Armenian Orphanages

[AlphaPapa]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

Catch 22 for the government...allow them to be adopted by diasporans, and thus leave the country or keep them as cattle? Like almost all governments, they're choosing the inhumane option.

There's long term benefits to letting Diasporans adopt, should the Republic of Yerevan ever decide to have long term interests.

[MrHyeSev]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

When I went to Armenia a while ago, we went to go visit the orphanage there. It was very hard & sad to see kids in those tough situations.

[dikranagert]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

That is a good to hear - but unfortunately, the majority were raised in present day Turkey.

I think Hrant Dink was about to have a major discussion about this topic and that is the real reason the ultra-nationalists murdered him.

Also, now it makes even more 'sense' why the government does not allow any church recognition or renovation in the 6 eastern provinces (i.e. Western Armenia) as this issue is just bubbling under the surface. Many times, these women, as they get closer to death, will finally open up and divulge their background and thier real beliefs in terms of religion.

Once these thousands of women had children, they raised them in accordance to the wishes of the husband (as was the protocol of the day), however, I believe the vast majority imparted their true roots to their offspring and so on and on. Paradoxically, this information exchange led to bitterness and resentment in the 1st generation of kids (born in the 1920s) but as time passes, it will and has changed.

Think about it: At the minimum, 10-15% of the ENTIRE population of Turkey has Armenian roots in a significant portion TODAY.

From personal experience, my grandfather had 4 sisters in their teens ALL of which were taken and married, some by force and some without (i.e. realistically it was death or conversion). SO now my father has over 10! first cousins who are 1/2 Turk and 1/2 Armenian. He used to see them over the border but the children were raised as Turkish Muslims (especially in that era) even when a trip to the Catholicase in Beirut was made, it made no difference. Environment trumps genetics in most cases. Consequently, I have DOZENS of second cousins who are 25-50% Armenian in Southeastern Turkey.

Now if religious expression was not so SEVERELY repressed, don't you think more of these people would think about and reflect about who they were - I mean even if 5% converted, that is 500,000 at a minimum. Hence, the obsession with denying the Genocide and keeping that whole region in a time warp of the late 19th century. These types of demographic and religious upheavals can threat the existense of the whole state which is the Turk's ultimate fear to the exclusion of all else - see what they are doing to their fellow muslim 'brothers' - the Kurds.

This is not about these crypto-Christians expressing themselves out in the open - rather, it is their acknowledgement of an Armenian ancestry (i.e. more tribal than religious) that can make everything extremely volatile.

Also, keep in mind, even if there are 20 million of these mixed offspring from the Genocide on, it does not necessarily mean that they will become ARF members overnight - the vast majority will continue living as before, albeit with a better understanding of their roots.

Think of it this way, if I told you that 1 out of every 5 Armenians worldwide had Kurdish or Turksih grandparents, how would you react?

Sorry for the long post but I really feel that this is the crux of the whole matter and behing all the denialist rhetoric. Indeed, the Genocide had three components:

1. Kill all the young men because
2. You want all the women and most of the children, especially female (who won't have defenders)
3. March the rest to death (the elderly, etc)

Compare this to the xxxish holocaust, in which any xxx with 1/16 xxxish blood was targeted for exterminaton, and very few Germans wanted to marry xxxish women (externally, anyway) - so the relationship between the Armenians and Turkish societies was more complex.

Also remember that even when young men converted they were usually killed but when females converted, they were accepted without question the majority of the time.

[Anoush]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

As far as Armenian orphanages; I very well know this beautiful and talented Armenian girl who was adopted from Armenia when she was less than a month old and the Armenian couple spent good money for her; but in the end they were able to adopt her and bring her to the States. She has been very well brought up and she is a healthy, beautiful and very intelligent young teenager now.

[Anoush]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

Tikranagert, thus the Armenian race has been royally screwed (thanks to the attaturk criminals) to say the least.

[dikranagert]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

Remains of the Sword: Armenian Orphans

Ninety years ago, up to 1.5 million Armenians were deported and died at the hands of the Ottoman rulers of Turkey. But it is believed that Turkish families saved thousands of orphaned Armenian children secretly. Some children who had been adopted were then forcibly taken away from their Turkish families by foreign troops and sent to orphanages in Europe. Until now, the very existence of the children has remained largely an untold story, buried along with those who died between 1915 and 1916. But their family members are slowly uncovering the stories of those Armenian orphans. The issue still remains extremely contentious, and the story of Armenian orphans is now becoming one of most sensitive and emotionally charged issues in Turkish society. Producer Dorian Jones exposes how descendants of Armenian orphans are discovering their family histories.

http://soundprint.org/radio/display_...menian+Orphans

This is an excellent point which has been area of interest for me. During the genocide, there were hundreds of these orphanages not just in Syria (which remained Christian due to Near East aid efforts) but also more significantly in ANATOLIA - the vast majority of which were raised in Turkish Muslims households in the cases of Anataolian orphanages when parents were not found. Older but unwed females were frequently taken or sold into marriage and not automatically killed (contrast to xxxish Holocaust).

