THIRD DIGITAL EXHIBIT ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RELEASED
17:01, 03 Feb 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
A third digital exhibit on the Armenian Genocide consisting of 128
images on 24 panels entitled “The First Deportation: The German
Railroad, the American Hospital, and the Armenian Genocide” was
released today by the Armenian National Institute (ANI), Armenian
Genocide Museum of America (AGMA) and Armenian Assembly of America
(Assembly). Available on the ANI, AGMA, and Assembly websites, the
exhibit focuses on two localities, Zeytun, an Armenian city in the
Taurus Mountains, and Konya, a Turkish city in the central Anatolian
plain, both linked by the Armenian Genocide.
The remote and self-sustaining city of Zeytun was the first Armenian
community in Ottoman Turkey deported en masse in April 1915. To deprive
the Zeytun Armenians of any capacity to defy the deportation edicts,
the Young Turk government divided its population sending one part
east toward the Syrian Desert and another part west to the barren
flats of the Konya Plain.
By this fate, the Zeytun deportees were routed down from their mountain
homes through the nearby city of Marash and the Cilician Plain and back
up through the high passes of the Cilician Gates of the Taurus Range,
the only accessible road from Cilicia to Anatolia. This route also
placed them along the Berlin-Bagdad rail line then under construction
through those very same passes.
By intersecting that rail line, Zeytun Armenians soon found themselves
among the rest of the Armenian population of western Anatolia being
deported east by train to the main terminus at Konya and substations
beyond, where they were offloaded from cattle cars to walk down the
mountain passes, while work crews led by German and Swiss engineers
were cutting open new roads and tunnels to complete the construction
of the rail system.
There also happened to be an American hospital in Konya manned by
three outstanding figures who soon found themselves in the midst
of hundreds of thousands of Armenian deportees and as such became
witnesses to the unfolding of the Armenian Genocide. The station
at Konya was supposed to serve only as a transit camp, but with all
of the Armenians of western and central Anatolia routed through the
city, the open spaces beyond the station transformed into a vast
concentration camp. Because Konya was never intended to exist as
a destination camp and was evacuated within a short time, it has
been forgotten as a major site in the trail of deportation and the
central object of what transpired there overlooked. It was evident to
all observers in the city how rapidly the Ottoman Turkish government
reduced an industrious and prosperous people to misery. In Konya it was
already visible that all it took was a matter of days, not even weeks.
The testimony provided by Dr. Wilfred Post and Dr. William Dodd,
and the efforts of Miss Emma Cushman, all three American medical
missionaries, provide compelling information about the rapidly
deteriorating conditions along the rail line and the start of the
process of extinguishing Armenian life across the region. Their
information is paralleled by the protests of German civilians in the
same area who sharply criticized the Ottoman authorities and raised
questions with their own government about the morality of German
wartime policies.
More compelling still were the photographs taken by Dr. Wilfred Post
and the German railroad engineers that documented the wartime reality
on this particular swath of Ottoman territory. While as wartime
allies of the Turks, Germans enjoyed a certain amount of liberty in
their actions, Dr. Post took a serious risk in defying the ban on
photographing the Armenians.
Retrieved from the United States National Archives, the entire set of
photographs taken by Dr. Wilfred Post are being issued for the first
time in this exhibit. They constitute the central evidence around
which the entire exhibit is constructed.
Dr. Post captioned the photographs, and succeeded in delivering them
to the American Embassy in Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, from
where they were sent by diplomatic pouch to Washington, DC. They might
have been the very first images of the Armenian Genocide to arrive
into the hands of U.S. officials. In this regard, the historic value
of Dr. Post’s photographs are matched only by those taken by U.S.
consul Leslie Davis who documented the Armenian Genocide in the region
of Harput/Kharpert.
