MAPPING THE ATROCITIES
ALEPPO, SYRIA: Refuge for many Armenians who survived the deportations. In August 1915, an estimated 150,000 had settled there. DER ZOR, SYRIA: The final destination for tens of thousands of Armenians who survived the death marches through the desert. At Der Zor they were confined to an open-air camp where they were denied food and water and many died. Others were murdered by guards. In a grim corollary, Islamic State militants last September captured the area and destroyed the Armenian Genocide Church that had been built to commemorate the victims and house their remains. KONYA, TURKEY: End of the line for Armenians on the “death trains” that carried deportees from western Anatolia. They were offloaded from cattle cars and forced down mountain passes on death marches into Syria and Iraq, or held in camps where they were robbed, raped and starved. Thousands died of disease and starvation in Konya and surrounding towns. TRABZON, TURKEY: Port city from which Armenian women and children were loaded onto barges, sent into the Black Sea and drowned. Horrified American and Italian consuls wrote eyewitness accounts. Turkish trials were later held in Trabzon, and Ottoman governor Jemal Azmi was accused of ordering the murder of thousands.
“What happened in 1915 is the collective secret of Turkish society, and the genocide has been relegated to the black hole of our collective memory.”
TANER AKCAM
TURKISH WRITER
BITLIS, TURKEY: One of several villages in which Armenians were rounded up, forced into buildings and burned alive. Ottoman eyewitnesses and Turkey’s German allies later reported terrible scenes. An Ottoman officer recounted that in one village, the entire population was burned.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY: On April 24, 1915, more than 200 Armenian intellectuals, professionals and community leaders were arrested and deported from what was then known as Constantinople in order to isolate and weaken the political leadership. By the end of the sweep, more than 700 had been arrested. Armenians commemorate this as the start of the genocide. However, thousands had been attacked and killed earlier.