Testimony with oath of Fatma, wife of
Mehmed, son of Salim and daughter of Ali Osman
from Kalafka (299) village of Yomra subdistrict.
It was the first day of April. Everybody was in preparation o f migration, seeing that the Russian were approaching to our village. I went to he house of Mehmed Aga, son of Kolan, the head man of Dirona (300) village, to ask what he was thinking to do. He answered that his sister Hatice and he would act together when the enemy ceased fire at the village. I stayed at their house compulsorily, actually there were many people that I was acquainted with. Among them, there were, Hasan, son of Kolan, from Dirona village, his wife Ulviye, his daughter-in-law, Hüsniye his brother Ali and his wife Zeliha, his relative Mehmed and his wife Gülfem and their 17 years old daughter Güllü, his motherin-law and Emrullah, son of Kolak and his wife Zakire, sister o f Mehmed, son of Kolak, Emine and her daughter Ayşe and her daughter-in-law Emine.
The next morning at 3 o ’clock the enemy occupied the village. A Kazakh squadron consisting about 150 soldiers came to the house where we were and took us all with men and women to a place that was a quarter hour away from the village. Three Greek women who were accompanying them, were acting as translators to them. We had the day there. Towards the evening, the Russian separated men from women and took them to an unknown place. They took us to another place which was half an hour distant from that place.
At night, they raped Emine, 18 years daughter of Ali, son o f Pash, from Dirona village, in front of our eyes. The baby of Hatice, her sister, was thrown into the air by the Russian and was cut into two pieces with a sword. The Russian killed the other children. Emine, wife of Hasan, son of Kolak, and her 8 years daughter Şükriye and other lots of Moslem women whom I do not know the names, were dishonored meanly. One of the Greek women, who could not endure these wildly behavior and wanted to interfere in favor of the innocent, was immediately killed by the Russian with the strokes of butt of the rifle and bayonet.
By taking advantage of and the darkness of the night, I was able to succeed in escaping from this area to the plain and the pitiless behavior o f the Russian. In the middle of the night, I got up from the corner where I was crouched, and came to Komera (301) village where the Ottoman soldiers were located.
There, I learned that the younger daughter of Zehra, daughter of Hurşit Pasha, Nadiye, sister-in-law of Haci Hatun, wife of Osman İskenderoglu, and her daughters Binnaz and Meryem had been killed, after being raped.
299 ) There are three villages called Kalafka of Yomra town of Trabzon. Kalafkaarduçlu (Gülyurdu), Kalafkahatipli (Kömürcü) and Kalafkaiskenderli (Taşdelen). It could not be identified which Kalafka village it was. - 300) Its name of today, could not be identified. - 301) Today, Yalincak village of central subdistrict of Trabzon.
Testimony of Firdevs Hamm, wife of Şerif,
residing at Abbas Aga district of Van (?.6.1916)
While the enemy was entering Van city, Firdevs Hanim and her neighbors, were gathered in the house of retired officer Mehmed Ali Efendi. The sounds of firing rifles and screams began to be heard. After they plundered the houses, they were burning them. The fire was coming closer to the house of Ali Efendi. About 15 armed people, rang the door of this house. They called Ali Efendi and ordered him to give money to them. Ali Efendi, after hesitating for a moment, obeyed the order. The brigands, after taking the money of Ali Efendi, they killed him and his 80 years old sister. His wife also, after being seduced, had the same end. My husband Şerif Efendi was shot at his head and fell down on the ground.
In spite of my screams full of pain, my 16 years old son, Ahmed, was massacred. The brigands stabbed a pregnant woman and after killing all the men in the house, they took the women to Hatuniye district. There they cut the penis of a 15 years old boy and put it in his mouth and after this torture, they killed him. The brigands killed all the people they met without any pity. They took the women, previously they had taken to Hatuniye district, to American Institution.
On the way, they met a woman walking together with her 15 years old son and her baby. The boy was suffocated, the woman after being raped was killed with her baby. From the American Institute where there were a lot of immigrants, the Armenians and the Russian chose the most beautiful women and took them away, not to return them any more. None of the women could protect their honor. Among the women who were raped by force, they killed the wives of two sons and daughter of Fevzi Aga from Molla Kasim village and the daughter of Ibrahim Aga from Ayams (Agarti) village. The 15 years old daughter Zeliha of Ismail Aga from Güllü village, died, for being raped too much. Lots of Moslem immigrants have been the victims of the torture applied on them.....
