Christian, and the Arabs, and was even now beginning to
bully the Jews. The Turk had overthrown Islam as Prussia
had overthrown Christianity. Prussia had replaced God
by Thor and the Cross by his hammer. The Turk had
replaced Mohammed by Oghuz and Allah by the white
wolf of the primitive Turks. No belief was to be placed in
that cloak of chivalry under which in exceptional cases
the Turk tried to hide his abominable acts.
The main fortress of Zeytun with the Ottoman barracks constructed in the 1890s at a higher elevation visible in the upper left hand corner of the picture

By the start of World War I in August 1914, the Ottoman government had seen “The deserters entrenched themselves in the former cloister…on the outskirts of town,
to it that Zeytun was rendered indefensible. The stone barracks manned by a standing which is a place of pilgrimage. Attempts to have them turned over by the inhabitants failed,
regiment and strengthened by artillery dominated the Armenian city and gave complete since nobody believes in the promises of the government anymore…They declared they would
military advantage to the authorities in case of conflict. The pulverized remains of have to die anyhow. They would rather do that with weapons in their hands than surrender to
the monastery (shown to the right) that was situated at a distance from town attest the government. Thereafter, the local commander surrounded the cloister using an insufficient
to the fate awaiting Zeytun had its Armenian population resisted deportation. Given number of troops. Had he proceeded in a proper military manner, he would have captured all
that most deportees perished in the deserts, the survivors bitterly debated whether of the robbers [deserters]. He only had to wait for the arrival of the artillery, or to starve the
they should have listened to the admonishments of Catholicos Sahag II Khabayan and robbers into submission…Afterwards the cloister was destroyed by artillery fire.” - Walter
instead made common cause with the deserters who had grasped the true intentions of Rössler, German Consul in Aleppo to the Foreign Office in Berlin, April 12, 1915
the Young Turk regime.

In February 1915 the Ottoman government imposed a ban on photographing the mistreatment of Armenians. The authorities hoped to censor public knowledge of the Armenian Genocide and avoid damaging publicity in
international media. Prior to this ban, the Ottoman authorities in the nearby city of Marash, the district center, staged an astonishing photograph to demonstrate their early triumph over the Armenians of Zeytun. In a vivid display
of their superiority the Turkish officials, civil and military, assembled to be photographed standing upon a platform above a group of captive Armenians. By their modern suits, ties and overcoats, the Ottoman authorities, with Ali
Haydar Bey, the district governor at the center, stand in utter contrast to the Zeytunlis whose traditional garb betrays their primitive lifestyle. The contrast is even sharper in their postures, with the Turkish authorities exhibiting
their officious bearing, while the Armenians, their hands roped behind them, and their heads bowed, speak of their subjection. By their age differences too the photograph speaks of the gulf between Turks and Armenians, with the
power-wielders of the Young Turk generation holding the upper hand and the Armenians ranging from an adolescent on the right to a grey-bearded old man on the left reflecting the multi-generational makeup of their community.
A clearer picture of the utter domination of the Armenians by the Turks could not have been constructed and that was the purpose of the photograph, to instruct Armenians elsewhere of the fate awaiting them. In a second picture,
with his proud bearing, the civilian official on the left, Hamdi Bey, supported by a row of bayonet-carrying Ottoman gendarmes standing to their back, put his Armenian captives on display by having some of them photographed
on their knees, prior to their execution.

“The people of Zeytun were persuaded later to give up their fugitive soldiers, on the understanding that they
and their town would not be further molested. The fugitive conscripts were turned over to the government, and
were bound and sent to Aintab and Aleppo. Some have reached here. There are many now in Aintab. It was not
unnatural that they should receive hard treatment on the road, every thing considered. But it is said that most of
the first detachment were men from other places than Zeytun, some of them Aintab men who were working as
soldiers on the roads on the Bazarjuk plain between Aintab and Marash. This, however, was not regarded in the
treatment which they received.
After the departure of these men from Zeytun, on Friday, April 9, several men from Zeytun with their families
were called to the government house there, and told that they were to be deported. This was in spite of the promise
that they would not be molested further. They were not allowed to return to their homes, to make arrangements
for departure, to converse with their friends, but were sent at once to Marash arriving there on Saturday. This
first detachment consisted of 35 families. It included the head of the orphanage of Zeytun, his wife and their two
youngest children, the other five being left behind. This orphanage is under American supervision. And so Mr.
Lyman and Woodley tried to see this man in the khan where these refugees were confined. After finally securing
verbal permission, if they would return later, they ultimately failed. No one was allowed to talk with the party
while they were in Marash, the government furnished no food and that which was sent in by friends was torn apart
for messages before being thrown to them, and they were sent off southward on Monday.
I think there were some animals for the women and children, but the men and women were separated and one
detachment sent away an hour before the other. “The officers openly told the soldiers escorting the first company
of refugees out of Marash that they were free to do what they pleased to the women and girls.””
- Reverend John E Merrill, President of Central Turkey College, at Aintab to Jesse Jackson American
Consul in Aleppo, April 20, 1915, transmitted to Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador in Constantinople
and William Jennings Bryan, U.S. Secretary of State, Washington, DC, and forwarded by Robert Lansing,
Department of State Counselor to Reverend James L. Barton, American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions, Boston

Ottoman officials and soldiers on parade in the city of Marash, the district center for the region
encompassing Zeytun and its surrounding villages
“On 11 April [1915], a transport of families (25) arrived in a sorry state in Marash from Zeytun.
When they approached the town, the Muslims from Marash went out to meet them and took fiendish
joy in seeing the hated people of Zeytun captured. They could not refrain from adding to their misery
by pestering them with words and abuse and the others had to calmly submit to all this. Driven from
all sides, they were brought into a khan where they were kept under strict surveillance. Almost no
one was allowed to bring them some food, even if they were close relatives. They had almost nothing
at all with them and in the eyes of the Turks, they were worth nothing anyway. When recently the
government gave the order for some of the stray dogs on the street to be shot dead, many Turks took
them into their houses quickly because they considered it to be a sin, but on the other hand to kill a
person is still a merit, not a sin. The Christians are less than dogs in the eyes of many Turks. Penned
together in the khan, they spent one day and two nights. Their food was the subject of derision by the
Turks…Amongst the arrivals there was not one who had rebelled against the government, but instead
they were all from the better, wealthy people. In the second night before they were transported on, one
woman gave birth and, despite many pleas, was not even allowed to stay here for at least a day, but
without any mercy she had to continue the next morning with the others. The Turks fiendishly enjoy
seeing these poor people herded together like a flock of sheep and led away, being pushed by the rough
soldiers…These 25 families, as I was given to understand by the government, were brought to the
Konya district and resettled there.
15 April 1915. Also today many people arrived from Zeytun. Most of them on foot with their
children on their backs. A pitiful sight. But pity is something that is not present in the Turks in Marash.
Most of them were without any footwear. What can anyone say? One just has to keep quiet and
swallow it all, as there is nobody here who will listen. When will the time come when justice rules the
day?” - Karl Blank, German Christian Charity-Organization for the Orient, Marash Station “About nine o’clock on the following morning, the Turkish Commandant summoned about 300 of the principal
inhabitants to present themselves immediately at the military headquarters. They obeyed the summons without the least
suspicion, believing themselves to be on excellent terms with the authorities. Some of them took a little money, others
“Fighting began at Van on the 20th, April; the first Armenians had been deported from Zeytun some clothing or wraps, but the majority came in their working clothes and brought nothing with them. Some of them had
on the 8th April, twelve days before, and by the 19th a convoy of them had already arrived in Syria. even left their flocks on the mountains in the charge of children. When they reached the Turkish camp, they were ordered
The Cilician deportations, at any rate, must therefore have been planned at least as early as March, to leave the town at once without returning to their homes. They were completely stupefied. Leave? But for where? They
and probably earlier still…The Zeytunlis were deported in two directions ---half of them to Sultaniye did not know.” - April, 1915, Exiles from Zeytun, from the diary of a foreign resident, M. Pierre Briquet on the staff
[Karapunar] in the Anatolian Desert, and half to the Mesopotamian Sanjak of Der-el-Zor.” - James of St. Paul’s Institute, in the town of Tarsus on the Cilician Plain
Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916

