The Mena weekly star., 1917-08-23
DECLARE GERMANS
 WORSE THAN TURKS
Armenian Tells of Atrocities Per petrated Upon His PeOple-The Country Made a Hell--i00,0O0
 Persons Recently Massacred.


 Persons Recently Massacred.
 Bombay, July , (by mail The following statement given 10 the As sociated Press by British officer now in a hospital here, presents a vivid picture of the sufferings un- dergone by the Armenians of which comparatively little first-hand in- formation has hitherto been forth coming.
 Before 1 got my wound in the fighting Up beyond Bagdad, met on several occasions a highly educated Armenian who had escaped from the Turks, and was being employed by us as an interpreter" said the off, cer. The stories he told of the in- humanities inflicted upon his peo- pie were so appalling that l made notes of his conversations and have attempted here to reproduce them in something like his own language, so that you can get at the heart of the man and realize what he and all educated Armenians feel. The in terpreter was in Constantinople un- til the end of last year, when he was sent to the front with party of Ar |menians, several of whom escaped
 The Interpreters Story.
 The interpreters story follows:
 What you have read and heard about Armenia is not a hundredth part of the truth. Dante's Inferno was a heaven compared with the hell that the Turks have made of my country Something of the aw- full reality of the past i2 months have myself seen in passing thru on the way to the front
 At Aleppo there are four facto- ries in which 2,000 Armenian women are being employed under terrible conditions. One said to me: On a halt during our deportationS l saw gendarme bury a sick woman alive. Cold-blooded murders were an eV- eryday occurrence. Our guard had orders to kill on the spot anyone who Jagged behind. Often several were killed at once and the bodies were just thrown into a ditch to- gether and covered.
 Bate. Messguene and For are places never to be forgotten by us Armenians. l have visited them. Do you know what happened there a few months since2 By order of the governor, Atif, nearly 100000 of my brothers were murdered, massaered hy armed Circassians.
 trucks of Armenian children being dispatched to an unknown desti- nation.
 Germans Worse Than Turks.
 The German soldiers seen around stations in Armenia are generally of a low type and not far behind the Turks in their disregard for the rights of our people.
 Their cruelty is a little different from that of the Turks. but the diff ference is only one of kind. The Turks. for example. often respect certain things which we have learned to associate with our re- ligious or racial beliefs; the Ger man has no respect for anything. nothing is too sacred for his pro- fane hands. The Turks freduently used to show some respect and def erenee to the upper class Armen- ians, the educated people, regarding them as perhaps capable of being useful even in a Turkish dominion. The German, as soon as he arrived here, pointed out the educated Ar menian as the most dangerous of all. and instgated the Turks into or ganizing a ruthless persecution of the intellectual classes. One day they surrounded the offices of the conservative newspaper Asadamard, arrested all the staff and deported them I know not whither. Will they ever return2 Who knows?
 One day l walked from a place where thousands of innocent wom- on. girls and children were biN- ouacked. suffering nameless mis- cries. walked away because | could not bear any more to gaze up- on them, and came to a hill where saw a little child I was in Turk ish uniform The child came near me and cried in Turkish. Give me bread For five days I have eaten nothing but this He pointed to some melon skin that had been left lying on the road. I answered him in Armenian and the poor boy jumped up into my arms, saying: Art thou Armenian? He remained there a minute uttering no other word, But felt warm tears falling down my cheek.
 The waters of the Euphrates the sands of the deserts of Mesopotamia arc the graves of the whole Armen- ian nation. l can no longer weep My tears have frozen in my eyes