The 1.5 Million killed or destroyed includes the hundreds of thousands of orphanged children as well as forced marriage (the ultimate 'beauty' test - forced into marriage if attractive, killed if not). Some estimate that up to 350,000 of these Armenians survived in Anatolia itself after the end of WW1 and continued living in state sponsored orphanages or continued in these forced converted marriages which allowed survival for the person in question.
A proportion of these Armenians were reunited with their families but it was no more than 50,000. I think these missing numbers of survived, but lost Armenians account for a great deal of descrepancy in overall numbers of civilian deaths on the Armenian side - these 300-350,000 people survived but were also lost, or where they?

The ramifications of this are manyfold

1. A significant portion of the citizens of Turkey have 50, 25, or 12.5% of Armenian inheritence. If we use a conservative amount of 300,000 of these individuals (taken from the eastern villayets during deportations and become married converted Armenian Muslim with crypto-christian tendencies and also as orphans) and apply 1% deate per childbirth and a 10% sterility rate and assume 4 children per married couple we have a population of 1.1 Million by the 1930s of children with 50% Armenian converted muslim (i.e.crypto-christian) roots and 50% Turkish Muslim roots born in the 1920s with someone being 100% crypto-christian Armenians if the orphans intermarried but proportionality exercises would be very complex withou hard data and what percent of intermarriage there would be among the orphans at this stage. (probably <10%) If this group intermarries to each other exclusively and with the same assumptions, we have 1.9 Million children (50/50 mix) + 1.1M parents + 600,000 (Muslim husband/ Armenian wife) grandchildren = 3.6 Million with equal mix by the late 1950s to the 1960s. Continuing with the same assumptions, 6.3 million children born in the 1980s. Once more cycle would put us at 20 million children born in the late 2000 and 2010 period, which would make overall population 29.9 Million of these crypto-christian half turkish and half armenian group in the scenario I presented above.

2. If we instead assume 250,000 fertile converted women with similar mortality and sterility rates (includes women who don't marry), we get 880,000 1st generation (50/50), 2nd generation 1.59 Milllion (full intermarriage, 50/50) OR 2nd generation 800,000 (1/4 Armenian 3/4 Turk) and 800,000 (50/50 mix) if there is 50% marriage outside the sect. 3rd generation 1.6 Million (50/50) and 1.6 Million (Variable - 12.5 to 25% Armenian) = 3.2 Million. 4th Generation would be 2.8 M (50/50) and 2.8 M (6.25 - 25% Armenian). 5th Generation (now) would be 5.4 Million (50/50) and 5.4 Million (3.125 - 25% Armenian). Overall population would be 19.6 Million of which half would be (50/50 mix of Armenian and Turkish) and the rest would be a variable mix with Turkish genetics dominating)


3. Interestingly, among both the orphan population and the converted married women, the concept of crypto-Christian continued to exist in which Muslim practices would be practiced, however Christian traditions would also be followed in different degrees. Further, it has been shown that these crypto-christians ('mixed') tend to intermarry at far higher rates to each other than to other ' pure' Christians or other 'pure' Muslims although data retrieval logistics and data analysis would be an extremely labor intensive and time consuming 'boots on the ground' type research performed over several months. However, these assumptions have been used in other types of assimilated populaion studies so the overall numbers should not deviate more than 10%.

4. What does this mean?

This means there are up to 29.9 Million citizens of Turkey with up to a 50%Armenian lineage today (Muslim with or without crypto-christian component). A More conservative analysis is that there are 19.6 Million citizens of turkey with Armenian lineage with half or 9.8 Million with a 50/50 mix and likelier to be crypto-christian and 9.8 million citizens with an armenian genetic component of 3-25%. These two numbers are much larger than government statistics on Armenian or Christians statistics. As even in the more conservative calculation, there would be nearly 10 million citizens who are still 50% Armenian by genetics given a 50% intermarriage rates. Higher intermarriage rates in the first generation would lead to lower numbers but with citizens with higher Armenian scores, but first generation intermarriage rates to Armenians would be expected to be very low.

5. Ultimately we are talking about 15-30% of the population ending up in this category which stemmed from the policy of abducing Armenian young ladies during the genocide as well as saving some of the orphans. If this group of people, who it would be hard to generalize, decide in convert, etc.. if would have a significant and unknown effect on the state as a whole.

6. It is for these reasons and more that the politica elite have forced any type of discourse on these topics revolving around 1915 although they keep track of every citizen's background for several generations (if you have traces of Armenian blood, you are barred from some military or government positions, etc)

For Further reading:

Shafak, Elif Bastard of Istanbul
Peroomian, Rubina And those who continued Living in Turkey after 1915

[Pazooki]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

[TomServo]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

had to go so why not make a post to remember?

[Pazooki]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

had to go so why not make a post to remember?

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Armenian Orphanages

"This is the shhhhh part of the story".

Got to the end - it is worth listening to.