Part 7

You had only to look at the greedy, pale, suffering faces to know that their words were true. About 1,800 loaves could be procured. Everybody fell greedily upon them; the priests who were charged with the distribution of the bread had almost to fight for their lives; but it was by no means sufficient, and no further bread was to be had. A crowd of hungry people stood imploringly before us. The gendarmerie had to keep them back by force. Suddenly the order for departure was given. If anybody was slow in striking their tent, it was torn down with the bayonet. Three carriages and a number of camels were held in readiness. A few wealthy people quickly hired the carriages, while others less well-to-do loaded a camel with their things. The wailing of the poor, the old and the sick filled the air: "We can't go any further, let us die here." But they had to go on. We were at least able to pay for a camel for some of them, and to give small change to others in order to buy bread at the next station; clothes, sewn at the Mission Station in Adana, were also distributed. Soon the immense procession was moving on. Some of the most miserable were left behind (others rested there already in the newly-dug graves). As many as 200--destitute, old or sick--are said to have waited there for help to come. The misery was increased a hundredfold by the severe rain and cold that had set in. Everywhere convoys left dying people in their track--little children and invalids perishing. Besides all this the epidemic was spreading more and more.

(c) Report by Fräulein M. on a visit to the exiles' camp at Islohia, 1st December, 1915.

It had rained three days and three nights; even in our houses we were acutely sensible of the cold and damp. As soon as possible, I set out on my way. About 200 families had been left behind at Mamouret. They were unable to proceed through exhaustion or illness. In this rain the soldiers, too, felt no inclination to rouse them up and drive them on, so they were lying about in what might have been a lake. There was not a single dry thread left in their ragged bedding. Many women had their feet frost-bitten; they were quite black and in a state for amputation. The wailing and groaning was horrible. Everywhere there were dying people in their last agonies or dead bodies lying in front of the tents. It was only by "bakshish" that the soldiers could be persuaded to bury them. It seemed a comfort to them when we came with dry clothes; they could change their things and get some bread and small change. Then I drove in a carriage along the whole route to Islohia. Though I had seen much distress before, the objects and the scenes I saw here defy description. A frailly-built woman was sitting by the roadside with her bedding on her back, and a young baby strapped on at the top of it; in her arms she had a two-year-old child--its eyes were dim and it was at its last gasp. The woman had broken down in her distress and was weeping in a heartbreaking way. I took her with me to the next camp, where the child died; then I took care of her and sent her on her way. She was so grateful. The whole carriage was packed with bread. I kept on distributing all the time. We had three or four opportunities of buying fresh supplies. These thousands of loaves were a great help to us. I was also able to hire some hundreds of animals to help the poor people forward. The camp at Islohia itself is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Right at the entrance a heap of dead bodies lay unburied. I counted 35, and in another place 22, in the immediate neighbourhood of the tents of those who were down with virulent dysentery. The filth in and around these tents was something indescribable. On one single day the burial committee buried as many as 580 people. Men were fighting for bread like hungry wolves. One saw hideous scenes. With what timidity and apathy these poor people often stared at me, as though they wondered where this assistance came from! For some weeks now many camps have been provided daily with bread. Of course, everything has to be done as unobtrusively as possible. We are so thankful to God that we may at least do something.

(d) Letter from Fräulein M. to Mr. N., dated 13th December, 1915, on the way to Aleppo.

I should have written long before this, but during these last weeks I have been more on the road than at home, and the work in the camps was often so urgent that I could not find time for anything else. I suppose you have had, in the meantime, the receipt for the 200 liras you sent me. Many thanks for the quick response. I only wish you could see these poor people yourself; you would get an impression of the absolutely dreadful need and distress that these camps conceal. It is simply indescribable; one has to have seen it oneself. So far I have had no difficulty whatever; on the contrary, the officials here are most obliging, and grateful for everything we are doing for the poor people. You will find some reports enclosed which Miss O. copied for you as well; they will give you an idea of what we are doing here. Up to the present we have worked in four camps, twelve hours distant. We were often able to distribute about 10 to 20 liras' worth of bread a day; besides this, we gave flour, clothes and nirra to many sick people, to help them on the long journey. Sometimes it happened that in some places we did not have nearly enough bread--in such cases we provided the people with money to buy bread at the next bakery along the route.