Zeytun

From Konya
Taurus Mountain Passes
Marash

Adana
Tarsus

To Der Zor

Aleppo

“A new batch of Zeytunlis has just arrived. I saw them marching along the road, an interminable file under the Turkish whips. It is really the most miserable and pitiable thing in the world. Weak and scarcely clothed, they
rather drag themselves along than walk. Old women fall down, and struggle to their feet again when the zaptieh [police] approaches with lifted stick. Others are driven along like donkeys. I saw one young woman drop down
exhausted. The Turk gave her two or three blows with his stick and she raised herself painfully. Her husband was walking in front with a baby two or three days old in his arms.
It is not to Aleppo that the Zeytunlis are being sent, but to Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, between Aleppo and Babylonia. And those we saw the other day are going to Karapunar [Sultaniye], between Konya and Eregli, in the most,
and part of Asia Minor... News has come from Konya. Ninety Armenians have been taken to Karapunar. The Zeytunlis have arrived at Konya. 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 defense of the Dardanelles.
When the exiles reached Konya, 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 [governor] of Konya 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 his prohibition and allowed food to be served out to them under the supervision
of the zaptiehs.
A letter has come from Karapunar. I know the writer of it, and can have no doubt of his truthfulness. He says that the 6,000 or 8,000 Armenians from Zeytun are dying there from starvation at the rate of 150 to 200 a day. So
from 15,000 to 19,000 Zeytunlis must have been sent into Arabia, the total population of the town and the outlying villages having been about 25,000.” - May, 1915, Exiles from Zeytun, from the diary of a foreign resident,
M. Pierre Briquet on the staff of St. Paul’s Institute, in the town of Tarsus on the Cilician Plain.
The exhibit THE FIRST DEPORTATION: THE GERMAN RAILWAY, THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL, AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE is a project of the Armenian National Institute, Armenian Genocide Museum of America, and Armenian Assembly of America.
Concept research and presentation: Rouben Paul Adalian; Exhibit design and project associate: Joseph Piatt; Exhibit graphics: Aline Maksoudian; Project consultant: Aram Arkun
Dedication: In remembrance of Charles N. Mahjoubian (1907 Konya – 2004 Philadelphia) and in memory of Boghos Der Boghossian (1887-1952), an Apostolic Institute graduate. © 2014, Armenian Assembly of America
7 / 24
THROUGH THE TAURUS MOUNTAINS

“This morning, in an interview, the vali [governor] of Aleppo [Mehmet Jelal Bey] did not deny that this general outline of the plan was correct, or that the Zeytun refugees had been sent to the Mosul-Baghdad region.
Marash people say that a massacre would have been preferable to this treatment….This is a plan for the breaking down of the Christian population without bloodshed and with the color of legality. I would add that the Aleppo
vali is utterly opposed to this plan and considers that the control of the Marash district was taken out of his hands recently, in order to make possible the execution of a policy of which he did not approve.” - Reverend John E
Merrill, April 20, 1915

“Then came the news of Zeytun being deported. These hardy mountaineers were destined for Sultania, a low malarial district on the plain beyond Konya. Most of these villagers passed through Tarsus en route, save those
who had died on the way. A Tarsus graduate from Zeytun who had hoped to become a teacher, voluntarily followed his mother, a widow, to Sultania, for the reason that she had no one to take care of her, neither she nor his
sister with her four children, as the latter’s husband was imprisoned in Marash.” - Statement, dated 9th May 1916, from Miss H. E. Wallis, a foreign resident at Adana, recording her experiences there from September
1914 to September 1915.

“Taurus mountains, road conditions in 1915” “Cilician Gate, old road through the Taurus mountains c. 1915”
“Taurus mountains, Ottoman soldiers marching c. 1915”

“The first to be summoned were some families in Zeytun. Early one Saturday morning, as usual, the industrious housewives donned their old washing clothes and began their Saturday’s washing. Without warning, all of a
sudden, a terrible knocking was heard at many doors. In a minute the soldiers came pouring in, saying that the people in those houses were wanted immediately at the Government House. Not a moment was given to don dress
or shoes, but, in night-clothes or washing rags, the mothers and a few fathers snatched sleeping children out of their beds, the women throwing a shawl over their heads as they ran. Of course, many children were left behind,
and there are many pathetic stories of little boys and girls, eight or nine years old, stumbling. along the road, hardly able from sheer weariness to walk, yet carrying their little baby brother or sister, because, as their mother was
being taken away by the soldiers, she had said, “Look after baby and never leave him (or her).”” - Letter from a foreign eyewitness, Miss Kate E. Ainslie, dated 6th July, 1915, communicated to Dr. James Barton of the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief

“Cilician Gates, German truck column passing towards Adana”

“As long as I live I can never forget the camp I saw twice near Geulik station, not far from Tarsus. Here there were 10,000 to 15,000 Armenians awaiting further deportation towards the desert. They were in the broiling
sun, with no shade or shelter save the rudest arrangements---anything that came to hand thrown over poles or sticks. There were all kinds of people and families of all ages, crowded together within a certain radius, beyond
which they might not go. They looked scorched by the sun, their clothes were fast wearing out, and there were poor little children, boys and girls, taken from school, with simply nothing to do but await their fate, which
mercifully they could not realize as the adults could. There was a stream of water a little distance off, and if only it had been clean it would have been a boon. It was used for rinsing clothes as well as drinking. There were no
sanitary arrangements whatever, and the air was impregnated with foul odors. We witnessed all this from the train, which drew up at the station alongside the camp. The Government would not allow any help in money, food,
or medicine to be given; if they knew of anyone so doing, they stopped it.” - Statement, dated 9th May 1916, from Miss H. E. Wallis, a foreign resident at Adana, recording her experiences there from September 1914
to September 1915.

In certain locations, German authorities were able to

secure a temporary reprieve from deportation and execution
for groups of Armenian laborers. The Young Turks had taken
the Ottoman Empire into war badly prepared. One of the most
glaring deficiencies was the limitations of the rail transport
system in the country. German engineering firms with the
endorsement of the ministries and banks in Berlin had been
contracted to build what was called the Berlin-Bagdad railway.
The system was designed to connect the far ends of the
Ottoman Empire with Constantinople, and the Turkish capital
with Berlin, the German capital, and in so doing promote the
economic development of the country.

To implement the Armenian Genocide, the railroads were

transformed into a mechanism for hastening deportation of
the Armenian communities toward destinations closer to the
killing centers in Syria. By the time war started the tracks had
reached the central Anatolian city of Konya and a number of
stations beyond it at places called Eregli and Bozanti. Konya
served as the terminus of the 1915 Armenian deportations
by rail from the western Anatolian cities. From thereon the
deportees were sent on foot through the mountain passes
crossing the Taurus Range and into the lower plain of Cilicia
and yonder into Syria and Arabia.

Constructing the rail line through the Taurus Mountains,

“Taurus mountains, Armenians at work. Picture taken in 1915/16 by a German photographer”
and the Amanos Range further east, became wartime priorities
for the German and Ottoman military commanders. The engineering challenge required the construction of tunnels, bridges, roads, and power stations in the high mountain passes, and year-round living quarters for the
thousands of men needed on the job. Some of the German railway company managers went out of their way to protect their critically-needed Armenian employees, but even these were not spared deportation despite the
wartime exigencies. Completion of the railway system through the Taurus Mountains was delayed until 1918, too late to make a difference on the battlefields of the Middle East.

