The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-06-12
ARMENIAN WOMEN
VICTIMS OF TURKS
AMERICAN RELIEF COMMITTEE
MAKES STATEMENT.
Individual Stories Told
Committee Placing Half-Crazed Suf'
ferers in Homes Established
for Them.

l.
New York, May 31.-Stories told
by Christian women and girls of Ar
menia who were deported from their
homes, led to virtual captivity or
slavery in the camps of the Turks,
; Circassians and Arabs or held ca
tives in Turkish harems in Asia Minor
have been received here by the
American committee for Armenian
and Syrian relief. The statement is
sued by the committee says that the
women whose narratives are made
public were released by their masters
or rescued by allied troops.
stAfter the signing of the armis-
tice," says the committees statement,
'smany of the Turks, believing that
by so doing they could escape pun
ishment, turned the women-many OF
them with babies-into the street.
Cablegrams to the committee have
reported that numbers of these wom-
en- were wandering about the country
crazed by starvation and exposure.
As fast as possible they are being
gathered up by the committees relief
workers and placed in homes estab-
lished for their care. A late tele-
gram said that Is such homes have
been established in Asia Minor
Affidavits Taken by DR.. Writ.
Stories of these Armenian victims
of Turkish atrocity were obtained by
DR.. Loyal Y. Writ, member of an ex-
pedition sent to Turkey by the COM
mittee. They are taken down as re-
lated by DR.. w. A. Kennedy, field
director of the lord mayors relief
fund of London. After taking them
down, DR.. Kennedy assured DR.. Writ,
he personally re-read the affidavits to
the narrators and they signed them
In his presence.
Together these tales constitute one
of the tragic chapters of the war:
They were not isolated cases but in
some instances the experiences OF as
many as 5000 refugees who had been
driven from their homes and forced
on Journeys of hundreds of miles
from fertile Armenia into the borders
of the Syrian desert. On the way
hundreds at time were separated
and massacred often in the most dia-
bolical way.
Hundreds of girls were torn from
the other members of their family
and taken none knows where by the
Turks, Kurds or Circassians. Scores
were compelled to live in captivity
naked for months and suffering from
sun -blisters and beatings. Armenian
girls who escaped death were barter
ed like cattle, after their father or
relatives had vainly paid ransom for
them. Some saw their fathers or
friends murdered. In the tents of the
Arabs in the Syrian desert many were
bound and forcibly tatooed on the
forehead, lips and chin to mark them
as Moslem women.
Generally, the stories indicate that
the captives were moved sometimes
in large groups from Armenia south
ward toward the desert of Syria. The
stories told by at least three Arme-
nian Christian girls deal with the
movement of one of these great
groups consisting of 1000 families or
5000 persons. One story of this
awful journey into the desert was
told by Takouhi Guezekuchukian,
girl of Is who with her father, moth
er, four sisters, and brother, was
deported from Hadjin, in Adana
province, in May, 1915. They were
moved southwark to Aleppo and
thence further on toward the Syrian
desert until the party numbered
about 1000 families. At Sivaria, she
said, they were told that on payment
of 5000 Turkish liras they would be
allowed to return.
Killed With Clubs.
s'The refugees said they could not
give this amount" the Armenian girl
told DR.. Kennedy. "Then the Circas-
slams of the tribe of Chechens who
had control of them separated out
1,100 of the poorer families and took
them away. The same evening some
of these people returned and said
they had escaped and that four hours
after they left, the Chechens had be-
gun to kill them with iron-studded