85. K.: LETTER FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT K., DATED 16th NOVEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
I wish to confirm my telegram in Turkish dated the 12th November, stating that the authorities had begun to send away our Armenian teachers, and that we did not understand the reason for this.
I must now add to this that all our Armenian teachers have been deported, having left for the south by wagon yesterday. Two of them had been started in another direction last week, but were brought back to go south. One of these, however, had become insane from fright, and is left temporarily in our hands. It is doubtful whether he can recover under present conditions.
Our local Mudir gives us assurances that our school and pupils will not be interfered with, and we are going on as best we can, loading most of the extra work on to ourselves and our Greek teachers. Children of Armenian parents who have changed their faith are leaving, but so far others remain. What to do with children left on our hands without support is a serious problem.
The head of the orphanage at J. has left also, and I understand that the institution is in a very precarious, chaotic condition. What the outcome will be I do not know.
The members of our Armenian circle are well, but the long-drawn-out nervous strain is telling on some. Routine school work has not been stopped for an hour, and goes on quietly, as if nothing whatever were happening about us. But to accomplish this, some quick shifts have had to be made, and, as our Turkish friends say, “Idaré-i-maslahat.”
XI.
THE TOWN OF X.
We are better informed as to what happened in this town than in regard to any other place where the Ottoman Government’s design against the Armenians was put into execution. The documents relating to it, contained in this section, are so full of personal detail that it has been necessary, in consideration for the safety of those concerned, to conceal the town’s identity, though in this case, as in others, it is almost impossible to disguise it effectively to anyone acquainted with Asiatic Turkey.
The people of X. were a very typical Armenian urban community, and the story of their destruction represents, in its main features, what happened to innumerable other Armenian communities throughout the Ottoman Empire. The only peculiar feature at X. was the extent to which forcible conversion was attempted by the local authorities. It may also be noted that here, as at Trebizond, there was no intention of forwarding the exiles to their nominal destination. The convoys were butchered en masse as soon as they reached the next town on the road.