The photographs at the several train stations that were completed, the truck depots, and other
facilities, of General Liman von Sanders, head of the German Military Mission to the Ottoman
Empire, of Ahmed Jemal Pasha, Commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army, Governor-general
of Syria and one of the Young Turk triumvirs ruling the Ottoman Empire, and of Ismail Enver
Pasha, Deputy Commander-in-chief of the Ottoman armed forces (second only to the sultan
in rank), another of the Young Turks triumvirs, and as War Minister the principal proponent
of the entry of Ottoman Turkey into the war in alliance with Imperial Germany, attending the
commissioning of the station bearing his name, attest to the high strategic value of the rail line
and the Taurus passes.

While a new rail pathway was being blasted through the mountains, the ancient roads through
the Cilician Gates were put to use as the deportation routes of the Armenian population of
Anatolia. It was the fate of the Zeytun Armenians to cross those passes twice, once as they were
marched west to the Konya Plain and eventually confined to the salt flats of nearby Karapunar/
Sultanye, and a second time, those who remained, to be herded east with the rest of the Armenian
population of the western portions of the Ottoman Empire, including its European parts, who had
been first concentrated in Konya, Belemedik, and Bozanti, the last place described by Turkish
soldiers themselves, as “hell on earth.”

The extremely rare photographs of the Armenian laborers tell their own story. While labor
battalions were to be found in many locations across eastern Anatolia, only the ones working in the
Taurus range are documented for certain because of the presence of German photographers, who,
like the American Dr. Wilfred Post, flouted Ottoman regulations banning the taking of pictures
showing Armenians. With their heavy coats and other protective gear against the elements, the
Armenian laborers are seen breaking stones to pave the roads over which Ottoman armies, and
Armenian deportees, traveled. The photograph of the laborers with the high mountain to their
back already tells another tale, as it shows, almost indiscernible among all the piles of broken
stones, two recent graves ringed by natural stones.

“Gulek Boghazi, road construction”

“After the deportation massacre of the Armenians working on the Amanos tunnels, the Turkish government sought to fully implement its annihilation plan and took strict measures against the Armenians working on
Taurus tunnels as well. But the German construction office, arguing that it had barely eight hundred Armenians on these vital construction sites, had succeeded in preventing their deportation. To keep Talaat from meddling
in the affairs of the railway construction office, War Minister Enver ordered all Ottoman subjects working on railway construction, without regard to ethnicity, to remain at their jobs as a form of military service. To indicate
their military status, ribbons made from red cloth were sewn on the sleeves of all the officials and laborers. Nonetheless Talaat intervened and had all those who were suspect arrested in order to deport them.” - Grigoris
Balakian, Armenian clergyman who survived deportation and authored an account of his ordeals in a work titled Armenian Golgotha

“Hajikiri station, German commander Liman von Sanders” “Bagdad railway, German soldiers”

“I have heard from a conductor on the railway of the scenes at Bozanti the terminus. He said “Don’t ask me, it is hell on earth, women
and girls in groups wailing and shrieking for bread, men lying on their backs too weak to move crying for bread, unburied bodies of the dead
lying about.” The Pass below is filled with bands and “Chettes” marauders who are waiting to swoop down on them, and these are authorized
by the Government, so Turkish soldiers tell us.” - Dr. William S. Dodd, American Hospital at Konya, Turkey, August 15, 1915

“Chamalan, German truck drivers parading for Jemal Pasha”

“Hajikiri, Turkish commander Jemal Pasha during a train stop”

“Thus on the Baghdad railway line from Constantinople to Aleppo, three points—Bozanti, Kanle-gechid, and Islahiye—had been transitional gathering places for the Armenian deportees who had traversed the roads.
Caravans of hundred or thousands had arrived from all sides, successively increasing the total to tens of thousands, and the number of Armenian deportees reaching the tens of thousands had soon doubled and tripled. The
distinct intention was annihilation, for in a naturally disorganized country, under a disorganized government, and under such crowded conditions, to provide food every day for all would be impossible. Thus the Turkish
government would be exonerated of having planned an extermination.” - Grigoris Balakian

“An “Exiles Commission” has come here

from Constantinople. It was announced that
their business was to be to settle the exiles in this
vilayet [province] and not have them go further.
Telegrams from Enver Pasha were received
stating this, before the Commission came. Now
they have come, and it appears that their duty is
merely to clear the choked channels and speed
up the traffic. They have said that they came not
to settle the exiles but to drive them on. Since
beginning this letter I have learned that the stream
has began to flow again from Eregli and Bozanti
to Adana and on, and it is reported that now the
destination is Arabia.” - Dr. William S. Dodd,
Konya, Turkey, September 8, 1915

“There seems to be no end to the convoy

which moves over the mountain range from
Bozanti south. Throughout the day, from sunrise
to sunset, the road as far as once can see is crowded
with these exiles.” - Itinerary of an American
traveler, Mr. Walter M. Geddes, in Asiatic
Turkey, November 1915. communicated to the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian
Relief “Cilician Gates, old road through the Taurus mountains”
“Near Bozanti, Turkish infantry having a rest”

“Hajikiri, panorama of train station” (Cilician Gates visible right of center) “Belemedik, Karapunar station” “Bozanti, railway station and Taurus mountains”

Ismail Enver Pasha, Ottoman Minister of War, one of the Young Turk triumvirs and primary proponent of an alliance with
Germany and of joining the war, son-in-law of the sultan, and deputy commander-in-chief, second in command to the sultan, being
greeted by German military and civilian officials upon his arrival to the commissioning ceremonies of the station bearing his name
upon the Berlin-Bagdad rail line in the elevation of the Taurus Range.

“We got into the carriage and reached Kuleg station, one hour’s distance from
Tarsus and where the Armenian deportee’s tents had been pitched…The whole plain
resembled a vast camp. Thousands of tents were pitched in every direction. It’s possible
that at that time, in Tarsus, there were 30,000 to 40,000 Armenians, generally from
Adabazar, Izmid, Bardizag, Broussa, Edirne, Rodosto, Banderma and other places,
under canvas.” - Yervant Odian, author of Accursed Years: My Exile and Return
from Der Zor 1914-1919

“The German management overseeing construction of the Taurus tunnels, starting from
Bozanti, had established five main stations as construction centers: Belemedik, Tashdurmaz,
Kushjlar, Yarbashi, and Dorak. In each, thanks to their industriousness and punctuality, Armenians
had succeeded in gaining good positions as civil engineers, draftsmen, blacksmiths, carpenters,
joiners, supervisors, clerks, bookkeepers, foremen, and cooks; a very few also joined as laborers.
Altogether they were eight hundred...
Fortunately, most of the construction workers were noble and humane Swiss who were
sympathetic, kind, and friendly to the Armenians. With Christian compassion they shared their
grief and protected them on every occasion. One time, a Swiss official, seeing a Turkish laborer
beating an Armenian laborer for no good reason, was so infuriated that he charged the Turk and
landed him a powerful blow with a hammer, knocking him to the ground, while yelling in Turkish:
“You committed all kinds of crimes in the unseen corners of the mountains and valleys. Now you
have the audacity to continue your crimes against the hapless Armenians before our very eyes!”
The unconscious Turk was in the hospital for quite a few weeks and barely managed to recover.”
- Grigoris Balakian

“More is the pity that an undertaking which from every other except the political point of
view spells progress, and which should have been the means of bringing the West back to the
East, the daughter back to the mother and source of all civilization, should instead have led to the
most violent struggle among the leading nations of the world in all history a struggle in which all
the gains made since the French revolution in the direction of the advancement of humanitarian
aims, the betterment of the condition of the great masses, popular liberties and the progress in
science and the arts, and all the efforts to bring nations closer to one another in a recognition of
the common goal of mankind threaten to be dissipated. A railway which, as a medium of exchange
of merchandise and of ideas, ordinarily fulfils the function of binding nations together, in this
instance has been the primary cause of pulling them apart and of drawing them up in opposing
camps, bent on mutual destruction.” - Morris Jatrow, Jr., The War and the Bagdad Railway:
The Story of Asia Minor and its Relations to the Present Conflict, 1917

