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Refugees in Van, Armenian Turkey, crowding around a public oven in hopes of getting bread. Photograph from 'Ambassador Morgenthau's Story' by Henry Morgenthau, Formerly American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916. The Ambassador made repeated attempts during 1915 to convince the rulers of Turkey, particularly Interior Minister Talaat and War Minister Enver, to spare the Armenian population.
Text:
Refugees at Van crowding around a public oven, hoping to get bread
These people were torn from their homes almost without warning, and started into the desert. Thousands of children and women as well as men died on these forced journeys, not only from hunger and exposure, but also from the inhuman cruelty of their guards.

Refugees in Van, Armenian Turkey, crowding around a public oven in hopes of getting bread. Photograph from 'Ambassador Morgenthau's Story' by Henry Morgenthau, Formerly American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916. The Ambassador made repeated attempts during 1915 to convince the rulers of Turkey, particularly Interior Minister Talaat and War Minister Enver, to spare the Armenian population.

Image text

Refugees at Van crowding around a public oven, hoping to get bread

These people were torn from their homes almost without warning, and started into the desert. Thousands of children and women as well as men died on these forced journeys, not only from hunger and exposure, but also from the inhuman cruelty of their guards.

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Sunday, February 13, 1916

"As we were passing by the last vegetable gardens on the edge of town, we saw an elderly hunchbacked Turkish woman with disheveled hair, dressed in rags. She stood like a statue, sometimes raising her hands to the sky and then striking her knees, and shouting:

Cursed be they, it's a world of doers and finders; they're taking these innocent people away to murder them; the enemy to come, in turn, will treat us this way in the future . . . Look here, those who remain alive won't enjoy the spoils . . . may God be with you, my children."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from the memoir of Grigoris Balakian, a priest of the Armenian Church, and one of the Armenian intellectuals of Constantinople imprisoned on the night of April 24, 1915. Most of the others were dead the end of the summer of 1915, but Balakian survived, and was imprisoned in Chankiri. On February 13, 1916, he was taken from its jail to join the Armenians of Chankiri who were being deported to Der Zor and likely death in the Syrian desert.

Source

Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918 by Grigoris Balakian, page 127, copyright © Introduction and Translation 2009 by Peter Balakian, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2009-00-00

Tags

1916-02-13, 1916, February, Armenia, Armenians, Balakian, Chankiri, deportation