Now we are on our way to Aleppo, and Miss O. will stay there some weeks, D.V., to prepare everything for another journey to Der-el-Zor. I intend to come back soon, since there is still much work to do on the Mamouret-Islohia route, and it seems to me that we ought not to give up the work among the distressed so long as any of them are left in this place, for if we did they would absolutely die of starvation. Judging by our recent experience, we shall need about 300 to 400 liras a month. Dr. L. told me to send you word about this, because I should get the money from you. It would be better not to stop the work for lack of money, because the poor people would suffer by it. If, however, you think that less money ought to be spent, or that the whole work should be given up, please send me a telegram in time, so that we may stop doing it. If not, will you please be so kind as to send me the amount. To-day I have asked you by wire to send me 400 liras--200 for Mamouret and 200 for Islohia-Hassan-Beyli.

I hope you are well. We got a message that Dr. L. is down with typhoid. I hope that God will soon give him new strength. Fräulein O. and I both send you our best wishes.

D. ALEPPO.

12. "A word to the accredited representatives of the German people," by Dr. Martin Niepage, Higher Grade Teacher at the German Technical School at Aleppo, at present at Wernigerode.

On my return in September, 1915, from Beirut to Aleppo, after a three months' holiday, I heard, to my horror, that a new period of Armenian massacres had been initiated. I was told that they were far more terrible than those under Abdul Hamid; and that their object was to exterminate, root and branch, the intelligent, prosperous and progressive nation of the Armenians and to transfer their property to Turkish hands.

At first I was unable to believe such a monstrous report. I was told that in various quarters of Aleppo there were masses of half-famished human beings, the survivors of so-called "deportation-convoys," and that in order to cover the extermination of the Armenian people with a political cloak, military reasons had been put forward, which were alleged to necessitate the expulsion of the Armenians from the homes they had occupied for over 2,500 years, and their deportation into the Arabian Desert. It was also said that individual Armenians had lent themselves to acts of espionage.

After having investigated the facts and made enquiries on all sides, I came to the conclusion that the accusations against the Armenians related in all cases to trifling matters, which were taken as a pretext to slay ten thousand innocent persons for one who was guilty, to commit the most savage outrages against women and children, and to carry on a war of starvation against the deported persons with the object of destroying the whole nation.

In order to test the judgment which I had formed from the information I had obtained, I visited every place in the town in which there were any Armenians who had formed part of one of the convoys and had been left behind. I found in dilapidated caravansaries (hans) heaps of dead bodies, many of which were in an advanced state of decomposition, with living persons interspersed among them who were all near to the agony of death. In other yards I found heaps of sick and famished persons who were absolutely uncared for. Near the German Technical School, of which I am one of the higher grade teachers, there were four hans of this class with 700-800 deported persons who were starving. We, the teachers at the school, and our pupils had to pass them every day. Through the open windows we saw, each time we went out, the emaciated forms, covered with rags, of these miserable beings. Our school children had every morning almost to touch the two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen which they had to pass in the narrow streets, and in which every day 8-10 rigid corpses were carted away without coffins and without covering of any sort, the arms and legs protruding from the cart.

After having been a witness of these scenes during several days, I thought it my duty to draft the following report--

"As teachers at the German Technical School at Aleppo we take leave humbly to submit the following report:--

"We deem it our duty to call attention to the fact that our educational work will lose its moral foundation and the esteem of the natives, if the German Government is not in a position to prevent the brutality with which the wives and children of slaughtered Armenians are treated in this place. The convoys which, on the departure of the exiles from their homes in Upper Armenia, consisted of 2,000-3,000 persons--men, women and children--arrive here in the south with a remnant of only two or three hundred survivors. The men are killed on the way, the women and children, excepting those of unattractive appearance and those who are quite old or quite young, are first abused by Turkish soldiers and officers, and then brought into Turkish or Kurd villages, where they have to go over to Islam. As regards the remnant of the caravans, every effort is made to reduce them by hunger and thirst. Even when a river is passed, those who are dying of thirst are not permitted to drink. As their only food a small quantity of flour is strewn on their hands as a daily ration; this they greedily lick off, but its only effect is to delay death from starvation for a little while longer.

"Opposite to the German Technical School at Aleppo in which we do our work as teachers, a remnant of some of these convoys is lying in one of the hans; there are about 400 emaciated forms; about 100 boys and girls, from five to seven years old, are among them. Most of them are suffering from typhoid and dysentery. On entering the yard one has the impression of coming into a lunatic asylum. When food is brought to them, one notices that they have lost the habit of eating. The stomach, weakened by months of starvation, has ceased to be able to receive food. Any bread that is given to them is laid aside with an air of indifference. They just lie there quietly, waiting for death.

