Transcriber’s Note: Suspected printer errors have been corrected.
There are variations in the spelling of a number of names that have
been transliterated from the Armenian, and these have not been changed.
RAVISHED ARMENIA
[Illustration: THE LONG LINE THAT SWIFTLY GREW SHORTER
One of the most striking photographs of the deportations that have come
out of Armenia. Here is shown a column of Christians on the path across
the great plains of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz. The zaptiehs are shown walking
along at one side.]
RAVISHED ARMENIA
THE STORY OF
AURORA MARDIGANIAN
THE CHRISTIAN GIRL WHO LIVED THROUGH
THE GREAT MASSACRES
_INTERPRETED BY H. L. GATES_
WITH A FOREWORD BY
NORA WALN
_AND FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_
[Illustration: SAVE
A LIFE
ARMENIAN SYRIAN RELIEF]
NEW YORK
KINGFIELD PRESS, INC.
Copyright, 1918, by
KINGFIELD PRESS, INC.
New York
MY DEDICATION
To each mother and father, in this beautiful land of the United States,
who has taught a daughter to believe in God, I dedicate my book. I saw
my own mother’s body, its life ebbed out, flung onto the desert because
she had taught me that Jesus Christ was my Saviour. I saw my father die
in pain because he said to me, his little girl, “Trust in the Lord; His
will be done.” I saw thousands upon thousands of beloved daughters of
gentle mothers die under the whip, or the knife, or from the torture of
hunger and thirst, or carried away into slavery because they would not
renounce the glorious crown of their Christianity. God saved me that I
might bring to America a message from those of my people who are left,
and every father and mother will understand that what I tell in these
pages is told with love and thankfulness to Him for my escape.
AURORA MARDIGANIAN.
The Latham, New York City, December, 1918.
THIS STORY OF
AURORA MARDIGANIAN
which is the most amazing narrative ever written
has been reproduced
for the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief in a
TREMENDOUS MOTION PICTURE
SPECTACLE
“RAVISHED ARMENIA”
Through which runs the thrilling yet
tender romance of this
CHRISTIAN GIRL WHO SURVIVED
THE GREAT MASSACRES
Undoubtedly it is one of the greatest and most
elaborate motion pictures of the age--every stirring
scene through which Aurora lives in the book, is
lived again on the motion picture screen.
SEE AURORA, HERSELF, IN HER STORY
Scenario by Nora Waln--Staged by Oscar Apfel
Produced by Selig Enterprises
Presented in a selected list of cities
By the
American Committee for
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 9
FOREWORD 11
ARSHALUS--THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING 19
I WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 29
II THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 47
III VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 64
IV THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 80
V THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS 99
VI RECRUITING FOR THE HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 116
VII MALATIA--THE CITY OF DEATH 132
VIII IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR 145
IX THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 158
X THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 174
XI “ISHIM YOK; KEIFIM TCHOK!” 191
XII REUNION--AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 208
XIII OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD’S CALL 223
XIV THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 239
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Long Line that Swiftly Grew Shorter _Frontispiece_
Map Showing Aurora’s Wanderings _Page_ 75
Waiting They Know Not What _Facing Page_ 158
Driven Forth on the Road of Terror ” ” 192
The Roadside of Awful Despair ” ” 234
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
For verification of these amazing things, which little Aurora told
me that I might tell them, in our own language, to all the world, I
am indebted to Lord Bryce, formerly British Ambassador to the United
States, who was commissioned by the British Government to investigate
the massacres; to Dr. Clarence Ussher, of whom Aurora speaks in her
story, and who witnessed the massacres at Van; and to Dr. MacCallum,
who rescued Aurora at Erzerum and made possible her coming to America.
You may read Aurora’s story with entire confidence--every word is true.
As the story of what happened to one Christian girl, it is a proven
document.
H. L. GATES.
FOREWORD
She stood beside me--a slight little girl with glossy black hair.
Until I spoke to her and she lifted her eyes in which were written
the indelible story of her suffering, I could not believe that she
was Aurora Mardiganian whom I had been expecting. She could not speak
English, but in Armenian she spoke a few words of greeting.
It was our first meeting and in the spring of last year. Several weeks
earlier a letter had come to me telling me about this little Armenian
girl who was to be expected, asking me to help her upon her arrival.
The year before an Armenian boy had come from our relief station in the
Caucasus and kind friends had made it possible to send him to boarding
school. I had formed a similar plan to send Aurora to the same school
when she should arrive.
We talked about education that afternoon, through her interpreter, but
she shook her head sadly. She would like to go to school, and study
music as her father had planned she should before the massacres, but
now she had a message to deliver--a message from her suffering nation
to the mothers and fathers of the United States. The determination in
the child’s eyes made me ask her her age and she answered “Seventeen.”
Tired, and worn out nervously, as she was, Aurora insisted upon telling
us of the scenes she had left behind her--massacres, families driven
out across the desert, girls sold into Turkish harems, women ravished
by the roadside, little children dying of starvation. She begged us to
help her to help her people. “My father said America was the friend of
the oppressed. General Andranik sent me here because he trusted you to
help me,” she pleaded.
