Smyrna 1922
Recollections of Deli Sarkis… This episode happened after he was taken by a Turkish soldier to the Basmakhanien Station.
“Sometime later I woke up. I looked around. Dozens of bodies were lying in all kinds of positions. Blood was everywhere: on faces, arms and legs, evidence of terrible wounds. A young man, next to me, pleaded aloud for someone to finish him off. His legs were a bloody pulp.”
Marash 1920
Thousands of Armenians withdrew from Marash following 3,000 French officers and men many of whom were black Senegalese into the worst snow storm in memory. This selection is from the memoir of Lydia Bagdikian (elder sister of Nora whom the family lost track of in the withdrawal).
“Nora! Mother shouted. “My Nora! That’s her. No one else walks like that.”
“The poor woman is losing her mind,” someone said. She has begun to imagine things.” Nora is just a speck in the bright sun and almost naked.
“When we shouted, she began to cry and run. Papa ran towards her. He picked her up in his arms. It was a miraculous reunion.”
END GAME
In Smyrna 1922 Turkish soldiers go into the Armenian section of the city first looking for treasure and inflicting unspeakable torture on those remaining before setting fire to the entire section. (See Smyrna 1922: destruction of a city by Marjorie Housepian Dobkin.
In Marash 1920 as many Armenians leave their beloved city in the worst snow storm in memory, they hear the muffled cries of Armenians being burned alive in churches and other buildings including the school house.
Did the perpetrators of the horrors of Smyrna and Marash suffer any consequences? Answer, NO!” Instead, many attained lucrative positions in the newly formed government of Kemal Ataturk.
NEVER FORGET!
