fbpx
Wikipedia

Deir ez-Zor camps

November 23, 2023

The Deir ez-Zor Camps were concentration camps[1] in the heart of the Syrian desert in which many thousands of Armenian refugees were forced into death marches during the Armenian genocide. The United States vice-consul in Aleppo, Jesse B. Jackson, estimated that Armenian refugees, as far east as Deir ez-Zor and south of Damascus, numbered 150,000, all of whom were virtually destitute.[2]

Deir ez-Zor Camps
Concentration camp
Bodil Biørn's caption: "The Armenian leader Papasian considers the last remnants of the horrific murders at Deir ez-Zor in 1915–1916."
Location of Deir ez-Zor in contemporary Syria
Coordinates35°20′00″N 40°9′00″E / 35.33333°N 40.15000°E / 35.33333; 40.15000
LocationDeir ez-Zor, Ottoman Empire
Operational1910s
InmatesArmenians
Killed150,000
Armenian refugees collected near the body of a dead horse at Deir ez-Zor

History edit

Those Armenians who survived during the genocide in 1915-1916 were driven onwards in two directions: towards Damascus or along the Euphrates to Deir ez-Zor. During the early period of massacres, 30,000 Armenians were encamped in various camps outside the town of Deir ez-Zor. They were under the protection of the Arab governor, Ali Suad Bey, until the Ottoman authorities decided to replace him with Salih Zeki Bey, who was known for his cruelty and barbarity.[3][4] When the refugees, including women and children, reached Deir ez-Zor, they cooked grass, ate dead birds,[5] and although there was a cave near a place called Deir ez-Zor that was used at the end of one march to store prisoners until they starved, no "camp" seems ever to have been planned for the Armenians.[6]

According to Minority Rights Group,

Those who survived the long journey south were herded into huge open-air concentration camps, the grimmest of which was Deir-ez-Zor... where they were starved and killed by sadistic guards. A small number escaped through the secret protection of friendly Arabs from villages in Northern Syria.[7]

According to Christopher J. Walker, "'Deportation' was just a euphemism for mass murder. No provision was made for their journey or exile, and unless they could bribe their guards, they were forbidden in almost all cases food and water". Those who survived landed up between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor, "a vast and horrific open-air concentration camp".[8]

Armenian genocide edit

Further information: Armenian genocide

The Ottoman government persecuted the Armenian people and forced them to march out to the Syrian city of Deir al-Zour and the surrounding desert without any facilities and supplies that would have been necessary to sustain the life of hundreds of thousands of Armenian deportees during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert.[9][10]

Haj Fadel Al-Aboud, who was the mayor of Deir al-Zour, provided them with food and housing and means of livelihood and security. The Armenians returned the favor to Al-Aboud when French colonial authorities sentenced him to death in Aleppo; they supported and defended him, which led the French to reduce the sentence to exile in Jisr al-Shughur.[11]

Memorial edit

Main article: Armenian Genocide Memorial Church, Der Zor
 
Armenian pilgrims gathered in the Syrian village of Margadeh, near Deir ez-Zor, to commemorate the 94th anniversary of the Armenian genocide

In the village of Margadeh, (88 km from Deir ez-Zor, an Armenian chapel dedicated to those massacred there during the genocide "houses some of the bones of the dead".[12] Lebanese and Syrians make pilgrimages to this memorial organized by the Armenian Apostolic Church of Aleppo.[13]

Nouritza Matossian wrote for Armenian Voice:

Last month I visited the desert of Deir-ez-Zor in the killing fields, caves and rivers where a million Armenians perished. I was shown a piece of land that keeps subsiding. It is called the Place of the Armenians. So many thousands of bodies were buried there that the ground has been sinking for the last 80 years. Human thigh bones and ribs come to the surface.[14]

"For Armenians, Der Zor has come to have a meaning approximate to Auschwitz", wrote Peter Balakian in The New York Times. "Each, in different ways, an epicenter of death and a systematic process of mass-killing; each a symbolic place, an epigrammatic name on a dark map. Der Zor is a term that sticks with you, or sticks on you, like a burr or thorn: "r" "z" "or" — hard, sawing, knifelike".[15] In 2010, the President of Armenia, Serzh Sarkisian, stated: "Quite often historians and journalists soundly compare Deir ez Zor with Auschwitz saying that 'Deir ez Zor is the Auschwitz of the Armenians'. I think that the chronology forces us to formulate the facts in a reverse way: 'Auschwitz is the Deir ez Zor of the Jews'.[16]

The memorial and museum were destroyed by ISIL in 2014.[17] The site was recaptured in 2017.[18] Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has pledged to restore the site, as part of the rebuilding of Syria.[19]

Gallery edit

  •  

    The Armenian Genocide museum in Deir ez Zor

  •  

    The Armenian Genocide Memorial in Deir ez Zor

  •  

    The Surp Harutyun (Holy Resurrection) Chapel of Margadeh village

  •  

    Armenian refugee camp at Deir ez Zor

  •  

    The Ashjians, a family deported to Deir ez-Zor and killed in 1915 (photo c. 1909)