And so her story was translated. Sometimes there had to be intervals of
rest of several days, because her suffering had so unnerved her. She
wanted to keep at it during all the heat of the summer, but by using
the argument that she would learn English, we persuaded her to go to a
camp off the coast of Connecticut for three weeks.
You who read the story of Aurora Mardiganian’s last three years,
will find it hard to believe that in our day and generation such
things are possible. Your emotions will doubtless be similar to mine
when I first heard of the suffering of her people. I remember very
distinctly my feelings, when, early in October of 1917, I attended a
luncheon given by the Executive Committee of the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief, to a group of seventeen American Consuls
and missionaries who had just returned from Turkey after witnessing
two years of massacre and deportation. I listened to persons, the
truthfulness of whose statements I could not doubt, tell how a church
had been filled with Christian Armenians, women and children, saturated
with oil and set on fire, of refined, educated girls, from homes as
good as yours or mine, sold in the slave markets of the East, of little
children starving to death, and then to the plea for help for the
pitiful survivors who have been gathered into temporary relief stations.
I listened almost unable to believe and yet as I looked around the
luncheon table there were familiar faces, the faces of men and women
whose word I could not doubt--Dr. James L. Barton, Chairman of the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, Ambassadors
Morgenthau and Elkus, who spoke from personal knowledge, Cleveland H.
Dodge, whose daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Huntington is in Constantinople,
and whose son is in Beirut, both helping with relief work, Miss Lucille
Foreman of Germantown, C. V. Vickrey, Executive Secretary of the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, Dr. Samuel T. Dutton
of the World Court League, George T. Scott, Presbyterian Board of
Foreign Missions, and others.
And you who read this story as interpreted will find it even harder to
believe than I did, because you will not have the personal verification
of the men and women who can speak with authority that I had at that
luncheon. Since then it has happened that nearly every communication
from the East--Persia, Russian Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, has
passed through my hands and I know that conditions have not been
exaggerated in this book. In this introduction I want to refer you to
Lord Bryce’s report, to Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, to the recent
speeches of Lord Cecil before the British Parliament, and the files of
our own State Department, and you will learn that stories similar to
this one can be told by any one of the 3,950,000 refugees, the number
now estimated to be destitute in the Near East.
This is a human living document. Miss Mardiganian’s names, dates and
places, do not correspond exactly with similar references to these
places made by Ambassador Morgenthau, Lord Bryce and others, but we
must take into consideration that she is only a girl of seventeen,
that she has lived through one of the most tragic periods of history
in that section of the world which has suffered most from the war,
that she is not a historian, that her interpreter in giving this story
to the American public has not attempted to write a history. He has
simply aimed to give her message to the American people that they may
understand something of the situation in the Near East during the past
years, and help to establish there for the future, a sane and stable
government.
Speaking of the character of the Armenians, Ambassador Morgenthau says
in a recent article published in the New York _Evening Sun_: “From
the times of Herodotus this portion of Asia has borne the name of
Armenia. The Armenians of the present day are the direct descendants
of the people who inhabited the country 3,000 years ago. Their origin
is so ancient that it is lost in fable and mystery. There are still
undeciphered cuneiform inscriptions on the rocky hills of Van, the
largest Armenian city, that have led certain scholars--though not many,
I must admit--to identify the Armenian race with the Hittites of the
Bible. What is definitely known about the Armenians, however, is that
for ages they have constituted the most civilized and most industrious
race in the Eastern section of the Ottoman Empire. From their mountains
they have spread over the Sultan’s dominions, and form a considerable
element in the population of all the large cities. Everywhere they
are known for their industry, their intelligence and their decent and
orderly lives. They are so superior to the Turks intellectually and
morally that much of the business and industry has passed into their
hands. With the Greeks, the Armenians constituted the economic strength
of the Empire. These people became Christians in the fourth century and
established the Armenian Church as their state religion. This is said
to be the oldest Christian Church in existence.
“In face of persecutions which have had no parallel elsewhere, these
people have clung to their early Christian faith with the utmost
tenacity. For 1,500 years they have lived there in Armenia, a little
island of Christians, surrounded by backward peoples of hostile
religion and hostile race. Their long existence has been one unending
martyrdom. The territory which they inhabit forms the connecting link
between Europe and Asia, and all the Asiatic invasions--Saracens,
Tartars, Mongols, Kurds and Turks--have passed over their peaceful
country.”
Aurora Mardiganian has come to America to tell the story of her
suffering peoples and to do her part in making it possible for her
country to be rebuilt. She is only a little girl, but in giving her
story to the American people through the daily newspapers, in this
book, and the motion picture which is being prepared for that purpose
by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, she is, I
feel, playing one of the greatest parts in helping to reëstablish again
“peace on earth, good will to men” in ancient Bible Lands, the home
in her generation of her people. Her mother, her father, her brothers
and sisters are gone, but according to the most careful estimates,
3,950,000 destitute peoples, mostly women and children who had been
driven many of them as far as one thousand miles from home, turn their
pitiful faces toward America for help in the reconstructive period in
which we are now living.