*
from the book:
ARMENIAN AND RUSSIAN OPPRESSIONS
( 1914- 1916) (TESTIMONIES OF WITNESSES)
Prepared by Dr.ERDAL İLTER
PRESENTATION
Armenian propaganda tries to conceal the facts through certificates which are the products of imagination like “Andonian Certificates”. It forms clouds of questions in the minds with the claim that Armenians were subjected to massacres. All of these efforts in fact serve to make “The question of the massacres of the Turkish people” committed by Armenian gangs to be forgotten. Today the mass graves of Moslems slaughtered by Armenian gangs in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, are laid out in front of the eyes of public opinion of the world (1). Many other unknown ones are waiting to be revealed to daylight and to be exhibited in genocide museums. Objective scientists are searching and revealing the facts that are wanted to be concealed and presenting them to the attention of the public opinion in their studies. Although the days of disaster are wanted to be made forgotten, these do not go out of minds. Objective studies carried out on Armenians, show the mistake of the efforts to invoice the Emigration Event in 1915 to Turkish Nation (2).
The real guilty are the imperialist states who provoked and deceived Armenian community. It is a reality that in our era, the wars are carried out not at the front, but at the behind o f the front lines. The front that the Russians opened in the Eastern Anatolia was also such a front. The Emigration Law was prepared for the purpose of preventing the further abrasion of the lines of the Turkish Army behind the front, and to take away the defeatist elements located in that area out of the operations field and in the critical areas in the country, the people living in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia and who disobeyed the State were removed from those areas. There where Turks also among the people who were removed. With this law, the aim was to cause them to settle in more secure areas, and not to be massacred, as Armenians claim.
However, in the direction of interests, by charging the event on the Turkish Nation, it is tried to be screened and to be concealed. In fact, following the First World War, when Entente Powers occupied Istanbul, they could not prove the “Armenian Massacre” claim and the American archives to which they had clung with a last hope, did not give anything to them, and thus, “Armenian Massacre” claim had collapsed even at those days (1920) from the legal point of view (3). In our era also, the young Armenian generation is wanted to be grown up with hate, and to follow blood feud. In the freedom environment of the West, these negative efforts can give much quick results. The task that we have to carry out is to weigh the facts on the scales of reality and to find out the real truth.
Beginning from the declaration of Constitutional Period, the result to be derived from the events happened, within its historical course is that, Armenian Committees who run after the dream of Armenia and who were directed towards the interests of the Entente States, by putting obstacles that are difficult to overcome, in front of both Turkey and Armenian people who want to live in peace, have always dragged the country and the people who followed them into disaster.
In our era also, same Armenian organizations and institutions who dream to bring The Armenian Diaspora into Anatolian territory by establishing Great Armenian State and take action for this purpose, try to deviate the historical realities and to destroy the friendly relations that are tried to be developed between Turkey and Armenia that gained her independence on September 23, 1991 by the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The observance of the existence of Turkey is a source of confidence for Armenia, in other words, for Armenians, the only window that is opened to the West is Turkey is recognized by the politicians and statesmen of Armenia and this is an important development for Armenia that is prepared for the 21st Century.
On the other hand, it is obvious that, a peace environment to be constituted in Caucasia, along with Turkey-Armenia friendly relations, will create a stability medium for the other states in the area. For this reason, the problem of Nagorno Karabagh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, has great importance to be solved fairly between the parties. In this point, there is a historical task for the Armenian Republic. Following the solution of this problem, the participation of Armenia in Western Alliance and, as it was expressed by The Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz on March 21, 1996, the opening of borders between the two countries, is seen as a point which can be evaluated from Turkish point of view.
According to us, it is a reality that it will be advantageous for the interests of Turkish and Armenian communities, if the Armenian Republic follows policies, parallel to the friendly hand extended by learning lessons from history, within the framework of international
policies.