“We used to think that the government’s plan was

to put an end to the Armenian Question once and for all
by emptying the Armenian Provinces of their Armenian
population and to scatter the Armenians of Cilicia to
prevent a future danger from arising there. Sadly,
the project is broader and more radical [than we had
thought]: to completely eradicate all the Armenians in
Turkey…The project is now being implemented even
near Constantinople. Most Armenians living in the
Provinces of Izmit and Brusa are now being forcibly
taken to the deserts of Mesopotamia, leaving their
homes, lands, and belongings. Already the people of
Adapazar, Nicomedia [Iznik], the villages of Geyveh,
Armash and vicinity, and the villages of Izmit—with
the exception of Bardizag [Bahchejik], which has been
given a deadline of several days—have been taken
away.” - Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch
of Constantinople, 1913-1922

The town of Karapunar, or Sultaniye, in the Plain of Konya

“Of the Zeytun exiles in Sultaniye [Karapunar] my last account was that over 1000 had died. Disease
and starvation are acquiring increased momentum. The Government forbad any more help being given “[A] low ridge on the other side of which lies the small village of Karapunar [Karapinar (Sultaniye)]...On the
them, and so those who had been distributing the aid I sent did not dare to continue since they themselves right was a line of low hills which appeared to be partly salt and partly sand. At the extreme end of this is Karapunar -
were in the iron grip.” - Dr. William S. Dodd, American Hospital at Konia, Turkey, August 15, 1915 we couldd see the minarets of its mosque long before we reached it…Karabunar is distinctly zift….. There is nothing
to be got in Karapunar..All the way…the ground was whitish with salt. The barren low hills round Karapunar are all
whitish.” - Gertrude Bell, Diaries

“Konya - view toward the mountains, in the west” “Plain near Konya”

TWO OPPOSING GERMAN VIEWS ON GENOCIDE: LIBERAL AND NAZI

“The undersigned German nationals, at present residing in Konya, would herewith like to present the following report to the Imperial German Embassy. For the past week we have been witnesses of the most moving scenes,
which anyone not coming into close contact with them can hardly imagine. Every day long trains of Armenians arrive here, who according to their accounts, have been deported from Ismid, Adapazar and the surrounding areas.
From some of those passing through we have learned that the deportation regulations have already been enforced for many months in Cilicia and North Mesopotamia and as we hear, also other places in Anatolia are being
cleared of the Armenians. Today the local Armenians also received the order to leave the town within eight days… The whole of the route from here to beyond Aleppo resembles a caravan of misery and wretchedness. In places
such as Karaman, Eregli and Bozanti, where the people themselves are suffering from a shortage of bread, the fate of the deportees is unimaginable; they are destined to suffer a slow, agonizing death by starvation…The whole
measure seems to be aimed at a complete extermination of the Armenians.
We Germans, who are forced daily to observe this inhumane activity, feel it is our duty as members of a cultural state in the midst of a half-civilized people, to protest against it.” - Willy Seeger, Chairman of the Anatolian
Industrial and Trading Company Ltd., Konya branch; Georg Biegel, secondary school teacher; Heinrich Janson, foreman; J. E. Maurer, qualified engineer; Konya, August 16, 1915, forwarded by Franz Johannes
Guenther, Chairman of the Bagdad Railway Company to Konstantin von Neurath, Legation Councilor of the German Embassy in Constantinople.

The recipient of this letter, Baron Konstantin von Neurath (1873-

1956), was a career diplomat in the German foreign service. While
at the German Embassy in Constantinople between 1914 and 1916,
Neurath remained fully informed of the Ottoman government’s policies
vis-a-vis its Armenian population. With a large contingent of German
military, political, and commercial representatives in Ottoman Turkey
during WWI, the German Embassy was probably even better advised
of the fate of the Armenians than any other foreign entity, including the
American Embassy. Neurath’s career in the diplomatic service culminated with his 1932
appointment in Berlin as Minister of Foreign Affairs. With the rise of the Nazi party to power
in 1933, Neurath continued serving in his ministerial capacity until 1938, closely working
with Adolf Hitler to undue the Treaty of Versailles, the peace agreement that ended WWI, and
expand Nazi control over central Europe. In 1939, with the occupation of Czechoslovakia,
Hitler assigned Neurath ‘Reichsprotector’ of Bohemia and Moravia, with Reinhard Heydrich,
one of the architects of the Holocaust, as his more powerful deputy. Upon the end of WWII,
Neurath, ‘Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia,’ and his deputy Reinhard Neurath was tried and convicted in Nuremberg. Neurath, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and
Heydrich saluted in occupied Prague during Nazi rule Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Nazi Germany

“Across the city toward the high mountain at sunset”

“General view of the station at Konya”

“All Armenians from Brusa, Izmit, Konya, and Angora [Ankara] have already been set out on the road. From
200,000 to 300,000 Armenians are concentrated in extreme misery along the Baghdad railroad; they are gradually
being moved toward Darson [Tarsus] and then Aleppo, to be dispersed in he desert after that. Information reaching
us indicates that disease and hunger are already causing deaths. Gendarmes and other officials accompanying and
supervising the deportees are subjecting them to appalling tortures.” - Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch
of Constantinople, 1913-1922

“The next place where I saw them

was at Konya, also a large encampment.
There I saw the first brutality. I saw a
woman with her baby separated from
her husband. He was put on our train,
while she was forcibly held back and
prevented from getting on to the train.
At the next place [Bozanti], where
there were said to be about 50,000,
their condition was terrible. They were
camped on both sides of the railway “General view over the city from the hill”
track, extending fully half a mile on
either side. Here they had two wells
from which they could get water, one
of which was a very long way from
the encampment, the other at the
railway station platform. At daybreak
the Armenians came in crowds---
women and children and old men---
to the well to get water. They fought
among themselves for a place at the
well, and the gendarmes, to keep them
in order, flogged several people. I saw
women and children repeatedly struck
with the whips and sticks in the hands
of the gendarmes.” - Itinerary of an
American traveler, Mr. Walter M.
Geddes, in Asiatic Turkey, November
1915, communicated to the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian
Relief

“Public fountain opposite Miss Cushman’s orphanage”

“Another view from the hill toward two conical mountains”

Konya rail station

“Hungry crowds at the Hospital door – 6:30 A.M. Light not strong enough to take a good picture.” “The Reo Speed Wagon in front of the entrance to Miss Cushman’s - the American Polyclinic”

“From Konya, again, more than 200 Armenians have been sent to Karapunar.
Among them is Mr. Armenag Haigazian. On Thursday, 90 people were notified to be
ready to leave on…26th May. The Armenians dare not leave their houses.”
- Statement by Fr. W. H. Hunecke, July 1915, communicated to the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.

Photographed at the American Hospital in Constantinople, seated in the front row, from left to right: Dr. Wilfred D. Post of the
American Hospital in Konya; the Mother-Superior of the American Red Cross Hospital in Taksim district of Constantinople; The
Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire; Mrs. Henry Morgenthau; The Honorable G. Bie
Ravndal, United States General-Consul in Constantinople; Reverend William W. Peet, Esq., treasurer of Bible House, Constantinople;
with hospital and embassy staff standing.