Dr. James L. Barton, who is leaving this month with a commission of two
hundred men and women for the purpose of helping to rehabilitate these
lands from which Aurora came, is a part of the answer to the call for
help from these destitute people. The American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief Campaign for $30,000,000, in which it is hoped all of
the people of America will participate, is another part of the answer.
You who read this book can play a part also in helping Aurora to
deliver her message, by passing it on to some one else when you have
finished with it.
December 2, 1918
One Madison Ave.,
New York
NORA WALN,
Publicity Secretary,
American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief.
ARSHALUS--THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING
A PROLOGUE TO THE STORY
Old Vartabed, the shepherd whose flocks had clothed three generations,
stood silhouetted against the skies on the summit of a Taurus hill. His
figure was motionless, erect and very tall. The signs of age were in
every crease of his grave, strong face, yet his hands folded loosely on
his stick, for he would have scorned to lean upon it.
To the east and north spread the plains of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz, with
here and there a plateau reaching out from a nest of foothills.
Each Spring, through twenty-five centuries, other shepherds than
Old Vartabed had stood on this same hilltop to watch the plains and
plateaux of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz turn green, but few had seen the grass
and shrubs sprout so early as they had this year. Old Vartabed should
have been greatly pleased at such promise of a good season, and should
have spoken to his sheep about it--for that was his way.
But the shepherd was troubled. A strange foreboding had come to him in
the night. Even at daybreak he could not shake it off. He was gazing
now, not at the stretches of welcome green which soon would soothe the
bleating of his sheep, but across into the north beyond, where the blue
line of the Euphrates was lost in the haze of dawn. What his old eyes
sought there, he did not know; but something seemed to threaten from up
there in the north.
Suddenly the lazy, droning call to the Third Prayer, with which the
devout Mohammedan greets the light of day, floated up from the valley
at Old Vartabed’s feet. It brought the shepherd out of his reverie
abruptly. “There, that was it! That was the sign. The danger might come
from the north, but it would show itself first, whatever it was to be,
in the city.”
The shepherd looked down into the valley, onto the housetops and the
narrow, winding streets that separated them. He caught the glint of
the minaret as the muezzin again intoned his summons. Quickly his eyes
leaped across the city to where the first glimpse of sunshine played
about a crumbled pile of brown and gray--the ruins of the castle of
Tchemesh, an ancient Armenian king. A piteous sadness gathered in his
face. The minaret still stood; the castle of the king was fallen. That
was why there were two sets of prayers in the city, and why trouble was
coming out of the north.
The old man planted his stick upright in the ground as a sign to his
sheep that where the stick stood their shepherd was bound to return.
Then he picked his way down the path that led to the lower slopes where
the houses of the city began. With a firm, even step that belied his
many years, he strode through the city until he came to the streets
marked by the imposing homes of the rich. A short turn along the side
of the park that served as a public square brought him to the home of
the banker, Mardiganian. In this house Old Vartabed was always welcome.
He had been the keeper of herds belonging to three succeeding heads of
the Mardiganian families.
A servant woman opened the door in the street wall and admitted the
shepherd to the inner garden. When she had closed the door again, the
visitor asked:
“Is the Master still within the house, or has he gone this early to his
business?”
“Shame upon you for the asking!” the woman replied, with a servant’s
quick uncivility to her kind. “Have you forgotten what day it is, that
you should think the Master would be at business?”
Amazement showed in the old man’s eyes. The woman saw that he had,
indeed, forgotten. She spoke more kindly:
“Do you not know, Vartabed, that this is Easter Sunday morning?”
The old man accepted the reminder, but his dignity quickly reasserted
itself. “If you live as many days as Old Vartabed you will wish to
forget more than one of them--perhaps one that is coming soon more
than any other.”
The woman had no patience for the sententiousness of age, and the
veiled threat of coming ill she put down for petulance. But her sharp
reply fell upon unheeding ears. The shepherd crossed the garden without
further parleys and entered the house.
The house of the Mardiganians was typical of the homes of the
well-to-do Armenians of to-day. The wide doorway which opened from
the garden was approached by handsome steps of white marble, and the
spacious hall within was floored with large slabs of the same material.
Outside, the house presented a rather gloomy appearance, because,
perhaps, of the need of protection against the sometimes rigorous
climate; inside there was every sign of luxury and opulence. The space
of ground occupied was prodigious, as the rooms were terraced, one
above the other, the roof of one being used as a dooryard garden for
the one above.
In the large reception room, into which Old Vartabed strode, there was
a great stone fireplace, with a low divan branching out on either side
and running around three sides of the room. Beautiful tapestry covers
of native manufacture, and silk cushions made by hand, covered this
divan. Soft, thick rugs of tekke, which is a Persian and Kurdish weave
built upon felt foundations, were strewn over the marble floor. Over
the fireplace hung a rare Madonna; a landscape by a popular Armenian
artist, and a Dutch harbor by Peniers hung on the walls at the side. In
a corner of the room, under a floor lamp, was a piano. Oriental delight
in bright colorings was apparent, but the ensemble was tasteful and
subdued.