This book that we have prepared with the title “Armenian and Russian Oppressions (1914-1916) (Testimonies of Witnesses)”, in order to open the screen of ' suspect on the “Moslem Victims Issue” that is tried to be concealed by the Armenians and to let the people know the realities behind Armenian claims, is the translation of the works which consist of the records of the testimonies of witnesses about the oppressions that were committed by Armenians against Turkish people, and which was printed in Istanbul in 1917 among “National Congress” publications by the Ottoman State, with the title “Documents sur les Atrocides ArmenoRusses”. The testimonies of the witnesses contained in the book, have been taken under oath by authorized people and commissions that examined the oppressions at sites and established by minutes.
A lacking translation of French edition of this book of documents which puts forward a part of the Armenian and Russian oppressions carried out against innocent Turkish and Kurdish people in Bitlis, Muş, Van, Hakkari, Siirt, Erzurum, Erzincan and Trabzon provinces between 1914-1916 and which have been used by some authors, have been included in the book of Retired Major-General Ahmet Hulki Saral, “Armenian Question” (pp. 411-446). However it has been observed that some parts in original French edition and its translation do not coincide with each other in the examination that we carried out, especially in location and individual names, and these were misreading and typing errors. For this reason, these mistakes were corrected as much as possible by going to the originals (4) of the text, and translated in compliance with the original text. Furthermore, the changed names o f the locations mentioned in documents, have also been shown with today’s names. Since the book was printed disorderly, the book was brought to an understandable form by dividing it under general headings and following the note numbers, and the reference books that have been made use of for the arrangement of the book and a large index have been added to the end of the book.
In order to ensure the subject to be understood more obviously and to provide its integrity, the relevant section of the book-which explains Van, Bitlis and Muş events before and after the mobilization, and titled “Ermeni Komiteleri’nin A ’mal ve Harekat-i ihtilaliyyesi, i’lan-i Meşrutiyyet’den Evvel ve Sonra” (The Objectives and Revolutionary Operations of Armenian Committees, Before and After the Constitutional Period) again published by the M inistry of Interior Affairs of the Ottoman State in Istanbul in 1916, which is a Perfect evaluation of the works, has been included by us in summarized form as “INTRODUCTION” to the book.
Dr. Erdal ILTER
March 28, 1996 -Ankara
1) For example, see Enver Konukgu, Ermenilerin Yeşilyayla’daki Turk Soykirimi (11-12 Mart 1918), Ankara 1990; “Kars-Subatan Şehitligi Kazisi,” Yakin Tarihimizde Kars ve Dogu Anadolu Sempozyumu (Kars-Subatan 17-21 Haziran 1991), Ankara 1992, pp. 361-457; “Zeve Şehitligi Kazisi,” Yakin Tarihimizde Van Uluslararasi Sempozyumu (Van 2-5 Nisan 1990), Ankara 1990, pp. 309-406.
2) Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Show, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume II, London 1978, pp. 314-317, Alois van Tongerloo, "Armeense Drang Naar Autonomie,”Inforient-Dossier (15 .October. 1981), pp.25-27; Justin McCarthy. “Armenian Terrorism: Histoiy as Poison and Antidode," International Terrorism and Drug Connection, Ankara 1984. pp. 85-94; Azini Siislii, Ermeniler ve 1915 Tehcir Olavi. Ankara 1990; Osmanli Belgelerinde Ermeniler (1915-1920). Ankara 1994
3) Bilal N. Şimşir, Malta Surgunleri. Istanbul 1976. pp. 259-284; American High Commissioner in Turkey Admiral Bristol, in his report that he sent to U.S.A. Secretary of State in 1920 related to Armenians, indicated that the recent stories seen in European media about Armenian assassination, were directed for the purpose of misleading and they were the propaganda made to ensure the support of egoist plans of Allied Powers. See Laurence Evans. United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey (1914-1924). Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins Press. 1965; Turkish Translation. Tevfik Alanay. Türkiyc’nin Paylaşilmasi (1914-1924), Istanbul 1972. p. 262.
4) Arşiv Belgelerine Gore Kafkaslar’da ve Anadolu’da Ermeni Mezalimi, 1906-1918. Vol. I. Devlet Arşivleri Genel Mudürlügu Yayimi, Ankara 1995.
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