The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 4, October 1909)

by American National Red Cross

In the four days following the second massacre the condition of the refugees in the factories was pitiable. A little raw flour was given out, even on Monday evening, but for most of the people it was two and a half days before bread was distributed to them. The suffering was great. Conditions were not as bad in the German factory as in the Greek factory, because the inclosure of the former was spacious, and the number of refugees less. In the Greek factory the 13,000 filled all available space. The buildings were packed, with people sitting everywhere on the floor; many crawled under the machinery to find a place to lie. Out in the yard of the factory the last comers were jammed together tightly, so that for many there was actually “standing room only.” Among the refugees here few were wounded, but many sick. There had been an epidemic of measles in the town before the trouble began, and in the crowding of refugees from the first massacre there had been a thorough spread of infection. The two weeks that had elapsed since the beginning of the first massacre gave time for the incubation period, and now many children broke out with the rash of measles.

A smallpox scare was of benefit, in that it hastened the evacuation of the factory. This early turning out of the crowd from the factory was one of the best steps taken in all the relief work, for although it caused some few deaths by pneumonia from exposure, it avoided the awful calamity of an outbreak of typhus fever, such as occurred after the Armenian massacres of 1895. The moving of refugees into camp from the Trepanni factory was superintended by Commander Carver, of H. M. S. Swiftsure. By Thursday noon the 13,000 had been divided up into about 30 sections to facilitate the distribution of bread. On Friday, when it was desired to empty the factory, it was announced that bread would no longer be given out in the factory, and each section, according to directions, followed its own particular bread cart out to the place of encampment, at the Yenemahalle. Here, without sufficient covering, and for a time without any tents, families were required to pass nights still cold and chilly, and days rendered intolerable by exposure to the intense heat of the sun at midday. Children in the acute stage of measles passed the night on the bare ground without any covering, and exposure to the chill air resulted in many cases of broncho-pneumonia, from which, for a time, they were dying at the rate of ten a day.

AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL IN CHARGE OF SURGEON MILLER, OF U. S. S. “NORTH CAROLINA,” ASSISTED BY THREE HOSPITAL CORPS MEN AND LADIES.

Two days after the establishment of the camp an attempt was made to separate the families with measles, and between 300 and 400 of such were collected by Commander Carver in an orange grove, a quarter of a mile away from the main Yenemahalle camp.

Tuesday, May 4, eight days after the second massacre, the German factory was cleared of its 5,000 inmates, and these were located part in an open camp and part in adjoining houses, which, although rented by Armenians, had been spared the general destruction because belonging to Turkish owners. This location was nearly half a mile distant from the Yenemahalle camp. The people here were fed by German funds, and the place was known as the “German camp.”

At this time the allowance of rations was doubled in the large Yenemahalle camp, so that from this time on the people had sufficient food. But the bread from the emergency bakeries of the first two weeks was often poorly baked, and many people had diarrhœa, approaching dysentery, from eating the raw dough that for many was the only food available during the first two days in the factory. Tuesday night and Wednesday 500 blankets and 100 quilts, sent from Beirut, were distributed to the most destitute of the sufferers in the Yenemahalle and measles camp, but when half of the 13,000 refugees were without covering for the night, it can be understood that the 600 pieces were woefully insufficient to go around. A week later 300 more blankets were received and distributed.

GERMAN HOSPITAL IN GROUNDS OF GERMAN FACTORY WITH KAISERSWERTH DEACONESSES.

On this Tuesday a request made to Ashraf Bey, municipal sanitary inspector, for aid in medical inspection was answered by the sending of two Turkish doctors and two pharmacists, who, the following day, opened an emergency pharmacy near the measles camp.