The shepherd waited, standing, in the center of the room until his
employer entered and gave him the Easter morning greeting which Armenia
has preserved since the world was young:
“Christ is risen from the dead, my good Vartabed!”
“Blessed be the resurrection of Christ,” the old man replied, as the
custom dictates. Then he spoke, with an earnestness which the other man
quickly detected, of that which had brought him to the house.
It was a vision he had seen during the night. “Our Saint Gregory
appeared to me in my sleep and pressed his hand upon me heavily.
‘Awake, Old Vartabed; awake! Thy sheep are in danger, even though
they be favored of God. Awake and save them!’ This, the good saint
said to me. Hurriedly I arose, but when my old eyes were fully opened
the vision was gone. I rushed out to the fold, but it was only I who
disturbed the flock. They were resting peacefully.
“But I could not sleep again. Each time my eyes closed our Saint stood
before me, seeming to reprove my idleness. At dawn I took my sheep to
the hills--and then I remembered!”
Here the shepherd hesitated. He had spoken fast, and was nearly
breathless. His employer had listened with the consideration due one
so old, and so faithful, but not without a trace of amusement in his
immobile face.
“It is a pity, Vartabed, your sleep was restless. This morning, of all
others, you should be joyful. Tell me what it was you remembered at
dawn, and then dismiss it from your mind.”
“Some things, Master, neither you nor I can dismiss from our minds. I
remembered that once before our Saint appeared to me in my sleep with
a warning of danger. I gave no attention then, for I was younger, and
thoughtless. Those, also, were joyous times in Armenia, for there was
peace and prosperity. But that very day the holocaust came out of the
north; for that was twenty years ago.”
Now, the other man started. He was shaken by a convulsive shudder, and
his face blanched. Twenty years ago--that was when a hundred thousand
of his people were massacred by Abdul Hamid! Without a word he walked
to a window, separated the curtains and looked out upon the house
garden.
The banker, Mardiganian, was a true type of the successful, modern
Armenian business man. He did not often smile, but his voice was kind,
and his eyes were gentle. In the Easter morning promenades in any
avenue in Europe or America he would have been a conventional figure,
passed without notice. When he turned from the window, after a moment,
only a close observer could have detected in his face or manner that
inexplainable, intangible something which, indelibly, marks a race
cradled in oppression.
“What happened twenty years ago, my Vartabed, can never happen again.
We Armenians have done nothing to rouse the anger of our overlords,
the Turks. On the contrary, we have proven our willingness to serve
the state. Our young men have been called into this great war which is
ravaging the world. Even though their sympathies are with the Sultan’s
enemies, they have not shown it. They have freely given their lives in
battle for a cause they hate, that the Turk may have no excuse to vent
his wrath upon our people. Less than a week ago the Sultan’s minister,
the powerful Enver, expressed his gratitude to us for the services we
are rendering the Crescent. They dare not molest us again.”
“But the vision that came to me last night was the same that would have
warned me that night in 1895 of the tragedy then in store for us.”
“This time, nevertheless, it was but an idle dream.”
The banker spoke with the finality of conviction. The shepherd was
affronted by his calm disbelief in the sign of coming evil, as the
shepherd considered it. The old man left the room and crossed the
garden in high dudgeon. His hand was upon the gate, and in another
moment he would have been gone when a fresh, youthful voice arrested
him.
“Vartabed--wait; I am coming!”
The old man stopped abruptly. Looking back he saw coming toward him the
one who was closer to his heart than any other living thing--Arshalus,
a daughter of the Mardiganians.
Arshalus--that means “The Light of the Morning.” There is but one
word in America into which the Armenian name can be translated--“The
Aurora.” And no other would be so fitting. She was a merry-eyed child
of fourteen years, hair and eyes as black as night; smile and spirit as
sunny as the brightest day. Every sheep in Old Vartabed’s flock was her
pet, especially the black ones.
When she reached the waiting shepherd Aurora quickly discovered that he
was glum, and she chose to be piqued about it.
“Surely you were not going without wishing me the happiness of the
Easter time, or has Old Vartabed ceased to care for the one who plagues
him so much?” She made a great show of pouting, but the old man’s hurt
could not be so easily mended. Perhaps the sight of Aurora intensified
it.
“It is idle to wish happiness; it is better to give it. When one has
none to give he has no mission. I have no joy to give to-day, even to
you, my Aurora, and so I had not thought of seeking you.”
“That is very wrong, Vartabed. To-day Christ is risen, and there is
joy everywhere. And even more for me than many others. Just yesterday
my father told me that before another Easter comes I am to go away to
finish my schooling--to Constantinople, or, perhaps, to Switzerland or
Paris. Does that not make you happy for me, Vartabed?”
For an instant the old man gazed down upon the upturned face. Then his
hand reached for the gate again, as if to give support to the tall,
straight body that seemed to droop. Aurora thought she had pained him.
With an impulsive fondness she raised her hands as if to rest them upon
the old man’s breast. But before she could reach him the shepherd was
gone, and the gate had closed between them.