The photographs taken by Dr. Wilfred Post constitute a

unique set of pictorial records of the Armenian Genocide,
comparable only to those taken by Leslie Davis, U.S. Consul
in Harput [Kharpert]. The precise location where the pictures
were taken can be demonstrated by comparison with other
photographs depicting scenes of Konya, and the captions
provided by Dr. Post leave no room for speculation about the
people appearing in them. The teaching staff of the American-funded school of Konya called the Apostolic
The pictures reached the United States because Institute, with its principal Dr. Armenag Haigazian seated fourth from right. The
they were delivered to Reverend William Peet, treasurer of Institute was founded in 1894 by Reverend Harutune Jenanyan, who earlier had also
the American Bible House in Constantinople, who worked established St. Paul’s Institute in Tarsus with the support of Colonel Elliott Shephard
closely with the American Embassy to protect the interests of of New York, husband to Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt.
the American missions and to guarantee the personal safety of
the American missionaries once war broke out and relations
between the United States and Ottoman Turkey became
strained, particularly over the mistreatment of the Armenian
population. The pictures were transmitted by Ambassador
Henry Morgenthau to the Department of State in Washington,
DC, through diplomatic pouch, confirming that the ambassador,
and his staff, were aware of their existence, and were fully
advised of the conditions under which the Armenian people was
perishing across the Ottoman Empire.
Dr. Post, along with Dr. William Dodd, and Miss Emma
Cushman, ran the American Hospital in Konya. Along with
the educational establishments, the medical facilities created
by American missionaries, most associated with the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM),
constituted part of an extensive missionary network grown
through the course of a century and guided by professionals,
both men and women, graduated from notable institutions of
higher learning in the United States, including Mt. Holyoke,
Oberlin, Princeton, Yale, and Harvard.

“A company of men driven mostly on foot all the way from Constantinople – left 2 days and 2 nights in open field without food or shelter (see my letter of Sept 21). Gendarmes with guns [against the back wall]”

“The entire Armenian population of Andrianople, Rodosto, Malgara,

“It is certain that in a matter of months they will be decimated through famine or exposure and their vicinity; the large Armenian population of about 110,000 in Izmit,
seat of the diocesan bishop; and the nearly 60,000 Armenians of Bilejik,
to this unfamiliar climate. We have an example of this in front of our eyes already: the Eskishehir, Kutahya, Afyonkarahisar, and their vicinity—about 170,000
in total—had been put on the road. On reaching Konya, the caravans of
Armenians from Zeytun and the surrounding areas are now completely transferred, some these exiles congregated, forming a large encampment on the plain near the
to the region of [Der] Zor beyond Aleppo and others (about 100 families) to the town of town... For the sake of appearances, the Turkish government tried to attribute
this crowding of Armenian exiles to the lack of transportation, but actually,
Sultaniye in Konya, where they remain today, naked, hungry, and unsheltered. The area by creating an environment of overcrowding and filth, they hoped to start
epidemics... Trustworthy eyewitnesses reported the rise of a new tent city on
being swampy, contagious disease have already started to take their toll. All applications the plain near Konya, tents made from sheets, whose number (according to
we have made for communicating with them or sending them aid have gone unanswered.” knowledgeable Armenian and German sources), reached 28,000. This mass
of human beings, deprived of any sanitary measures, would obviously be
- Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, 1913-1922 subject to all kinds of suffering and disease.” - Grigoris Balakian

“Part of the encampment near the railroad”

“On the edge of the encampment – many people without shelter (21 families without shelter within a radius of 100 yards from the camera).”

“All reports that the Government is providing food are

absolutely false, those who have money can buy, those
who have none beg or starve.” - Dr. William S. Dodd,
American Hospital at Konya, Turkey, August 15, 1915

“Same as (1) – shows several bivouacs without shelter”

“Many of the villagers are mountaineers and lying out on

the hot dusty plain by day and exposed to the cold of night they
quickly succumb…It is all horrible, horrible—no more description
can adequately portray the awful suffering of these unfortunate
people whose only crime is that they are Armenians...Whether these
unfortunate people are sent on towards the East or whether they remain
where they are along the road their future is very dark and it means
annihilation for the whole race unless they can be quickly reinstated
in their homes with permission to carry on their business or else taken
out of the country altogether. Even if they are left just as they are two
or three months will probably see the end of most of them.”
- Dr. Wilfred M. Post, Konya, September 3, 1915

“In Konya, I met a former colleague from Harput, Sister Laura

Möhring, who had come from Baghdad and told me of the nameless
misery of the deportees in the desert, where they were situated without
bread or water…5,000 Zeitunli were brought to the unhealthy Sultaniye
in the area around Konya. In the beginning, the government distributed
bread there, but after this was all gone the misery there is supposed
to be dreadful. According to statements by Dr. Dodd from Konya, the
wealthy people from there were also deported to Sultaniye; for the
period in which their money lasted they shared their bread with the
poor. Naturally, this only lasted for a while. Then Dr. Dodd asked the
government for permission to give the hungry people bread, whereupon
the governor answered that the government was handling this and the
people were not in need!
If, as friends of Turkey, we Germans keep silent with regard to all
of this, then we are the barbarians of whom the newspapers write, “Tell
me who you associate with and I will tell you who you are.”” - Report
by Miss Wolf Hunecke, July 13, 1915, Pera, Istanbul, forwarded
by German Ambassador Hans von Wangenheim to Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg in Berlin

“A crowd of refugees on the [illegible] road.” (Photographer notes Priest on extreme left with an X on the back of the picture)

“Three parties without shelter. Old man in foreground is blind and had almost everything stolen from him.”

“One of the tents – about a dozen people occupy it.”

“For the first time, in Eregli, I saw the life of Armenian deportees living under canvas.
The people there were mostly from Adabazar, Izmid, Bardizag, Arslanbeg and Chengiler.
Most of them were well-to-do families. Very few had been able to make proper canvas
tents for themselves. Most had made rickety shelters from sheets or pieces of cloth. It was
forbidden for those living in tents, in the camp, to go beyond certain defined boundaries
without special permission. It was even necessary to get a permit to go to the market.

It was dreadful for the crowd to be herded together in a small area where they had to
sleep, cook, and cope with their natural needs. But in spite of this oppressive situation, the
deportees had not lost hope and had even retained all their moral strength.

Armenian songs were to be heard from the tents right up to the end. Individuals had
even brought their violins, kanuns or guitars, and played them. Men played backgammon
or cards. In the evening, trays of oghi [arak] would be set in many tents. Everyone was
convinced that in a little while everything would end and they’d return to their homes. The
children had brought their school textbooks with them and it was a moving sight to see little
girls, seated on the ground near their tents, learning their lessons so that they wouldn’t fall
behind. How many of those poor little ones survived?” - Yervant Odian

“A mother and her three children at the clinic – all sick.”

“Another party without shelter – notice baby in old woman’s lap.”

“The information that I have from Eregli is reliable…There were about

15,000 exiles in Eregli, but there has been a steady stream pouring in that
direction, and the number must be larger now, except for the number sent on into
the mountains from there. How many there are at Bozanti the terminus of the
railway I have not been able to learn.

In Eregli the exiles are encamped in the open fields in the neighborhood
of the railway station. No protection is provided for them, and they have none
except such tenting as they can make up for themselves out of carpets, coarse
matting, cloaks, gunny sacks, sheets, cotton cloth, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, all
of which I have seen used here in Konya. There are no sanitary arrangements
for this hoard, and every available spot is used for depositing excrement. The
stench of the region is described as appalling. Here in Konya I have seen how
the field adjoining entirely open was so thickly covered with excrement that it
seemed impossible to stop anywhere, and women and girls as well as others
defecating there in the day-time simply because there was absolutely no screen
or protection. When it is considered that diarrhea and dysentery are rife, you can
imagine the results. The region there as well as here is exceedingly malarial, and
this is the time of year for it. I have no knowledge of how many deaths have
taken place.” - Dr. William S. Dodd, Konya, September 8, 1915

“Watermelon cutting(s) served to refugees in the clinic – the beginning of our free meal enterprise.”

“A mother with her dying child – the father is a soldier.” “Another dying child brought to the clinic – father is a soldier, mother died in camp a few
days ago. Woman holding child is a friend.”

