page_title: Mihran Mesrobian
section_title: Armenian Genocide
hierarchical_section_title: Mihran Mesrobian / Armenian Genocide
caption_attribution_description: English: Mihran Mesrobian (10 May 1889 – 21 September 1975) was an Armenian-American architect whose career spanned over fifty years and in several countries. Mesrobian was then transferred to the Russian front in the winter. The journey to the front was covered with heavy snow. Thereafter, Mesrobian's battalion was transferred to the Palestinian and Syrian front to combat Arab forces. In the fall of 1918, during an offensive spearheaded by British forces with the assistance of the Arabs, most members of 4th Army Corps of which Mesrobian was attached to had been captured by the Arabs. But Mesrobian managed to flee and was left wandering for several days. While in Palestine, he was ultimately captured by the Arabs and was imprisoned in Egypt from late fall 1918 to May 1919.Mesrobian and his unit were then sentenced to death by their Arab hostage-takers. However, T.E. Lawrence, who is better known as Lawrence of Arabia, happened to be in the area and was able to intervene to save their lives. Mesrobian was subsequently confined in the Zagazig prison runned by the British forces. was released as a prison of war on 17 June 1919.
context_page_description: Mihran Mesrobian was an Armenian-American architect whose career spanned over fifty years and in several countries. Having received an education in the Academy of Fine Arts in Constantinople, Mesrobian began his career as an architect in Smyrna and in Constantinople. While in Constantinople, Mesrobian served as the palace architect to the last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed V.
  During World War I, Mesrobian was drafted into the Ottoman army and became a decorated soldier. He participated in the Gallipoli Campaign and served in the Eastern front against the Russians during the Caucasus Campaign and the Arabs during the Arab Revolt. During this time, the Armenian Genocide began, and his family in his native Afyonkarahisar were deported and never to be heard of again. Mesrobian lost fifteen members of his family as a result of the genocide. He was held captive under the Arabs but was ultimately freed with the help of T. E. Lawrence.
  Mesrobian immigrated to the United States in 1921 and became a prominent architect in the Washington, D.C. area. He became the primary in-house architect for Washington developer Harry Wardman.
context_section_description: In April 1915, while Mesrobian was stationed in Gallipoli, the Ottoman government began the systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects known as the Armenian Genocide. The genocide  carried out during and after World War I was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. The deportations in his native town of Afyonkarahisar, where Mesrobian's family still resided, began on 15 August 1915. Mihran Mesrobian returned to Constantinople after the war and discovered that fifteen members of his family and relatives in Afyonkasarhisar were deported. All were never to be heard of again, though it is believed that they were deported to Iraq. Among those whose whereabouts remain unknown were his three brothers, their families, and his younger sister. In a desperate attempt to save his property, Mesrobian returned to Afyonkarahisar to reclaim and ultimately sell it, but was unsuccessful since the property had been confiscated.
caption: Mesrobian's POW release certificate from the Zigazig encampment site in Egypt in 1919.
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