An hour later Old Vartabed again stood on the summit of the hill,
looking down upon the city and the plains of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz,
bathed, now, in the glory of the full morning sun. A few miles to the
south lay the ridges and long abandoned tunnels which, according to
tradition, once were the busy workings of Solomon’s mines. Harpout,
where the caravans stop; Van, the metropolis, and Sivas, the “City of
Hope,” were far beyond the horizon, outpost cities of a nation which
was born before history. The old man’s thoughts visited each of these
jewel cities in turn, and pictured the hope and faith with which they
celebrated the coming of Easter. Then he turned again to the spires
and housetops reaching up from the plains below. For he was thinking
not only of Armenia--the beautiful, golden Armenia of that Easter day
in 1914, but, also, of the child who was named for “The Light of the
Morning.”
H. L. GATES.
THE STORY OF AURORA MARDIGANIAN
CHAPTER I
WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE
My story begins with Easter Sunday morning, in April, 1915. In my
father’s house we prepared to observe the day with a joyous reverence,
increased by the news from Constantinople that the Turkish government
recently had expressed its gratitude for the loyal and valuable
service of the Armenian troops in the Great War. When Turkey joined
in the war, almost six months before, a great fear spread throughout
Armenia. Without the protecting influence of France and England, my
people were anxious lest the Turks take advantage of their opportunity
and begin again the old oppression of their Christian subjects. The
young Armenian men would have preferred to fight with the Sultan’s
enemies, but they hurried to enlist in the Ottoman armies, to prove
they were not disloyal. And now that the Sultan had acknowledged their
sacrifices, the fear of new persecutions at the hands of our Moslem
rulers gradually had disappeared.
And in all our city, Tchemesh-Gedzak, twenty miles north of Harpout,
the capital of the district of Mamuret-ul-Aziz, there was none more
grateful for the promise of continued peace in Armenia than my father
and mother, and Lusanne, my elder sister and I. I was only fourteen
years old, and Lusanne was not yet seventeen, but even little girls
are always afraid in Armenia. I was quite excited that morning over
my father’s Easter gift to me--his promise that soon I could go to an
European school and finish my education as befits a banker’s daughter.
Lusanne was to be married, and she was bent upon enjoying the last
Easter day of her maidenhood. Even the early visit that morning of Old
Vartabed, our shepherd, who came just after daybreak, with a prophecy
of trouble, did not dampen our spirits.
Standing before my looking glass I was rearranging for the hundredth
time the blue ribbons with which I had dressed my hair with, I must
confess, a secret hope that they would be the envy of all the other
girls at the church service. Lusanne was making use of her elder
sister’s privilege to scold me heartily for my vanity. Lusanne was
always very prim, and quiet. I was just about to tell her that she was
only jealous because she soon would be a wife and forbidden to wear
blue ribbons any more, when my mother came into the room. She stopped
just inside the door, and leaned against the wall. She did not say a
word--just looked at me.
“Mother, what is it?” I cried. She did not answer, but silently pointed
to the window. Lusanne and I ran at once to look down into the street.
There at the gate to our yard stood three Turkish gendarmes, each with
a rifle, rigidly on guard. On their arms was the band that marked them
as personal attendants of Husein Pasha, the military commandant in our
district.
I turned to my mother for an explanation. She had fallen in a heap on
the floor and was weeping. She did not speak, but pointed downward and
I knew that Husein Pasha had come to our house, and was downstairs.
Then my happiness was gone, and I, too, fell to the floor and cried.
Somehow I felt that the end had come.
For a long time the powerful Husein Pasha, who was very rich and a
friend of the Sultan himself, had wanted me for his harem. His big
house sat in the midst of beautiful gardens, just outside the city.
There he had gathered more than a dozen of the prettiest Christian
girls from the surrounding towns. In Armenia the Mutassarif, or Turkish
commandant, is an official of great power. He accepts no orders, except
those that come direct from the Sultan’s ministers, and, as a rule, he
is cruel and autocratic.
It is dangerous for an Armenian father to displease the Mutassarif.
When this representative of the Sultan sees a pretty Armenian girl he
would like to add to his harem there are many ways he may go about
getting her. The way of Husein Pasha was to bluntly ask her father
to sell or give her to him, with a veiled threat that if the father
refused he would be persecuted. To make the sale of the girl legal
and give the Mutassarif the right to make her his concubine it was
necessary only for him to persuade or compel her to forswear Christ and
become Mohammedan.
Three times Husein Pasha had asked my father to give me to him. Three
times my father had defied his anger and refused. The Pasha was afraid
to punish us, as my father was wealthy, and through his friendship with
the British Consul at Harpout, Mr. Stevens, had obtained protection of
the Vali, or Governor, of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz province. But now the
British Consul was gone. The Vali was afraid of no one. And Husein
Pasha could, I knew, do as he pleased. Instinctively I knew, too, that
his visit to our house, with his escort of armed soldiers, meant that
he had come again to ask for me.
