KURD WOMAN.
Zekii Pasha is said to have had 40,000 Kurds and regular soldiers under his command when he began the massacre. The people of Sassoun, knowing that they were doomed, fought desperately. They repulsed the Kurds several times, and killed many of them; but finally the regular soldiers took part, pretending to come in aid of the Armenians, and overbore them, killing all without quarter. The Sultan’s order was to spare neither man, woman, nor child; but as the men met the enemy first, they were killed first. When the women’s turn came, the Turks and Kurds abused all they could get hold of, and then told them that if they would deny Christ and accept Mohammed and become their wives, they should live; but if they refused, every one of them, according to the Sultan’s order, should be killed. “Now,” said they, “choose between Islam and death.” These noble Armenian Christian women said:—“We are Christians, we can never deny Christ. Jesus Christ is our Saviour. He came down from Heaven and died on the cross for us. For that dying and loving Christ we are Christians; we are ready to die for Him who died for us.” And they added further, “We are no better than our husbands were; you killed them, kill us too.” Then the horrible butchery began on those defenseless women. Thousands of them were slaughtered, and thousands ran to different churches, hoping that perhaps they might find protection in some way in those holy walls, or hoping that God in his great mercy might shelter them. But the ferocious Kurds and Turkish soldiers pursued them, sword in hand, violated them, even in the churches, and cut their throats there until the floors were streaming with blood. Then they poured kerosene on the buildings and burned them.
They went to one village and killed every man; the women of course, knowing their fate was soon to be worse than their husbands’. One of the leading women, named Shaheg, perceiving that the Turks and Kurds were getting ready to seize and ravish them, called the other women and said, “Sisters, our husbands are killed, and you know what is in store for us and our children. Don’t let us fall into the hands of these savage beasts; we have to die anyway, and can die easier, and without being defiled first, and perhaps tortured. Let us go to the precipice and jump off.” So saying, she took her baby on her arm, ran to the rock, and threw herself over; the others followed her, and thus all were killed. The Turks captured many boys and girls, six, or eight, or ten years of age, held them by an arm or foot, and hacked them to pieces with their swords. Sometimes they stood the boys in a row and shot them, to see how many could be killed by a single bullet. They wrenched babies from their mothers’ arms, cut their throats while the mothers shrieked and pleaded, and boiling them in kettles, forced the mothers to eat the flesh. They cut open women about to become mothers, tore out the unborn babes, and marched triumphantly with the ghastly trophies on their spears—something almost surpassing the savagery of the Apache Indian. Even their worst horrors they made worse yet by the way they did them; they took a gloating delight in doubling the cruelty or the shame by making it torture others too. The husband was forced to look on while his wife was violated, and she in turn while he was mutilated, tortured, and murdered; the father while his daughters, even little girls of ten or twelve, were deflowered and their throats cut, the son while his parents had every form of shame and torture inflicted on them, and were killed before him, or saw him killed first. They tortured their victims like Indians or Inquisitors, in every fashion of lingering death and torment that makes the heart sicken and the blood run cold to read of. Crucifying head downward, and pouring boiling water or ice-cold water on them, leaving them so till death came; flaying alive; cutting off arms, feet, nose, ears, and other members, and leaving them to die; thrusting red-hot wires into and through their bodies. They pulled out the eyes of several Christian pastors, said, “Now dance for us,” poured kerosene on them and burned them to death. They put a Bible and a cross before others, and ordered them to first spit and then trample on both, and deny Christ; on their refusal they were butchered. The handsomest girls and young matrons were not murdered, but worse; each one was kept as a spoil of some Turk or Kurd, who carried her to his house, and made a slave and concubine of her. Many hundreds of them are there to this day, enduring the awful fate of having been dragged from happy and virtuous homes, seen their husbands, or parents, or brothers, or all of them horribly murdered, and passing their lives each in doing menial labor and serving the lust of a brutal master, and all the other men he lets have their will of her, without hope, or comfort, or decency, and a long life of shame and misery yet to look forward to. This is another specimen of Mohammedan purity, and it all happens because the Armenians are Christians. If my readers think I am exaggerating, I refer them to the consular reports. All this was done by the barbarians con amore, with relish and delight. They boasted of it, they plumed themselves on it, they praised the Sultan for ordering them to do it, and he praised them for doing it, and decorated all the officers.
The condition of those who were murdered out-right was much better than that of those who were imprisoned and tortured. The following was written by an Armenian from one of the prisons:—
“Our condition in prison passes description. Only he who sees can understand it. Most of the occupants of every room are Christians, but many are Moslems. Life would be a shade more tolerable if the subject race were not compelled thus to associate with the dominant race, whose temper, tastes, and habits are so different. Into one small room twenty persons are crowded. Except for a few Moslems, not a single person has room enough on the bare floor to stretch out and lie down. For fully sixteen hours in the night, the doors of the rooms are all locked. In one of these small rooms, sometimes twenty cigarettes are smoking at once. Out of the small amount of food which reaches us, instead of eating themselves, the Christians are obliged to feed the Moslems confined there. Moslem oppression continues, even here; it is a tyranny within a tyranny. In every room there are a few Aghas or principal Moslems, and every Christian must contribute money to their lordships. Those who withhold such contributions are not allowed to sit down.
“Among the inmates of the prison are twenty or thirty rowdies and bullies, under whom the Christians must serve as menial slaves. There is no respect, no pity. The horrible blasphemies cannot be described. There is no book, no Bible, no work, no sleep. Every man is covered with the swarming vermin with which the unwashed rooms of the prison teem. To clean ourselves is impossible. Now and then the rumor sweeps through the prison that we are all to be put to death, and all our hearts melt like water.
“The terrible darkness of the night, the curses and stripes inflicted from time to time, cause us to live in the valley of the shadow of death. It is a living grave, a visible hell, a world without God. Out of this throng of prisoners more than a hundred are in daily suffering from the gnawing of hunger, and from nakedness, but there is no one to pity. Many praying men are tempted to cease praying, many are tempted to change over to the Moslem faith. In truth, all of us are dumb; what to say we know not. We are wearied of the long silence; our eyes are strained with watching, our bones ache, our prayers are despised by the revilers. Night is not night, and day is not day. Our grief is our food, our sleep is weeping, for how long a time must we cry? O Lord, wilt Thou hide Thyself forever? How long will Thy anger burn like fire? And yet some of us are saying: ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’
“When will the Christian statesmen and philanthropists of the world find a way to cleanse these Augean stables all over Turkey? Long centuries cry out for redress. Within a month the following incidents have occurred: A Christian confined in this prison was ordered to receive 400 stripes. After 300 had been inflicted he cried out that he could endure no more or he must die. An officer then presented to him a paper with the names of fifty Christians in the city who were accused therein of sedition. In his great agony he signed it, and this is to be used to incriminate others, wholly regardless of their guilt or innocence. The other victim of unendurable stripes was an old man. When he could endure no more of this inhuman treatment, he also was asked to sign a paper implicating others indiscriminately.
“Can any one living in a free country for a moment understand what it is to live under such a government? There is a great flourish just at present over the reforms that are being instituted in certain parts of this land. No resident of this country can have confidence in the superficial operations. What will you do with a land where lying is the simplest of mental exercises, and where no one was ever known to blush over it if exposed?”
MASSACRE AT SASSOUN.
ERZEROUM DURING MASSACRE.