"How can we teachers read German fairy tales with our pupils, or, indeed, the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible? How can we ask them to decline and conjugate indifferent words, while round about in the neighbouring yards the starving brothers and sisters of our Armenian pupils are succumbing to a lingering death? In these circumstances our educational work flies in the face of all true morality and becomes a mockery of human feeling.

"And those poor creatures who in their thousands have been driven through the town and the neighbouring districts into the desert; nearly all of them are women and children, and what becomes of them? They are driven on from place to place, until the thousands dwindle into hundreds and until the hundreds dwindle into insignificant remnants. And these remnants are again driven on until the last survivors have ceased to live. Then only the final goal of the migration has been reached. Then the wanderers have arrived at 'the new homes assigned to the Armenians,' as the newspapers express it.

"'Ta'alim el aleman' ('that is the teaching of the Germans') says the simple Turk, when asked about the authors of these measures. [24] The educated Moslems are convinced that, though the German people may disapprove of such horrors, the German Government is taking no steps to prevent them, out of consideration for its Turkish Allies.

"Mohammedans of more refined feelings, Turks as well as Arabs, shake their heads disapprovingly; they do not even conceal their tears when, in the passage of a convoy of deported Armenians through the town, they see Turkish soldiers inflicting blows with heavy sticks on women in advanced pregnancy or dying persons who cannot drag themselves any further. They cannot imagine that their Government has ordered these cruelties, and ascribe all excesses to the guilt of the Germans, who during the war are held to be the teachers of the Turks in all matters. [25] Even the Mollahs declare in the Mosques that it was not the Sublime Porte but the German officers who had ordered the ill-treatment and annihilation of the Armenians.

"The things which in this place have been before everybody's eyes during many months, must indeed remain a blot on Germany's shield of honour in the memory of Oriental nations.

"Many educated persons, who do not wish to be obliged to give up their faith in the character of the Germans whom they have hitherto respected, explain the matter to themselves in the following manner: they say, 'The German nation probably knows nothing of the horrible massacres which are on foot at the present time against the native Christians all over Turkey. How is it possible otherwise, having regard to the veracity of the German nation, that articles should appear in German papers showing complete ignorance of all these events, and only stating that some individual Armenians were deservedly shot by martial law as spies and traitors?' Others say: 'Perhaps the hands of the German Government are tied by some convention regulating the limits of its competence, or intervention does not appear opportune at the present moment.'

"It is known to us that the Embassy at Constantinople was informed of all these events by the German Consulates. As, notwithstanding this fact, nothing has been altered in the system of deportation, our conscience compels us to make this report." [26]

At the time I composed this report, the German Consul at Aleppo was represented by his colleague from Alexandretta, Consul Hoffmann. The latter told me that the Embassy at Constantinople was fully informed of what was happening in the country by repeated reports from the Consulates at Aleppo, Alexandretta and Mosul, but that a report about the things which I had seen with my own eyes would be welcome as a supplement to the existing records, and as filling in the details. He promised to send my report by a sure agency to the Embassy at Constantinople. I thereupon drafted a report in the desired manner, giving a detailed description of the state of things in the han opposite our school. The Consul wished to add some photographs which he himself had taken in the han. They revealed heaps of corpses, between which young children, still alive, were crawling about or relieving nature.

In this revised form the report was signed not only by me, but also by my colleagues, Dr. Graeter (higher grade teacher) and Frau Marie Spiecker. The Director of our Institution, Herr Huber, also added his name and the following words: "The report of my colleague, Dr. Niepage, is not in any way exaggerated. For many weeks we have lived here in an air poisoned with sickness and the stench of corpses. Only the hope for a speedy change of things makes it possible for us to continue our work." [27]

The hoped-for change of things did not occur. I then thought of resigning my post as higher grade teacher at the German Technical School, stating as the ground for my decision that it appeared senseless and morally indefensible to give instruction and education as a representative of European culture, and at the same time to have to sit with folded hands while the Government of the country abandoned persons belonging to the same nation as our pupils to an agonizing death by starvation. But those around me, as well as the Director of the Institution, Herr Huber, dissuaded me from this intention. My attention was called to the fact that it would be useful for us to remain in the country as eye-witnesses of the events which were occurring. Perhaps our presence would have the effect of inducing the Turks, out of consideration for us Germans, to behave somewhat more humanely towards their unfortunate victims. I see now that I have far too long remained a silent witness of all these wrongs.

