The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-11-11
ARMENIAN ATROCITIES
As Reported From German Sources

ing pigs lesson they won't forget" The same writer reports that after S4 Armenians, among them 12year- old boys, had been shot in Marasch, crowds paraded to the German hos pital crying 'Three cheers for Ger many.'
 "A German speaking Turkish Major says the same writer com plained, the General of the Staff is a German and so many Germans are in our army. Our Koran does not al- low such treatment as the Armenians are now receiving"
 German nurses write: Refugees were driven past our house. The procession was a huge mass, but with only two or three men; the remain der were women and children. Many cried like mad women. They scream ed-'Save us, save us, we are will ing to become Moslems or Germans or whatever you want us to become, only save us! We are to be taken to Kefnagh- h-Boghosy to beheaded!
 No picture of suffering can be more narrowing than that made by the parts of these accounts describing the wake of the deportation hands. Death came so frequently and with such 
 insult starvation and indignity, that doubtless modern history has no parallel for this great march of slaughter and distress. More. than once the witnesses characterize the horrors they could not escape see- ing as ''unbelievable'' and yet so in- tense and frightful as to be almost maddening.
 Across arid country for great dis tances, sometimes through hilly lands, lands, but always away from the main roads where witnesses would be nu- merous, the Armenian villagers and townfolk wsre driven by Turkish gendarmerie to concentration camps on the border of the Arabian desert. Almost to the last one the men and boys were massacred deliberately by the soldiers and by Kurdish Tribes men who followed the line of march. Women and girls were violated by the soldiers, stolen by the Tribesmen or taken by wealthy Turks for their harems. The scantest rations were distributed and for days no water was obtainable. Babies and, women had their clothing torn away, and staggered beneath blows and oathes through hours unbearably hot Wo- men were forced to rise from child birth without rest and totter on. When children cried the guards des- patched them; when any stumbled they were left to die. The marches were lined by corpses; those few that had a burial were scratched out of shallow graves by dogs.
 Insances of such character are al- mobst innumerable in the German accounts. Extracts from German consular report of July II, 1915, tell of the beginning of the deportation from Charput (Harput) of the Ar menians
 'fOn the eleventh" says the report, "a proclamation was issued that all Armenians without exception were to leave the city.
 During the first days of July one saw in Erzerum and Erzingjan the first shift arriving, ragged, dirty, starved, ill. They had been on the way two months, almost without nourishment, without water. They were givenhay to eat like the anil mals; they were so hungry that they threw themselves at it like animals, but they were forced back with sticks and several were killed in this way. 3nOtlACIS OllOISu LIlGlI to any who would accept them. The Turks sent physicians to the young girls to question them in regard to their for their harems. After the sentence of these unforutnates most of the re- mainder were killed by Kurds, many died of hunger and exhaustion.
 1.-Two days later the arrival of al shift sisters, who spoke English and be- longed to one of the wealthiest fam flies in Erzerum. Of 25 of family, II had been killed en route. The hus- band of one of them and her oldI grandmother had been killed by thef kurds before her eyes. A boy of eight years. was the oldest man among them. When they left Erzer- um. they took horses, money and baggage with them. Everything had been taken from them on the way, even to their clothes, one of them was entirely naked the other two had a shirt. In one of the villages the gend- arm had given them some clothing of the inhabitants.
 ''The daughter of the Protestant minister of Erzerum was there. her entire family had been killed by Kurds, first the men and then the women and children. Everything was well organized as at all previous massacres.
 "In Charput the deportation start ed by taking the men into custody, there were several. thousand of them taken; they were at first taken in- to the nearby mountains, among them was the Armenian Prelate, profess sors of the Armenian college and the highest officials of the city, also all Armenian soldiers and those who were in service but were exempt from duty. They were told that all that were lead to the mountains would be killed.
 Tn the morning of the 5th of July, 800 more were taken and at 6 o'clock they were to be found in the deserts. There they were bound together in groups of 14-this was the limit that the rope could holland then they were shot. In neighbor- ing village some of them were taken into mosque and empty houses and then locked in; there they were com pelled to remain for three days with out nourishment, and without water, then they were driven into a nearby valley, stood up against a rock and shot; some were killed with bayonets and knives. No crime was charged against any of them, there was not even a pretense of charge.
 "On the 10th of July a new mas-