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**Joseph** · 09-11-2007, 12:22 PM

Excerpts of the Writings of a German Citizen Who Died in Turkey

I traveled to Marash between June 28 and August 20, 1915. The subject of the discussions of the inhabitants of the Beshgeoz village, which is situated between Kilis and Ayntab, was that the deportation of Armenians from Marash was going to start the next day. A few moments later, a well dressed man who gave the impression that he was a Circassian -- due to the fact that he was partly dressed like a mufti (a religious leader) and partly like an officer -- approached the crowd and asked, "From which side of the city are they taking the population away; through which road are they passing; what kind of people are they; and how can we take advantage of them?" One of the persons present asked him whether he was a civilian or a military personnel. He replied, by smiling, "Can there be a better opportunity than now for being a military personnel?" The same individual added, "This time Germany has given such a lesson to these pigs that they will never forget."
Having heard that comment, I was forced to reply saying that mentioning the name of Germany with these events was equivalent to burying it. When I came back, I heard that the first caravans of Ayntab, that were exclusively consisted of wealthy people, were robbed up to their last shirts. I learned from different sources that the governmental authorities had turned a blind eye to these events and that the person mentioned above was collaborating with them. In Karabuyuk, which is located between Ayntab and Marash, I came across a group of Armenians comprised of 40 women and children, as well as 5 or 6 men. Before them walked 100 soldiers, at a distance of 180 yards. Among the women, there was a young teacher who had been carrying out her duties among Germans for a few years. She had just healed from acute typhus. The soldiers required that she and another young woman, the husband of whom was a conscript in Damascus, spend the night with them, and it resorted to violence. The attacks of the soldiers were driven back, thanks to the intercession of muslim muleteers who rushed to the aid of the women.

On August 6th, the Armenian village of Fendedjak, near Marash (which had 3,000 inhabitants), was totally destroyed. The population consisted almost entirely of muleteers had been forced to transport Armenians to the Euphrates during the prior three months. They had seen with their own eyes bodies in the Euphrates, as well as the sale and rape of women and girls.

In one of the Armenian schools of Marash, I saw more than 100 women and children who had sustained bullet wounds in their legs and arms, and who had been mutilated in various ways. Among them there were one- or two-year old children.

On the 13th of August, 34 Armenians -- two of whom were 12 year old boys -- were executed in Marash. In the same way, on the 15th of August, 24 persons were shot and 14 hung. The 24 people who were shot were attached to each other by their necks with a heavy chain and had been forced to stand up as one body. They were shot behind the American college, in the presence of the local inhabitants. I saw with my own eyes that the bodies, still shaken with agonizing pain, were delivered to a strange crowd of civilians who tugged at their hands and legs. During the following half hour, policemen and gendarmes kept shooting at the bodies -- some of which were terribly disfigured -- with pistols, while the population joyfully observed. Later, the same crowd filed past the German hospital and chanted, "Long Live Germany!" Muslims told me repeatedly that the reason for the massacre of Armenians in this manner was due to the Germans.

While traveling from the city to a village, on the outskirts of the town, I saw a human head separated from the body on a pile of garbage, which the Turkish notables (aghas) were using as a target. During my stay in Marash, Armenians were killed every day by inhabitants of the city, and the bodies remained in open sewers or elsewhere for several days.

In Marash, General Kadir told me, "I know that all these people in the region of the 4th Army died as a consequence of an order of the government."

On the Friday, the 20th of August, 1915, at six o'clock in the evening, it was publicly announced in Marash that, according to an order of the Governor of Adana, all men above the age of 15 (5,000 persons) should gather outside the city to depart on Saturday afternoon. If after 12 o'clock any of them were found in the city, they would be killed on the spot. Everybody knew the meaning of that order and we lived in terror for hours that day. At the very last moment, thanks to the intercession of the very kind Governor of Marash, the order of the Governor of Adana was modified, to the extent that it allowed the men to depart with their families; whereas, on the 18th of August, the Governor had reassured the religious authorities that the Armenians of Marash would not be deported. Thus, those who had come out of the cities were forced to leave without any preparations.

All the Armenian inhabitants of the village of Beoveren, which is situated near Albistan and amounted to 82 people, were murdered, with the exception of a 12 year old boy who dove in the water and escaped.

The inhabitants of a village located around Zeytoun were deported, despite being contaminated with smallpox. Those who suffered from smallpox, among whom were people who had lost their sight, stayed in the hotels of Marash, where deportees from other regions were already present.

I saw a caravan of 100 people. Among them were a few blind people. A 60 year old mother was leading her daughter who was lame from birth. They started their travel on foot. An hour later, a man fell near the bridge of Erkesen. They immediately robbed and killed him. Four days later we saw his body still lying in the mud.

Last night I visited a friend. He hosted a mother and her child -- who were the survivors of a family of 26 individuals deported from Sivas -- that were deported from Sivas three months earlier, but whom had only arrived a few days ago.