Because of the numbers of Armenians being deported and the pace at
which the western Anatolian cities were emptied of their Armenian
inhabitants, the Konya train station became a choke point in the
deportation process. Vast concentration camps of homeless Armenian
families soon formed along the tracks. The brutality of the process,
the complete lack of sanitation, and the absence of sources of food
very rapidly created an explosive situation threatening the spread of
epidemics. Thousands of Armenians never made it beyond the stations
of the Konya line and conditions in the refugee camps were so foul
and violent that a train conductor is quoted by Dr. Dodd describing
the Bozanti station as “hell on earth.”
Consisting of 121 images, 7 maps, and containing a rich variety of
eyewitness testimony, the exhibit reconstructs Armenian life in Zeytun,
reproduces the two rare photographs showing the arrest of the Zeytun
men, outlines the deportation route to the degree that contemporary
photographs allow, depicts the city of Konya, showing the contrast
between the rugged mountains in which Zeytun Armenians were accustomed
to living and the flat, arid, and sparsely populated plain of Konya.
The exhibit includes previously unpublished photographs of Zeytun,
reproduces newly released images from German sources, and, in addition
to the United States National Archives material, presents images
from the Australian War Memorial; University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
England, Gertrude Bell Archives; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Kelsey Museum; Mennonite Church USA Archives; the Armenian Missionary
Association of America and the Haigazian University Archives of Beirut,
Lebanon; Library of Congress; Republic of Armenia National Archives;
as well as online resources and private individuals.
ANI especially recognizes the historian Aram Arkun whose close study
of documentary sources addressed the complex situation surrounding
the denouement in Zeytun and who served as project consultant for the
exhibit. ANI also thanks Gunter Hartnagel, a professional photographer,
who provided valuable guidance on German historical images, and whose
researches in historical geography helped understand the terrain
that was covered by the Zeytun deportees and appreciate the hardships
endured by those who trudged through the mountains of Cilicia at the
point of a bayonet.
The location of Konya on the train line also helped to document
the post-war situation in the city. Accompanying a U.S. aid mission
and relief workers, the American photographer George Robert Swain
recorded the efforts of Miss Cushman to create a safe haven for
surviving Armenian orphans. In so doing Swain added another layer of
documentation about the fate of the Armenian population and helped
create, in sum with Dr. Post’s pictures, one of the more comprehensive
photographic records of a single location so directly impacted by
the Armenian Genocide.
The final demise of the Armenians of Konya was sealed with the
fate of Dr. Armenag Haigazian who, as a highly-regarded educator,
embodied the Armenian Protestant community’s hope of recovery. He
had survived the war years and the violence of the Young Turk regime,
but his restoration of the Apostolic Institute made him the target of
the Turkish Nationalist movement, which saw to the shuttering of the
school and the second exile and persecution of Dr. Haigazian. World
War I may have ended and the Young Turk government overthrown, but
the Armenian Genocide in Turkey continued, making the death of Dr.
Haigazian a most poignant tragedy, especially as he famously held a
doctorate from Yale University.
This third digital exhibit continues and builds upon the themes
developed in the exhibits released earlier, including the role and
fate of Armenian clergy, churches and schools, the role of American
missionaries and relief workers, and the role of Germans in Ottoman
Turkey, while distinguishing between the attitudes of civilian,
military, and diplomatic representatives.
The exhibit highlights the unsolvable dilemma faced by the Armenian
Catholicos of Cilicia Sahag II Khabayan, who, unaware of the broader
scheme about to be implemented by the Young Turk regime, advised the
Zeytun population to cooperate with the authorities in the hope of
avoiding a repetition of the Cilician massacres that spread terror
across the region a mere six years earlier. The acts and observations
of other clergymen, including Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople
Zaven Der Yeghiayan, his successor Archbishop Mesrob Naroyan,
Archbishop Stepannos Hovagimian of Ismit, Grigoris Balakian, and
Reverend William Peet, are also explained as part of the testimony
on this specific aspect of the Armenian Genocide.
