Then came the awful Saturday, the day of darkness and horror. Women came to our house saying: “They are beating the Armenian men to death, and they are going to beat the women next!” I ran to a neighbour’s house and there found men and women crying. The Protestant brethren had gotten out of the church and were telling their story. “They are beating the men frightfully,” they cried. “They say they will throw us into the River Sakaria; they will send us into exile; they will make Mohammedans of us; they will beat our women next; they are coming to the house.”
“Come to the school and I will put up the American flag,” I said. Soon after, more women came to the school to find out if I could do something.
“We will go to the mayor; we will go to the Beast,” said they, “and we are all losing our heads!”
Then our woman doctor came, crying frightfully. She had been down to the church to care for the wounded. Then the trustee came. “I want you to take my money and give it to my son if I die,” said he. Then he sat down and wept, the tears rolling down his face.
At last I could endure it no longer. “I am going to the church; I do not care what you say,” I exclaimed. I did not know the way and every one was afraid to show me, but I found it by inquiring. One man said: “You are going to the church? It is hell there.” I arrived and walked past the guards at the gate without looking at them, and came to the door and lo, one of the trustees came to meet me. We walked up and down the church together and he remarked: “I think the police do not like to see you.” I said: “They had better not; I am going to America to tell of all these things.” He said there was one Turkish soldier outside the church in tears. He said he had been crying three days and nights because of the awful treatment of the Armenian people. Some of the people were shut up ten days in the church, but special favour was shown to the Protestants; none were beaten, and they had more liberty to go in and out. During all this time the Armenian shops were closed, and Armenians were not allowed to go to market to buy food or even to their gardens to gather their fruits, so that many were on the verge of starvation.
Three days after this the beating ceased and we were beginning to take courage again; a few Armenian shops were opened; but the next morning early, which was Sunday, news came that all the Armenians in Adapazar, numbering about 25,000, were to be sent into exile. They were to go to Konia by freight train, if they could pay their passage, and then to Mosul by carriage—on foot a journey of weeks and months. Such awful stories came to us about things that had happened to those who went on foot, that people sold their last possessions to get enough to pay their train passage. They were afraid to take money with them. The poor had none to take; the rich must leave all their property behind. If they took money they feared violence. By Wednesday there were no goods trains to send them by, as so many had gone, but all the people were turned out into the streets to await their turn—many for several days—except the Protestants, who were allowed to come to the Protestant church to wait, while some of the wealthy people remained in their houses. The Protestants, in Adapazar especially, were in good favour with the Government, and their condition is somewhat hopeful.
A card has been received, written three weeks after the exile began, from Eski Shehr, telling how some of the Protestants in the hotel there were allowed to have their church services on Sunday and were being well treated. They thought it possible that they might be able to rent houses and remain there. If this is indeed true it will be a very great blessing.
103. ADAPAZAR: FULLER STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING DOCUMENT; PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL “THE NEW ARMENIA,” OF NEW YORK, 15th MAY, 1916.
For several months there had been occasional exiles from Adapazar, but we felt safe because we had a good Mayor and a good Military Commander in the city. They were our friends. The Commander frequently joined us in our daily games of croquet, while the sick soldiers watched us from the windows. We gave a garden party to all the officers. They liked us and would have spared the school and the Protestants had they been able. But one day little Arousiag, one of our youngest pupils, came to us, a refugee, with only the clothes on her back. She had been staying with relatives at Sabandja, but the whole village had been exiled. As she had been born in America, of naturalized parents, she was saved, and I was afterwards able to bring her to her parents in America.
Soon after, some villagers whom I knew came from another mountain village, Tchalgara, and from their lips I heard how for seven days the men had been shut up in the church and beaten—especially the priest—until some fainted. The Government was searching for weapons, and the men were beaten until they either produced their own or secured others to surrender. Then in Bardezag, our nearest neighbouring missionary city, similar things happened. We did not know what was going on in the interior, although occasional vague rumours had come to us.