I clung to my mother and Lusanne, with my two younger sisters holding
onto my skirt, while we listened at the head of the stairs to my father
and the governor talking. Husein was no longer asking for me--he was
demanding. I heard him say: “Soon orders from Constantinople will
arrive; you Christian dogs are to be sent away; not a man, woman or
child who denies Mohammed will be permitted to remain. When that time
comes there is none to save you but me. Give me the girl Aurora, and I
will take all your family under my protection until the crisis is past.
Refuse and you know what you may expect!”
My father could not speak aloud. He was choked with fear and horror.
My mother screamed. I begged mother to let me rush downstairs and give
myself to the Pasha. I would do anything to save her and father and my
little brothers and sisters. Then father found his voice, and we heard
him saying to the Pasha:
“God’s will shall be done--and He would never will that my child should
sacrifice herself to save us.”
My mother held me closer. “Your father has spoken--for you and us.”
Husein Pasha went away in anger, his escort marching stiffly behind.
Scarcely had he disappeared than there was a great commotion in the
streets. Crowds began to assemble at the corners. Men ran to our house
to tell us news that had just been brought by a horseman who had ridden
in wild haste from Harpout.
“They are massacring at Van; men, women and children are being hacked
to pieces. The Kurds are stealing the girls!”
Van is the greatest city in Armenia. It was once the capital of the
Vannic kingdom of Queen Semiramis. It was the home of Xerxes, and, we
are taught, was built by the King Aram in the midst of what was the
first land uncovered after the Deluge--the Holy Place where the ark of
Noah rested. It is very dear to Armenians, and was one of the centers
of our church and national life. It lies two hundred miles away from
Tchemesh-Gedzak, and was the home of more than 50,000 of our people.
The Vali of Van, Djevdet Bey, was the principal Turkish ruler in
Armenia--and the most cruel. A massacre at Van meant that soon it would
spread over all Armenia.
They brought the horseman from Harpout to our house. My father tried to
question him but all he could say was:
“Ermenleri hep kesdiler--hep gitdi bitdi!”--“The Armenians all
killed--all gone, all dead!” He moaned it over and over. In Harpout the
news had come by telegraph, and the horseman who belonged in our city
had ridden at once to warn us.
I begged my father and mother to let me run at once to the palace of
Husein Pasha and tell him I would do whatever he wished if he would
save my family before orders came to disturb us. But mother held me
close, while father would only say, “God’s will be done, and that would
not be it.”
Lusanne was crying. Little Aruciag and Sarah, my younger sisters, were
crying, too. My father was very pale and his hands trembled when he put
them on my shoulders and tried to comfort me. I closed my eyes and
seemed to see my father and mother and sisters and brothers, all lying
dead in the massacre I feared would come, sooner or later. And Husein
Pasha had said I could save them! But I couldn’t disobey my father.
Suddenly I thought of Father Rhoupen.
I broke away from my mother and ran out of the house, through the
back entrance and into the street that led to the church where Father
Rhoupen was waiting for his congregation. No one had had the courage to
tell the holy man of the news from Van. When I ran into the little room
behind the altar he was wondering why his people had not come.
I fell at his feet, and it was a long time before I could stop my tears
long enough to tell him why I was there. But he knew something had
happened. He stroked my hair, and waited. When I could speak I told him
of the visit of Husein Pasha, and what he said to us--and then I told
him of the message the horseman had brought. I pleaded with him to tell
me that it would be right for me to send word to Husein Pasha that I
would be his willing concubine if he would only save my parents and my
brothers and sisters.
Father Rhoupen made me tell it twice. When I had finished the second
time he put a hand on my head and said, “Let us ask God, my child!”
Then Father Rhoupen prayed.
He asked God to guide me in the way I should go. I do not remember all
the prayer, for I was crying too bitterly and was too frightened, but
I know the priest pleaded for me and my people, and that he reminded
the Father we were His first believers and had been true to Him through
many centuries of persecution. As the priest went on I became soothed,
and unconsciously I began to listen--hoping to hear with my own ears
the answer I felt must surely come down from up above to Father
Rhoupen’s plea.
When he said “Amen” the priest knelt with me, and together we waited.
Suddenly Father Rhoupen pressed me close to his breast and began to
speak.
“The way is clear, my child. The answer has come. Trust in Jesus Christ
and He will save you as He deems best. It were better that you should
die, if need be, or suffer even worse than death, than by your example
lead others to forswear their faith in the Saviour. Go back to your
father and mother and comfort them, but obey them.”
All that day and the next messengers rode back and forth between
Harpout and our city, bringing the latest scraps of news from Van.
We were filled with joy when we heard the Armenians had barricaded
themselves and were fighting back, but we dreaded the consequences. No
one slept that night in our city. All day and all night Father Rhoupen
and his assistant priests and religious teachers in the Christian
College went from house to house to pray with family groups.
The principal men in the city waited on Husein Pasha to ask him if we
were in danger. He told them their fears were groundless--that the
trouble at Van was merely a riot. My father and mother clutched eagerly
at this half promise of security, but Tuesday we knew we had been
deceived. That morning Husein Pasha ordered the doors of the district
jail opened, and the criminals--bandits and murderers--who were
confined there, released and brought to his palace.