The exhibit also highlights the role of an exceptional Ottoman
official, who, as governor of Aleppo and of Konya, opposed the
measures of the Young Turk radicals. Jelal Bey was the highest ranking
administrator in the Ottoman Empire who disapproved of the policies
of the triumvirate ruling from Constantinople. A number of lower
ranking officials who disagreed with the regime were killed by Young
Turk party henchmen. Opposing the Young Turk regime required courage,
and Jelal placed his life in jeopardy. He may have been spared only
because of his stature and lifelong service to the state.
The exhibit also reveals the involvement of a German diplomat, who as
an embassy councilor in Constantinople played a role in maintaining
German-Turkish relations, and as such became among the recipients
of the flow of information being reported about the implementation
of the Armenian Genocide. A lesser official at the time, Konstantin
von Neurath rose through the ranks eventually to serve as Minister
of Foreign Affairs in Nazi Germany and as governor of occupied
Czechoslovakia, where Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of
the Holocaust, served as his deputy.
The exhibit concludes with testimony from Dr. Charles Mahjoubian,
a native of Konya who resettled in Philadelphia and entered the
profession of dentistry. As a survivor, he committed himself to
testifying to the events he witnessed in his hometown. He pointed with
pride to his birthplace as one of the earliest centers of Christianity,
dating to St. Paul preaching in Iconium (ancient name of Konya), and as
a center of Turkish Islam where religious piety restrained the hand of
the local population, in sharp relief to the political fanaticism of
the Young Turk regime and the brutality of its associates. According
to Mahjoubian, by a strict reading of the banishment legislation,
Jelal Bey succeeded for a brief while in delaying the deportation of
Catholic and Protestant Armenians.
“The First Deportation: the German Railway, the American Hospital,
and the Armenian Genocide” strengthens and clarifies the photographic
documentation of the Armenian Genocide in a manner consistent and
supportive of third party records, eyewitness accounts and survivor
testimony. It expands the scope of the evidence and attests to the
horrors that unfolded in 1915.
“It did not escape contemporaries that there were immediate lessons
to be drawn from the example of Zeytun,” observed Van Z. Krikorian,
ANI chairman. “Other communities grasped the methods by which the Young
Turk regime pressurized local politics and aggravated relations among
religious and ethnic groups in order to create conditions to justify
the wholesale depopulation of Armenian towns and cities. Reverend
Ephraim Jernazian drew a direct connection between the failure of
the Zeytun Armenians to stand their ground and the heroic defense of
their neighborhood by Urfa Armenians. Hopeless as their actions might
have been at the time, the Armenians of Urfa made the point that they
would not be submitting to tyranny willingly, nor give up their lives
easily to help fulfill the violent designs of the Young Turks.”
“The clarity of that lesson from the past resonates today with the
necessary defense of Nagorno Karabakh where Armenians yet again
a century later face another enemy whose objective remains their
expulsion from their homeland. The commitment of the Armenians of
Artsakh to avoid the fate of the Western Armenian population was
inspired by the tragedies of the Armenian Genocide and the pledge of
survivors to avoid a repeat of such a calamity,” concluded Krikorian.
“I want to thank Rouben Adalian for uncovering these valuable records
on the Armenian Genocide, and Joe Piatt and Aline Maksoudian for
working with Dr. Adalian in creating this impressive exhibit,”
Krikorian added.
“Relief workers, educators, missionaries, orphanage administrators,
and other volunteers from the United States played a massive role in
relieving the plight of the survivors,” stated ANI Director, Dr.
Rouben Adalian. “Many of the longtime American residents of Turkey
also witnessed and reported the deportations and massacres of 1915.
Because of the remoteness of Konya from the other major centers of the
Armenian Genocide, Dr. Wilfred Post, Dr. William Dodd, and Miss Emma
Cushman may not have been extended the recognition they deserve. The
compelling evidence of this exhibit now ranks them among the heroic
Americans who helped save lives during the Armenian Genocide.”
http://www.armradio.am/en/2015/02/03/third-digital-exhibit-on-armenian-genocide-released/