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Telegrams of
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Testimonies
Mohammad
Ali Jamalzadeh, the Iranian famous writer, the innovator of
Persian modern story-writing, and the writer of "Once upon a
Time", "Lunatic Asylum" and "The Water's Way" books, crossed
from the land of death and murder, exactly in the days that
Armenians were vagrant in the deserts and the Demon of death
plumaged on them.
He wrote his observations under the title of "My Personal
Observations in World War One".
He emphasis that what is written in this chapter, is all the
things and the events that he personally saw them.
Jamalzadeh, who left Berlin for Baghdad in spring of 1915,
first went to Istanbul and then Aleppo and Baghdad, and
returned from the same way.
"We moved from Baghdad and Aleppo towards Istanbul by
hand-cart and cart. From the first day's of our journey, we
met many groups of Armenians, which strangely were
unbelievable, and the Turkish armed and rider gendarmes
drove them (on foot) towards death and perdition. First it
made us very surprised, but little by little we fall into
the habit, that even we did not look at them, and indeed it
was hard to look at them. By the hit of lashes and weapons,
they drove forward hundreds of weeping weak and on foot
Armenian women and men with their children. Young men
weren't seen among the people, because all the young men
were send to the battle fields or were killed for precaution
(joining to the Russian army). Armenian girls had shaved all
their hairs, and were completely bald, let not Arab and
Turkish men annoy them. Two-three gendarmes by the hit of
the lashes, drove this groups forward, like cattle. If one
of the captives because of tiredness and weakness or
accident, was remained behind, he was kept back for ever (he
was killed), and the groaning of his relatives were useless.
So step by step, we saw Armenian men and women who were
fallen near the road and they were dead, or they were giving
life or agony of death. The we heard that young residents of
that area who were trying to annihilate the passion of
inviolable of Armenian girls who were dieing or were dead,
were not kept. Our way was in the direction of Western Bank
of Euphrates, and every day we saw the corpses in the river,
which the river carry them with it. One night from these
nights, we lodged in a place which was relatively habitable,
and we could buy a lamb from the residents and cut its head
and grill it. We disembowel the lamb near-by and it was a
green liquid, like a liquid pottage (soup). Suddenly we saw
a group of Armenian, which the gendarmes lodged them near to
us, fell on the green liquid and ate it with guzzle and
greedy. It was a sight which I will never forget it. Again,
another day we lodged in a place, which a big caravan from
the same Armenian under the control of Ottoman ride police
were staying there. An Armenian woman with dead face and
figure, came near to me, and with French language said "For
God's sake, buy this two diamonds from me and instead give
me some food, because my children are dieing from hunger."
Believe! That I didn't take the diamonds, but I gave them
some food. Even our food, little by little draw to an end,
but yet there was several days to reach Aleppo, we encounter
distress. We reach Aleppo and lodged in a big guest-house,
its name was Prince Guest-house, and the owner was an
Armenian. Frighten as something, he came to us and said,
Jamal Pasha entered Aleppo, and lodged in this guest-house,
I'm scared that he will arrest and kill me, and restrain the
guest-house. By entreat and implore he wanted from us to go
to Jamal Pasha who was known as cruelty, and mediate. He
said you are honorable people and maybe your mediate be
effective, but it remained ineffective, and after hours it
was revealed that the Armenian man was arrested and was send
to Beirut and its suburbs, it was known that, a big shambles
was made there. In short, we had a strange days, it was like
a very frightening nightmare, which sometimes dominates me,
and it saddens and persecutes me.
- Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, 25 Khordad 1350 [15 June
1971], Geneva
Summery of Jamalzadeh's
observations of
Armenian genocide in Ottoman
"One
day Talaat made what was perhaps the most astonishing
request I had ever heard. The New York Life Insurance
Company and the Equitable Life of New York for years had
done considerable business among the Armenians. The extent
to which this people insured their lives was merely another
indication of their thrifty habits.
"I wish,"
Talaat now said, “that you would get the American life
insurance companies to send us a complete list of their
Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now
and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course
all escheats to the State. The government is the beneficiary
now. Will you do so?"
This was almost too much, and I lost my temper.
"You will get no such list from
me." I said, and I got up and left
him."
Henry Morgenthau
(1856-1946)
American lawyer and diplomat who
was appointed U.S. Ambassador in
Constantinople
(1914-1916). He
was chairman of the Greek Refugee Settlement Commission
formed by the League of Nations in 1923.
"The
German Consul from Mosul related, in my presence, at the
German club at Aleppo that, in many places on the road from
Mosul to Aleppo, he had seen children's hands lying hacked
off in such numbers that one could have paved the road with
them."
Dr. Martin
Niepage
From
"The Horrors of Aleppo",
seen by a German eyewitness, translated by the New York
Times publication (its magazine) Current History Vol. 5,
Nov. 1916, pp 335-337
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