An hour later each one of these outlaws had been dressed in the uniform
of the gendarmes, given a rifle, a bayonet and a long dagger and lined
up in the public square to await orders. That is the Turkish way when
there is bad work to do.
At noon officers of the gendarmes, or, as they are called, zaptiehs,
rode through the city posting notices on the walls and fences at every
street corner. My father had gone to Harpout early in the morning to
confer with rich Armenian bankers there and to appeal direct to Ismail
Bey, the Vali. Mother was too weak from worry to go to the corner and
read the notices, so Lusanne and I went at once. The paper read:
ARMENIANS.
You are hereby commanded by His Excellency, Husein Pasha, to
immediately go into your houses and remain within doors until
it is the pleasure of His Excellency to again permit you to go
about your affairs. All Armenians found upon the streets, at
their places of business or otherwise absent from their homes,
later than one hour after noon of this day will be arrested and
severely punished.
(Signed)
ALI AGHAZADE, _Mayor_.
When we reported to our mother she was greatly worried because of our
father’s absence at Harpout. He might ride into the city at any time
during the afternoon, ignorant of the orders, and be caught in the
streets. Our brother Paul, who was fifteen years old, was visiting at a
neighbor’s. We sent him, through narrow, back streets, out of the city
and onto the plains where he could watch the road our father must ride
along, and, should he appear before dark, warn him of the order. We had
reason later to be thankful father was away.
We could not imagine what the order meant. We could not bring ourselves
to believe it meant a deliberate massacre was planned, and that this
means was taken to have us all in our homes for the convenience of the
zaptiehs.
At 4 o’clock gendarmes, among them the prisoners released from jail,
marched up to the homes of the wealthiest men, with orders for them to
attend an audience with Husein Pasha.
When mother explained to the officer who came to our door that my
father was out of town the zaptiehs searched the house, roughly pushing
my mother aside when she got in their way. They then demanded the keys
to my father’s business place. When Lusanne ran upstairs to get them
the officer insisted upon going with her. While she was getting the
keys from my father’s room he embraced her, tearing open her dress as
he did so. When she screamed he slapped her in the face so hard she
fell onto the floor. He left her there and went out with his men.
From our windows we could overlook the public square. Here the zaptiehs
gathered fifty of the city’s leading men. Among them were Father
Rhoupen; the president of the Christian College, which had been founded
by American missionaries; several professors and physicians; bankers,
the principal merchants and other business men.
Instead of marching their prisoners toward the palace of the Pasha, the
guards turned them toward the other part of the city. Then we knew they
were being taken, not to an audience with the commandant, but to the
jail which had been emptied by the Mutassarif that morning.
Many women, when they realized where their husbands were being taken,
ignored the order to keep to their homes, ran into the street and
tried to rush up to their men folk. The gendarmes knocked them aside
with rifle butts. One woman, the wife of a professor, managed to break
through the guard and reach her husband. A gendarme tried to pull her
away, but she clung tightly, screaming. The soldier turned his rifle
about and drove his bayonet into her. Her husband leaped at the man’s
throat and was killed by another gendarme.
The prisoners were compelled to march over the bodies of the professor
and his wife, while their children, who had also run out of their
house, stood aside, wringing their hands and weeping, until the company
passed, when they were permitted to tug the bodies of their parents
into their home. None of us who watched dared go to the assistance of
these little ones.
The jail is a rambling stone building, built more than seven centuries
ago. Originally it was a monastery, but the Turks took possession of
it in 1580, and have used it as a prison ever since. It is surrounded
by a high wall and has a large courtyard onto which the great, barren
dungeons open.
Throughout that afternoon mother, Lusanne and I waited anxiously
for father to come from Harpout. Toward evening a gendarme came to
the house and asked if father had returned yet, saying that he was
missed “at the audience with the Mutassarif.” Mother asked him why the
men folk were taken to jail, if the Mutassarif wanted to see them.
The soldier said the governor thought that would be handier, as it
was a long walk to the palace. We were comforted a little by that
explanation, but when evening came and the men had not returned to
their homes we became worried again. And we began to fear, too, that
father and Paul had been intercepted.
At dark the wives and daughters of the men who had been taken from
their homes could not stand the suspense any longer. Braving the order
to remain indoors they began to gather in the streets, and little
companies of women and children, and even the more daring men, moved
toward the jails. They waited outside until well toward midnight,
hoping to catch a glimpse of their relatives or to hear what was going
on inside. At 11 o’clock the prison gates opened and Husein Pasha, in
his carriage and escorted by a heavy guard of mounted soldiers, came
out.
The women crowded around him, but the soldiers drove them away.
Scarcely had the Pasha’s carriage disappeared than there was shouting
and screaming in the prison. Lusanne and I, who had stolen up to the
prison wall, ran home frightened. Father and Paul were there, having
reached home late in the evening.
Father looked very careworn. He took me into his arms and kissed me
in a strange way. Big tears were in his eyes when I looked into them.