Nothing was improved by our presence, and we ourselves were able to give only very little help. Frau Spiecker, our energetic, brave fellow teacher, purchased some soap, and the lice-covered bodies of the women and children who were still alive in our neighbourhood were washed and freed from vermin (there were no men left). Frau Spiecker engaged some women, who prepared soup for those of the patients who were still able to eat. I myself distributed, every evening for six weeks, among the dying children the contents of two pails filled with tea, cheese and soaked bread. But when the hunger-typhus or spotted-typhus spread into the town from these charnel-houses, we succumbed, together with five of our colleagues, and had to stop our relief work. Moreover, no help given to the exiles who came to Aleppo was of any use. We could only afford those condemned to death a few slight alleviations of their death agony.

What we saw here in Aleppo with our own eyes was, in fact, only the last scene of the great tragedy of the extirpation of the Armenians; only a trifling fraction of the horrors which were being perpetrated simultaneously in the other Turkish provinces. The engineers of the Bagdad railway, on their return from the section under construction, and German travellers, who on their way had met the caravans of the deported, spoke of still more abominable horrors. Many of these men could eat nothing for days; the impression of the loathsome things they had seen was too overpowering.

One of them (Herr Greif, of Aleppo) reported that heaps of corpses of violated women were lying naked on the railway embankment near Abiad and Ras-el-Ain. In the case of many, sticks had been driven into the anus. Another (Herr Spiecker, of Aleppo) saw Turks tie Armenian men together, fire several volleys of small shot with fowling pieces into the human mass, and go off laughing, while their victims slowly perished in frightful convulsions. Other men were sent rolling down steep slopes with their hands tied behind their backs. Below there were women, who slashed those who had rolled down with knives until they were dead. A Protestant minister who two years ago had given a most cordial reception to my colleague, Dr. Graeter, had his finger nails torn out.

The German Consul at Mosul said in my presence in the German Club at Aleppo that he had seen so many children's hands lying hacked off on his way from Mosul to Aleppo, that one could have paved the road with them. [28]

In the German Hospital at Ourfa there is also a little girl, both of whose hands have been hacked off. Herr Holstein, the German Consul at Mosul, also saw, in the neighbourhood of an Arab village, shortly before reaching Aleppo, shallow graves with freshly-buried Armenian corpses. The Arab villagers asserted that they had killed these Armenians by order of the Government. One of them said proudly that he personally had killed eight.

In many houses in Aleppo, inhabited by Christians, I found Armenian girls hidden away, whom some accidental circumstances had enabled to escape death; they had either remained behind in a state of exhaustion, having been taken for dead when their convoy was driven on; or some European had found an opportunity to purchase these miserable beings for a few shillings from the Turkish soldier who had last violated them. All these girls are in a state of mental collapse. Many had been compelled to look on while their parents had their throats cut. I know some of these pitiable creatures, who for months were unable to utter a word, and even now cannot be coaxed into a smile. A girl of the age of 14 was received into the home of the depôt-manager of the Bagdad railway at Aleppo, Herr Krause. The child had been raped so many times by Turkish soldiers during one night that she had completely lost her reason. I saw her tossing on her pillow in delirium with hot lips, and I found it difficult to make her drink some water.

A German who is known to me witnessed the following incident in the neighbourhood of Ourfa; hundreds of Christian peasant women were forced by Turkish soldiers to take off all their clothes. For the amusement of the soldiers they had to drag themselves through the desert for days together in a temperature of 40° Centigrade, until their skin was completely burnt. Another person saw a Turk tear a child out of the womb of its Armenian mother, and throw it against the wall.

Other facts, some of them worse than the few instances given here, are recorded in the numerous reports of the German Consuls at Alexandretta, Aleppo and Mosul. [29] The Consuls are of opinion that, up to the present date, about a million Armenians have perished by the massacres of the last months. Women and children, who either were killed or died from starvation, probably form one half of this number.

Conscience compels us to call attention to these things. Though the Government, by the annihilation of the Armenian people, only intends to further internal political objects, the execution of the scheme has in many respects the character of a persecution of Christians.

All the tens of thousands of young girls and women, who have been dragged away to Turkish harems, and the masses of children who have been collected by the Government and distributed among Turks and Kurds, are lost to the Christian Churches and are compelled to go over to Islam. The opprobrious name of "Giaour" is again used against the Germans.