“At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furniture or implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.”
“In Hadjin well-to-do people who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.” “In one place the people had been given notice to depart on Wednesday; the carts appeared on Tuesday at 3.30 A.M., and the people were ordered to leave at once. ‘Some were dragged from their beds without even sufficient clothing.’”
The kind-hearted eye-witness suffered almost as much as the exiles. Here is a description:
“The weeping and wailing of the women and children was most heartrending. Some of these people were from wealthy and refined circles, some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There were clergymen, merchants, bankers, mechanics, tailors, and men from every walk of life. The whole Mohammedan population knew from the beginning that these people were to be their prey, and they were treated as animals.”
Here is one more from a different place:
“All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden with women and children, and here and there a man who had escaped the previous deportation. The women and girls all wore the Turkish costumes, that their faces might not be exposed to the gaze of the drivers and gendarmes—a brutal lot of men brought in from other regions....
“The panic in the city was terrible.... The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prisons had been released, and the mountains around were full of bands of outlaws....
“Most of the Armenians in the district were absolutely hopeless. Many said it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope.... Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently.”[170]
Thousands of boys and girls of assimilable age have been torn away from the bleeding hearts of their parents, and sold and distributed among the Mohammedans, and many thousands more have perished by disease, by exhaustion, by starvation, and by cruel murder.