I knew, without asking, that he had not succeeded in his mission to
Harpout for protection. We sat up all that night, listening to the
cries that came from the prison. We learned the next day what had
happened, when the one man who had escaped crept into his home to be
hidden.
When Husein Pasha arrived at the prison he told the men who had been
gathered that new word had come from Constantinople that the Armenians
were not loyal to Turkey, and that they had been plotting to help the
Allies. He demanded that the prisoners tell him what they knew of such
plots. Every one of them assured him there had been no such plotting,
that the Armenians wanted only to live in peace with their Turkish
neighbors, obey the Sultan and do him whatever service was demanded of
them. Husein seemed at last convinced and went away, saying the men
could all return to their homes in the morning.
While the prisoners were congratulating each other upon their promised
release, and hoping there might be some way to get word to their
families in the meantime, gendarmes appeared and drove the men into
one corner of the courtyard. While the others were held back by the
levelled guns and bayonets one prisoner at a time was pulled into a
ring of soldiers and ordered to confess that he had been conspiring
against the Sultan.
As each one denied the accusation and declared he would confess to
nothing, he was stripped of his clothes and the gendarmes fell to
beating him on his naked back with leather thongs. As fast as the
men fainted from the lashing they were thrown to one side until they
revived, when they were beaten again, until all the soldiers had taken
turns with the thongs and were tired. Eight of the older men died under
the beatings. Their bodies were thrown into a corner of the jail yard.
While they were beating Father Rhoupen an officer interfered. He said
it was a waste of time to beat the priest, as all priests must be
killed anyway. He then turned to Father Rhoupen and told him he could
live only if he would forswear Christ and become Mohammedan. If he
refused, the officer said, he would be beaten until he died.
Poor Father Rhoupen was almost too weak to answer. When the soldiers
dropped him, at the officer’s command, he fell into a heap on the
ground. When he tried to speak his head shook and the Turk thought he
was signifying he would accept Mohammed.
“Hold him up--on his feet,” the officer ordered.
Two soldiers lifted him. The officer commanded him to repeat the creed
of Islam--“There is only one God, and Mohammed is his prophet.”
“There is only one God”--Father Rhoupen began, just as clearly as
he could, and with his eyes turned full upon the cruel officer. He
stopped for breath, and then went on--“and Jesus Christ, His Son, is my
Saviour!”
The officer drew his sword and cut off Father Rhoupen’s head.
Professor Poladian, president of the College, was next told that he
might save his life if he would profess Mohammed. Professor Poladian
was one of the most loved men in all Armenia. He had studied at Yale
University, in the United States, and had been highly honored by
England and France because of his noble deeds. He was very old.
I loved him more than any man besides my father, because once when I
was very little I was sick and cried when I had to stay away from a
Christmas tree at the College on which Professor Poladian had hung
bags of candy for all the little girls of Tchemesh-Gedzak. Professor
Poladian asked Lusanne, my sister, why I was not with the other
children who gathered about the tree, and when she told him I was at
home, ill, and that I cried because I couldn’t come, he drove all the
way to our house, almost two miles, brought me my candy bag and told
me the Christmas story of the birth of Christ. I remember after that I
always wanted to pray to Professor Poladian after I had prayed to God,
until my mother made me understand why I shouldn’t.
Professor Poladian was not beaten, but the officer told him he had
been spared only that he might swear faith in Islam. The Professor was
almost overcome with his suffering at having to witness the treatment
of his friends, but he told the officer he would give his life rather
than deny his religion. The soldiers then tore out his finger nails,
one by one, and his toe nails and pulled out his hair and beard, and
then stabbed him with knives until he died.
Throughout the night the screams from the prison yard continued, and
the women waiting outside were frantic. At dawn soldiers drove the
women away, telling them their husbands would soon be home.
As soon as the women were out of sight the soldiers took out the men
who had lived through the torture, and, tying them together with a long
rope, marched them out of the city behind the jail toward the Murad
River, ten miles away. When they reached the river bank the soldiers
set upon the men and stabbed them to death with bayonets. Only the one
escaped by pulling a dead body on top of him and making believe that
he, too, was dead.
The next day, Thursday, which is the day before the Mohammedan Sunday,
the soldiers went through the streets at 9 o’clock, calling for all
Armenian men over eighteen years of age, to assemble in the public
square. In every street an officer stopped at house doors and told the
people that any man over eighteen who was not in the square in one hour
would be killed.
Mother and Lusanne and I flew to father’s arms. We each tried to get
our arms around his neck. He was very sad and quiet. “One at a time, my
dear ones,” he said, and made us wait while he kissed and said good-by
to each of us in turn. Little Sarah, who was seven, and Hovnan, who was
six, he held in his arms a long time. Then he kissed me on the lips,
such as he had never done before. He told mother she must not cry, but
be very brave. Then he went out.
Little Paul followed father at a distance, to be near him as long as
possible. When father got to the square Paul tried to turn back, but a
soldier saw him and caught him by the collar, saying, “You go along,
too, then we won’t have to gather you up with the women to-morrow.”
Father protested that Paul was only fifteen, but the soldiers wouldn’t
listen. So my brother never came back home.