“We also felt obliged to attend to the needs of Armenian soldiers whose families had been “Dr. and Mrs. Dodd went through the massacres of 1894 and 1896 and they and Miss Cushman
deported. In particular, the Armenian soldiers at the Dardanelles front, when ill or wounded, were and I have been through two revolutions, one massacre and two wars since then, but we all agree that
sent to their hometowns for one or two months to recuperate. Because the families of many of these we have never seen anything like this. Another outrageous side of it is that many of the fathers and
soldiers had been deported, the young men came to Constantinople and relied on the Patriarchate’s brothers of these women and children are in the army fighting the country’s battles…Unless political
charity. I designated the school just outside Kum-Kapu as a place for them to live, and I gave them circumstances allow of their speedy restoration to their homes or their bona fide establishment in new
five piasters daily from the Patriarchate’s Treasury…” places, transportation to America seems their only hope, or else the nation will be annihilated, and that
- Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, 1913-1922 very soon.” - Dr. Wilfred M. Post, Konya, September 3, 1915

“3 men driven from Constantinople to Konia (750 kilometers) mostly on foot. Middle man
74 yrs old – others 48 and 24 respectively. Younger man was stripped of most of his clothes
– older had only his shoes taken from him.”
“A crowd about a fountain – later the crowd became very much larger.”

“Details from “a roomful of misery.””

“Since the city of Konya had a

population of about 65,000, the bakeries
could barely meet the local demand for
bread; so when the caravans of Armenian
deportees arrived, they suffered acute
hunger. The exiled Armenians, even with
money in hand, searched frantically for
bread but there was none; when they
requested help, they received merciless
blows from the whips of the guards. The
Turkish government’s secret goal was that
these people would expire from hunger
and epidemics instead of from massacres.
Naturally the first victims were the small
children, who fell like withered autumn
leaves to the ground at the first dry wind,
dying not by the hundred but by the
thousands.” - Grigoris Balakian

“Details from “a roomful of misery.””

“A roomful of misery – not posed – 21 people were stretched out on the
floor of one waiting room waiting their turn for examination.”

“Today the crier has

published through the city
that all the Armenians of
Konya are to be ready to
leave in eight days; that is,
on Monday August 23. The
scenes that are taking place
are simply like the wailing
for the dead. Is there no
help to prevent this awful
crime? I have new details
of the horrors of the march
beyond Bozanti, 50,000
on foot between there and
Aleppo, and the road beset
by robbers and dead bodies
everywhere.”
- Dr. William S. Dodd,
American Hospital at
Konya, Turkey, August 16,
1915

“Dying of camper – turned out of Izmit 2 weeks ago and brought to the clinic by his friends.”

The whips were cracking, the brutal blows were raining down. There was no time to think; it was necessary to
move. But absolutely no means of transportation had been arranged, nor did they exist. Thus every family was forced
to abandon all the belongings they could not carry. They hastily tried to gather bare essentials and anything that was
of value and portable, such as jewelry, that might be exchanged for a piece of bread in the coming days.

The chaos was all-encompassing; crying, wailing, and pleading had no effect on the hardened hearts of the
Turkish officials. It was as if they were not human beings. Men and women, youth and girls, cried and pleaded in vain
for at least one hour so they could have time to gather their valuables. They would always receive the same impudent
and cruel answer: You are going to your death—what do you need your belongings for? If you don’t leave them here,
they will be taken from your hands anyway a few days from now in a different place. Why wear yourselves out for
nothing?” - Grigoris Balakian

“Same couple as No (13) wife carrying husband”

“Warning from Zeitun: In previous years on many occasions the Armenians of Zeitun had been under Turkish
attack. They had fought courageously and resisted several weeks each time until exhaustion and European intervention
had ended the siege, permitting the people of the city to resume life as usual. I had seen such an incident in my year at
Zeitun.
This time the pattern changed. The Turks did not attack directly but resorted to treachery. They coerced several
leaders of the Armenian community in Marash to join a delegation of Turkish officials to Zeitun. Their mission was to
convince the Armenians of Zeitun that they would enjoy peace and security if they would, firstly, give up their guns
to the government and secondly, migrate to a new region several miles away. The Protestant minister (Rev. Aharon
Shirajian) and Apostolic priest (Rev. Sahag Der Bedrosian) were among the delegation forced to come from Marash.
The director of the trade school at the German orphanage, Herr Blank, accompanied them. The clergymen and other
delegates from Marash had been threatened with dire consequences to themselves and to Zeitun if they refused. They
had no choice. Neither did the people of Zeitun. Most of the young fighters had been drafted. Refusal to turn over guns
or leave the city meant instant annihilation. This time fully activated Turkish army with powerful weapons, including
German Mausers, was at hand to see to that. The Allies were certainly in no position to intervene. Both the visiting
Armenians from Marash and the local Armenian leaders in Zeitun reasoned that exodus might mean survival for some.
Thus the caravans started out warily but hopefully. The few able-bodied men who had not been taken into the army
were placed in a separate caravan and sent away, some toward Konia and some to Bagdad. Very few of them survived
the ordeals they experienced. The rest of the population—including women, children and a few old men—were directed
towards Urfa.
The young men of Zeitun who had been conscripted into the Turkish army had been placed into work battalions.
Some of them appeared in Urfa among a group of 1,200 Armenian soldiers brought in late spring to build a road. These
soldiers included natives of Marash, Aintab, Gaban, and other Cilician towns as well as Zeitun. Their guns had been
confiscated and replaced with shovels and picks. The first week at Urfa they were given liberty to move about the city
at will. Some of them were friends of mine from school and orphanage. One morning I invited about twenty-five of
them to my home and listened to their stories. They told us of the destruction of their towns and begged me, “Tell the “Paralytic from Afion-Kara-Hissar- not exempted from deportation. Cannot stand straight
Armenians of Urfa to prepare to defend themselves right now. We are ready to fight and die with them. Giving in to and has to be carried by his wife – see no 14 (a Protestant)”
Turkish demands will not guarantee their safety. Let them not be fooled like us. We should have stayed in our towns
and fought to defend them. At least we would have died honorably.” These men had gone into the army believing they
had been conscripted to participate in the war. Now they realized that they had been conscripted just to be removed
from their towns so their homes would be defenseless.” - Reverend Ephraim K. Jernazian, Judgment Unto Truth:
Witnessing the Armenian Genocide

American School in Ismit

“Archbishop Stepannos, the virtuous prelate of Izmit, had refused an exemption from deportation that
the government had granted him. He responded to the governor: “Thank you for the benevolence of the
government, but I cannot abandon my flock, which I have tended for forty-five years. I have spent good days
with them, and I will spend bad days with them.” And His Grace [Archbishop] Hovagimian, a majestic and
giant figure, bent over by his more than seventy-five years, proceeded to the head of the deportation caravans,
and like a modern-day Moses, he led his people toward Bozanti. From there he put his cart at the disposal of
the sick members of his flock and went on foot as far as Aleppo...Especially the priests, whom Archbishop
Stepannos ordered to remove their habits and shave their beards so as to escape beatings and persecution by
the police soldiers.” - Grigoris Balakian

“The Vali [Governor Jelal Bey] is a good man but almost powerless. The Ittihad Com[mittee] and the Salonika Clique rule all. The Chief of Police seems
to be the real head. The Vali [Governor] came here on the promise that Konya should be spared. Then he was delayed in Constantinople day after day until the
deportation here should be accomplished. He was furious when he heard of it on his way here, and he is likely to resign soon.” – Dr. William S. Dodd, Konya,
September 8, 1915

“At Konya about the same conditions exist although we are fortunate in having a good Vali [Governor Jelal Bey]; however he is much handicapped by some
powerful men of the Committee who are opposed to him and accuse him of undue clemency.” - Dr. Wilfred M. Post, Konya, September 3, 1915