In Ayntab I saw a written order of the Governor forbidding the Muslim population to buy the belongings of deported Armenians. That same Governor organized an attack on the deportees; two caravans were robbed completely.

Two thousand eight hundred people deported from Gurin were attacked near Ayran Ponar (at a distance of 12 hours from Marash in a north-eastward direction) and massacred by 8 bandits who were either wearing military uniforms or dressed like civilians. In Kizil Getchit, located at a distance of an hour and a half from Ayran Ponar, the 8 bandits were joined by the gendarmes accompanying the caravan and they engaged in a long discussion. In Ayran Ponar, gendarmes ordered the people to split into two groups. One group was comprised of women. They were told to undress and then they were robbed. In the night, four women and two girls were removed and then raped. The next morning, five of them returned to the caravan. In one of the straits of the Engisek mountain, Turks and Kurds together pillaged the entire caravan. During this attack 200 people died. Seventy heavily wounded people were left behind and more than 50 others were taken away with the caravan. Later, I came across the same caravan again in Karabuyuk, at which time it was comprised of 2,500 people. People were in an indescribable state of misery. At a distance of an hour and a half from Karabuyuk, two men were lying on the road: one was wounded by two blows from a knife, the other by seven. A bit further, women who were exhausted were lying on the road. Even further down the road lay 4 ladies, one of whom was a 13 year old girl, holding in her arms her 2 day old baby which was wrapped in pieces of cloth. A 60 year old man, who was lying on the road because of his wound -- which measured one finger long and 2 fingers wide (caused by a blow from a knife) -- told me he had taken to the road with his 13 animals from Gurun. All his animals and belongings were confiscated from him in Ayran Ponar, and he had dragged himself to a place which was at a distance of an hour and a half from Karabuyuk, where he finally collapsed from exhaustion.

All those people were wealthy. The animals, belongings, and the amount of money stolen from them was valued at 8,000 Turkish golden coins. The wounded were lying on the road, surrounded on both side by bodies. There were barely 30-40 men in this caravan which consisted of 2,500 people. Every man above the age of 15 had been taken away in the presence of the women and most likely murdered. These Armenians were intentionally transferred via tortuous roads and dangerous straits. By a straight road, they would have reached Marash in 4 days; whereas, they were on the road for more than a month. They were forced to travel without animals, beds, or food. They received a thin slice of bread per day, which could not satisfy their hunger. Four hundred of them (Protestants) arrived in Halep, and 2 or 3 people died every day.

The robbery of Ayran Ponar took place with the complicity of the Kaymakam (governmental representative in a provincial district) of Albistan, who received 200 Turkish golden coins and promised the people to take them safely to Ayntab. The Kaymakam of Gurin received 1,200 Turkish golden coins and provided the same reassurances. In the club of Gurun, I saw a man who was remitting that sum to the Kaymakam. In the vicinity of Ayntab, a few women belonging to that group were raped by the inhabitants of Ayntab. During the robbery of Ayran Ponar, men were tied to trees and burned alive. While the Armenians of Gurin moved away from the town, the mollas chanted prayers on the roofs of Christian churches. An eyewitness told me about an argument between two brothers regarding loot seized in Ayran Ponar. One of them told the other, "For these four loads, I assassinated 40 women."

In Marash, a Muslim named Hani, that I had known for years, told me the following, "In Nisibin, the other muleteers and I were imprisoned in an inn. A few young women coming from Furnuz were raped in the night both by gendarmes and civilians accompanying the caravan."

In the office of the police superintendent of Ayntab, a Muslim notable (agha) told the following to an Armenian, in my presence, "Letters were found in such and such places. What kind of relationship do you have with that man? How many times did I tell you to become a muslim? If you had listened to me, you would have avoided all the unpleasant things to which your nation is being subjected."

Out of the 18,000 people deported from Harpout and Sivas, 350 reached Halep (women and children). Out of the 1,900 people deported from Erzeroum, only 11 persons -- an ill boy, four girls, and six women -- arrived in that city. A group of women and girls were forced to walk for 65 hours from Ras-El-Ayn to Halep following the railway, despite the fact that at the same time, trains used for the transportation of soldiers were returning empty. Muslim travelers who had passed through these regions described the road as being impassable due to the numerous bodies left in plain view, the smell of which stunk up the air. One hundred to one hundred and twenty people from among the survivors died in Halep as a consequence of the tortures they had endured during the journey. When starving women and children arrived in Halep, they hurled themselves upon food like wild animals. The digestive organs of many of them ceased to function. After having gulped down a few spoonfuls of food, they laid their spoons down. The government asserted that the deportees were provided with food, but in the case of the above-mentioned caravan, which was coming from Harpout, there was only one distribution of bread during the course of three months.

"Germany, Turkey and Armenia", J. J. Keliher, 1917, London.

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