It is openly stated by officials here that the exemption of Protestants and Catholics is only temporary, and the trend of events seems to me to give colour to this.
The saddest part of all this is our utter impotence to do anything to stay the awful deeds that are being perpetrated.
[147]. About 3s. 2d.
[148]. Slightly less than a pound sterling.
[149]. Five to ten shillings.
110. Q.: REPORT FROM DR. E., DATED Q., 3rd SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Although you are already well informed as to the Armenian situation in this region, I am taking the liberty to add a few notes from personal observation on the way here, chiefly from what I saw at Eski Shehr, Alayund and Tchai.
At Eski Shehr there are about 12,000 to 15,000 exiles in the fields about the station, evidently in great need and distress. The majority of them appear to be without shelter, and what shelter they have consists of the flimsiest kind of tent, improvised out of a few sticks covered with rugs or carpets in a few instances, but often only with cotton cloth—absolutely no protection from the heavy autumn rains which will soon be coming. The station-master, whom I have known as a reliable man for several years, told me that the people had been treated with every kind of brutality, the police ostensibly trying to prevent the Turks from molesting them by day, but aiding and abetting them by night. I myself noticed that in several places large groups of young women and girls were being kept separate from the rest and guarded (?) by the police, and was told that in several instances the police had allowed them to be outraged. At the present, instances of actual violence were not so common, but there was no provision made for feeding them and the people were quickly spending what little cash they had to buy provisions at exorbitant rates. Certainly they seemed to have little or nothing in the way of supplies, and many looked pinched and sickly. About thirty to forty deaths were taking place every day. Germans whom I overheard talking while on the way to Eski Shehr, and also the German hotel-proprietress at Eski Shehr, were loud in their condemnation of the whole affair as being conducted in the most brutal and horrible way.
At Alayund there were perhaps 5,000 exiles in about the same condition. They were from Broussa for the most part, and those with whom I was able to converse told the same tales. Within two weeks the Government had made two distributions of bread, neither of them sufficient for more than one day, and had given nothing else. I myself saw police beating the people with whips and sticks when a few of them, in a perfectly orderly way, attempted to talk to some of their fellow-exiles on the train, and they were treated in general as though they were criminals who had no claim to consideration of any kind. What talking I did, I had to do with them rather surreptitiously, of course.