“The Vali [Governor Jelal Bey] said that he could do nothing as Marash had been taken out from under his jurisdiction, a fact which he deplored and which
had occurred without his previous knowledge. He thought that the trouble might have been avoided, if Marash had been under his control. He said that he would
telegraph to the Department of the Interior and to Jemal Pasha of the 4th Army, but that he had no authority.” - Jesse Jackson, American Consul, Aleppo, April
12, 1915

“The Armenians of Western Anatolia who had been uprooted were able to stay for several months in Konya and its surroundings, thank to Governor Jelal
Bey, who behaved in a humanitarian manner toward the Armenian refugees.
I was told that, one day, Jelal Bey personally toured the areas where the deported people were staying. Seeing their misery, he was unable to hold back his
tears and moved away quickly, cursing those who had caused this situation to come about. Witnessing Jelal Bey’s humanitarian behavior, the Sublime Porte
[Young Turk regime] removed him from Konya and appointed in his place another, who would act according to its position by persecuting the refugee Armenians
and pushing them toward the desert. Indeed, Jelal Bey’s successor committed a great cruelty by pushing the Armenians that were living in crowded but sheltered
conditions in Konya toward the Arabian desert.” - Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, 1913-1922

Jelal Bey, Ottoman governor of Konya

“Jelal Bey used the law of nationality of Armenians – Ermeni [Orthodox], Catholic, and Protestant – recognized by the [Ottoman] Government. He
ordered Konya to be an encampment center to sort them out as the order of the Government in Turkish stated only “Ermeni ‘millet’” [Orthodox Armenian
community] in the proclamation of deportation. Also, he ordered all the Protestant and Catholic leaders already deported returned home from Karapunar.
This was effective as a civilian order, but was not applicable to those already under the control of the army….Jelal Bey’s order of sorting the “deportees”
had …flooded the fields near the Stacyon [train station] with “deportees” coming from as far west of Konya as Rodosto (Tekirdagh) in European Turkey
and other collection centers to speed up the deportation…Jelal Bey was going according to the law of the country, justice, his conscience and mercy, and the
courage to defy the Government order. He was merciful to the sick, the lame, and the blind, and courageous to defy the illegal order of the government to
“deport” every Armenian, Catholics, Protestant or Ermeni [Orthodox], and, families of soldiers.” - Charles Mahjoubian, Garbis to America

Because the rail system was relied upon to deport the Armenian population of western Anatolia,
the terminus at Konya and at Bozanti served as the first concentration camps where deportees by
the tens of thousands were initially dumped. In the end some 500,000 Armenians were exiled by
this route. Bishop Mesrob Naroyan who was also exiled succeeded for a brief period in creating an
underground railroad for the delivery of relief funds from the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople
and its distribution among the Armenian deportees. By October 1915 the Armenians had been
force marched out of the Plain of Konya, through the Taurus passes and onto Syria, there to die
of thirst, hunger, or massacre. Eventually Patriarch Zaven Der Yaghiayan too was exiled through
Konya and Bozanti to witness for himself the plight of his people dispersed across the Syrian
desert. Another deported clergyman, Grigoris Balakian, went into hiding disguised as an engineer
because he spoke German and found refuge in the remotest construction sites of the rail line. He
lived to author a blistering eyewitness account of the Armenian Genocide titled Armenian Golgotha
invoking the agony of the Crucifixion as his touchstone. Bishop Naroyan survived, but he was one
of a handful of high clergy to have escaped death. When a memorial volume was prepared on the
eve of the first commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 1919, it fell upon him to
prepare the list of the Armenian prelates who succumbed to the atrocities. Naroyan succeeded Der
Yeghiayan as Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople.
Patriarch Mesrob Naroyan (1927-1944)

It is not possible to create a complete list of the

martyred clergy. Their number is very great, as even the
“The Armash Seminary, where I had received my education and which had a special place
smallest village had its church and married priest. But it is
in my heart, was not spared this widespread catastrophe. The Seminary staff, including Abbot-
possible to select some who had intellectual gifts and were
Director Bishop Mesrob Naroyan, were sent to Konya...The Charkhapan [Evil-Destroyer] Holy
well known, not only for their erudition, but also because of
Mother of God Monastery at Armash was closed during the deportations of 1915…the seminarians
their writings. Among them were about ten from Armash
were brought to Constantinople, and the Abbot [Bishop Mesrob Naroyan], the monks, and the
Seminary who, as prelates, died on the field of honor:
teachers were deported to Konya and elsewhere. During this time, the Monastery was robbed, and
subsequently the government opened a district school on the premises.” - Zaven Der Yeghiayan,
Bishop Smpad Saadetian, prelate of Erzerum, a deep-
Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, 1913-1922
thinking and gentle churchman.
Patriarch Zaven Der Yeghiayan (1913-1922) Bishop Khosrov Behrigian, the prelate of Kayseri, a
model of a clergyman dedicated to the people and literary
gifts.
Sahag Odabashian, prelate of Bursa, a hard-working
and intrepid shepherd.
Ardvast Kalenderian, prelate of Edessa [Urfa], a
sensitive and beauty-loving personality.
Kevork Turian, prelate of Trabzon, a very knowledgeable
and good-humored clergyman.
Barkev Tanielian, prelate of Kutahia, a taciturn,
extremely active worker and a modest man.
Shavarsh Sahagian, prelate of Tokat, an enthusiastic
and alert clergyman.
Bsag Der-Khorenian, prelate of Harput, an energetic
and hardworking activist.
Kegham Tevekelian, prelate of Keghi, a unique writer
with a revolutionary character.
Suren Kalemian, prelate of Bitlis, who had a lively
character and was a tenacious worker.

To this list of martyrs must be added:

Bishop Nerses Tanielian of the Catholicosate of Sis
(Cilicia), prelate of Yozgat, with a poet’s soul and a delicate
heart, whose spiritual writings will always retain their
freshness and appeal.

Reverend William Peet, American Bible House Bishop Mesrob Naroyan

April 24, 1919

“To send relief to the masses, we tried to organize a relief network encompassing the principal regions where the deportees were located. Thus, we sent relief funds to Konya for the deportees of Western Asia Minor who
were concentrated there. We made arrangements so that Bishop Mesrob Naroyan, assisted by Apig Mubahyajian, Khosrov Babayan, and Dikran Amseyan, who had themselves been deported there, would distribute the relief funds
we sent—1 piaster daily to almost 5,000 needy people. Working under the supervision of Bishop Mesrop were two younger seminarians from Armash, both of them deportees: Hrand Vartabed and Hëmayag Vartabed…Every
week, Mr. [William] Peet [treasurer of the American Bible House in Constantinople] sent 500 pounds to Aleppo and another 500 to Konya, as well as other amounts to other places….Dr. Dodd was the representative of the Bible
House in Konya, where he personally distributed the relief funds…Bishop Mesrob always sent me news from Konya through Armenian railway functionaries.” - Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople,
1913-1922

“A new boy coming to the school”

“Major Arnold with scores of orphan children under Miss Cushman’s charge”

“So Miss [Emma D.] Cushman gathered the six hundred Armenian children together into an orphanage,
that was half for the boys and half for the girls. She was a hundred times better than the “Woman who
Lived in a Shoe,” because, though she had so many children, she did know what to do. She taught them to
make nearly everything for themselves. In the mornings you would see half the boys figuring away at their
sums or learning to write and read, while the other boys were hammering and sawing and planing at the
carpenter’s bench; cutting leather and sewing it to make shoes for the other boys and girls; cutting petrol tins
up into sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting and stitching cloth to make clothes. A young
American Red Cross officer who went to see them wrote home, “The kids look happy and healthy and as
clean as a whistle.”
From all over the Turkish Empire prisoners were sent to Konia. There was great confusion in dealing
with them, so the people of Konia asked Miss Cushman to look after them; they even wrote to the Turkish
Government at Constantinople to tell them to write to her to invite her to do this work. There was a regular
hue and cry that she should be appointed, because everyone knew her strong will, her power of organising,
her just treatment, her good judgment, and her loving heart. So at last she accepted the invitation. Prisoners
of eleven different nationalities she helped—including British, French, Italian, Russian, Indians and Arabs.
She arranged for the nursing of the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the freeing of some from prison.
She went on right through the war to the end and beyond the end, caring for her orphans, looking after
the sick in hospital, sending food and clothes to all parts of the country, helping the prisoners. Without
caring whether they were British or Turkish, Armenian or Indian, she gave her help to those who needed it.
And because of her splendid courage thousands of boys and girls and men and women are alive and well,
who—without her—would have starved and frozen to death.” - Basil Mathews, ‘An American Nurse in
the Great War,’ The Book of Missionary Heroes

“A poverty stricken woman” “Part of kindergarten section in action”

“Miss Cushman talking to some boys”

“Children doing kindergarten exercises”

“Before the war Dr. Dodd and Dr. Post conducted a successful American hospital here, and Miss Cushman, a famous missionary,
worked with them. Miss Cushman was left alone throughout the war to care for allied prisoners, Armenian orphans and refugees and pretty
much everything else needing help. Now there is a fine staff of Americans doing hospital and relief work. Konya is central for repatriation
“A group of “relief” kindergarten children in Miss Cushman’s care” of refugees by rail.” - William T. Ellis, Special Correspondent of the Washington Post, November 11, 1919

Dr. Armenag Haigazian

“After no school for four years, education was precious and by now [Dr. Armenag] Haigazian
proved his fame in what he did in reopening Jenanyan College [so-called for it founder but formally
The Apostolic Institute]….Leaving Mrs. Haigazian and daughters in Smyrna, then occupied by
the Greek army, he was willing to risk his life for the education of the Armenian children who had
been denied education for four years, and, some of them had returned from the jaws of suffering
and death…
To us they were inspirational for human rights and justice, but to the Turks it was dangerous
for Armenians to learn about them. To the Turks the greatest danger turned out to be Haigazian,
American educated and running a school on the American system and supported by American Top: Orphan girls; Bottom: Orphan boys
money inspiring Armenian students…Haigazian was called to Court Martial hearings. Condemned
and given few days to close the school and return to jail. Also a few days later it was announced With a Ph.D. from Yale University, Armenag Haigazian was described
that all Armenian and Greek men between 15 and 60 were to be deported. I was thirteen years as ‘the most outstanding native Christian educator whom the American Board
old and was free to go all over and watch the proceedings. After all the men were on the train, I Schools in Turkey produced.’ The American-funded Apostolic Institute of
was returning home. On Stacyon Jaddesi [Station Road] I saw a group of convicts going toward Konya, as with all other Armenian and American schools across Anatolia, had
the Stacyon tied together at their ankles with chains and balls. Right in the middle was Haigazian been closed in 1915. Teachers, along with clergy, were among the first persons
– a wisp of a man, philosopher, theologian, prophet, humanitarian and the greatest product of arrested and deported during the Armenian Genocide. Dr. Haigazian was a
American education and evangelism… rare educator to survive. His reopening of the Apostolic Institute revived
I was amazed at the site of the staff of Jenanyan College in chains, with Haigazian in their middle hopes that teaching would resume for Armenian orphans. The Nationalist
to ease the burden of chains and balls on him. The staff represented all the educational benefits Turks under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal who replaced the discredited
of the Catholic and Protestant missions, and of the education of many European schools of higher Young Turks at the end of the war in 1918, however, persisted with the
learning...They had been condemned as hardened criminals with the intention of eliminating the policies of the previous regime. Dr. Haigazian was arrested, deported, and
influence of Christian powers. I wended my way home thinking of angelic Haigazian’s undaunted effectively murdered. By the time the New York Times reported his passing,
spirit, though in the eyes of the Kemalist Government he was a criminal deserving to carry chains the news was almost a year old. The death of Dr. Armenag Haigazian and
and balls…The staff members were allowed to go with the rest of the deported but Haigazian was the second closing of the Apostolic Institute marked the definitive end of
under strict surveillance and kept in dirty infested prisons along the way while the rest were out in Armenian education in Anatolia, an effort sustained through the centuries
the open fresh air… since the invention of the Armenian alphabet in 405.
Haigazian himself refused assistance to free him from the tortuous treatment while it was
possible in transit. Once in Mezre [near Harput], it became impossible to save him as the Turkish “The Government some time ago ordered the Protestant Congregation
Hospital authorities refused to transfer him to the American hospital in Harput until he was beyond to tear down their bell-tower, which they refused to do, saying that it had
recovery transferring the responsibility of his death to the American hospital. In the records of been put up by permission of a former Vali [Governor] and that it formed an
the ABCFM [American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions] Haigazian’s death was accessory to their place of worship. The Government thereupon proceeded to
recorded: He died at the American Hospital at Kharput, July 7, 1921, from Typhus fever, shortly take down the bell and tear down the tower, which was of simple construction,
after being deported by the despotic government of Moostafa Kemal. He suffered greatly on the and then put in a bill for demolition!” - Dr. Wilfred Post, Konya, September
trip to Kharput, since most of the journey was done on foot. He was buried in the Missionary 3, 1915
Cemetery there.” - Charles Mahjoubian

Konya before the war

“Ruins of the Armenian church”

“On Alaeddin Hill (Alaeddin Tepe) of Konya, there was an Armenian church. Soon after the deportation, I saw that church demolished.” - Charles Mahjoubian

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First Deportation

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First Deportation

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THE FIRST DEPORTATION:

The German Railway, the American Hospital,

World War I ended in November 1918. The Armenian Genocide continued.

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia

“The whole area is very rough

Wolffskeel was the German

In 1916 in the course of the First

“Cilician Gates, German truck column passing towards Adana”

In certain locations, German authorities were able to

To implement the Armenian Genocide, the railroads were

Constructing the rail line through the Taurus Mountains,

“Gulek Boghazi, road construction”

“Chamalan, German truck drivers parading for Jemal Pasha”

“An “Exiles Commission” has come here

“There seems to be no end to the convoy

“We used to think that the government’s plan was

The town of Karapunar, or Sultaniye, in the Plain of Konya

TWO OPPOSING GERMAN VIEWS ON GENOCIDE: LIBERAL AND NAZI

The recipient of this letter, Baron Konstantin von Neurath (1873-

“Across the city toward the high mountain at sunset”

“General view of the station at Konya”

“The next place where I saw them

“Public fountain opposite Miss Cushman’s orphanage”

Konya rail station

The photographs taken by Dr. Wilfred Post constitute a

“The entire Armenian population of Andrianople, Rodosto, Malgara,

“Part of the encampment near the railroad”

“All reports that the Government is providing food are

“Same as (1) – shows several bivouacs without shelter”

“Many of the villagers are mountaineers and lying out on

“In Konya, I met a former colleague from Harput, Sister Laura

“One of the tents – about a dozen people occupy it.”

“A mother and her three children at the clinic – all sick.”

“Another party without shelter – notice baby in old woman’s lap.”

“The information that I have from Eregli is reliable…There were about

“Details from “a roomful of misery.””

“Since the city of Konya had a

“Details from “a roomful of misery.””

“Today the crier has

“Same couple as No (13) wife carrying husband”

American School in Ismit

Jelal Bey, Ottoman governor of Konya

It is not possible to create a complete list of the

To this list of martyrs must be added:

Reverend William Peet, American Bible House Bishop Mesrob Naroyan

“A new boy coming to the school”

“A poverty stricken woman” “Part of kindergarten section in action”

“Children doing kindergarten exercises”

Dr. Armenag Haigazian

Konya before the war

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