  •  

    Uncovering the bones of Armenian victims at Deir ez-Zor in 2009.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Winter, Jay (2009). America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Cambridge University Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-051-149760-5. OL 34442571M.
  2. ^ Bramwell, Anna C. (2021) [1988]. Refugees in the Age of Total War. Taylor & Francis Group. p. 45. ISBN 978-100-045957-9. OL 33927375M.
  3. ^ Walker 1990, p. 223, 220.
  4. ^ Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2020). Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide. Princeton University Press. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-691-20258-7. OL 29464070M.
  5. ^ Friedman, Saul S. (2004). A History of the Holocaust. Vallentine Mitchell. p. 330. ISBN 0-8530-3435-4. LCCN 2003057169. OL 17142643M.
  6. ^ Everdell, William R. (1997). The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-century Thought. University of Chicago Press. pp. 124–125. ISBN 0-2262-2480-5. LCCN 96044334. OL 1004603M.
  7. ^ George, Joan (2002). Merchants in exile the Armenians in Manchester, England, 1835-1935. Gomidas Institute. p. 164. ISBN 1-9036-5608-7. OL 22062404M.
  8. ^ Walker 1990, p. 205, 210.
  9. ^ "Exiled Armenians starve in the desert; Turks drive them like slaves, American committee hears ;- Treatment raises death rate". The New York Times. 8 August 1916. from the original on 2 February 2012. (cited by McCarthy, Justin (15 August 2010). The Turk in America: The Creation of an Enduring Prejudice. University of Utah Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-1-60781-013-1.)
  10. ^ Danieli, Yael (1998). International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-306-45738-8. [Victims] were often held without food for days so they would be too weak to escape.
  11. ^ Alshamary, Anwar, Biggest Baggara Tribe, Dar Almaref, Homs, 1996, Page: 363..
  12. ^ Mannheim, Ivan (2001). Footprint Syria & Lebanon Handbook. Footprint Handbooks (published 25 July 2001). p. 391. ISBN 978-190-094990-3. OL 8762669M.
  13. ^ . Archived from the original on 2008-12-04. Retrieved 2008-12-29.
  14. ^ . Archived from the original on 2005-03-17. Retrieved 2009-01-10.
  15. ^ Bones, by Peter Balakian, The New York Times, December 5, 2008
  16. ^ Marutyan, Harutyun (2014). "Museums and Monuments: comparative analysis of Armenian and Jewish experiences in memory policies". Études arméniennes contemporaines (3): 57–79. doi:10.4000/eac.544. ISSN 2269-5281.
  17. ^ "ISIS Destroys Armenian Genocide Memorial in Syria". 29 September 2014.
  18. ^ "Photos: Der Zor's Armenian Genocide Memorial Church Liberated by Syrian Armed Forces". 6 November 2017.
  19. ^ . 10 January 2019. Archived from the original on 15 November 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2019.

Further reading edit

  • Walker, Christopher J. (1990). Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. Croom Helm. ISBN 0-7099-0210-7. OL 16322719M.
  • Tatrean, Vahram; Dadrian, Vahram (2003). Ara Sarafian (ed.). To the desert: pages from my diary. Translated by Agop Jack Hacikyan. Gomidas Institute. ISBN 1-9036-5627-3.
  • Kaiser, Hilmar; Eskijian, Nancy; Eskijian, Luther (2002). At the Crossroads of Der Zor: Death, Survival, and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo, 1915-1917. Taderon Pr. ISBN 978-190-365612-9. OL 12267751M.
  • Miller, Donald E.; Miller, Lorna Touryan (1999). Survivors: an oral history of the Armenian genocide. University of California Press. ISBN 978-052-021956-4. OL 7710700M.
  • 2011 Documentary Film — Grandma's Tattoos (dir. Suzanne Khardalian [sv])

External links edit

  • Deir ez-Zor Armenian Genocide Memorial Church at YouTube
  • Monument and Memorial Complex at Der Zor, Syria

November 23, 2023
deir, camps, deir, camps, were, concentration, camps, heart, syrian, desert, which, many, thousands, armenian, refugees, were, forced, into, death, marches, during, armenian, genocide, united, states, vice, consul, aleppo, jesse, jackson, estimated, that, arme. The Deir ez Zor Camps were concentration camps 1 in the heart of the Syrian desert in which many thousands of Armenian refugees were forced into death marches during the Armenian genocide The United States vice consul in Aleppo Jesse B Jackson estimated that Armenian refugees as far east as Deir ez Zor and south of Damascus numbered 150 000 all of whom were virtually destitute 2 Deir ez Zor CampsConcentration campBodil Biorn s caption The Armenian leader Papasian considers the last remnants of the horrific murders at Deir ez Zor in 1915 1916 Location of Deir ez Zor in contemporary SyriaCoordinates35 20 00 N 40 9 00 E 35 33333 N 40 15000 E 35 33333 40 15000LocationDeir ez Zor Ottoman EmpireOperational1910sInmatesArmeniansKilled150 000Armenian refugees collected near the body of a dead horse at Deir ez Zor Contents 1 History 2 Armenian genocide 3 Memorial 4 Gallery 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External linksHistory editThose Armenians who survived during the genocide in 1915 1916 were driven onwards in two directions towards Damascus or along the Euphrates to Deir ez Zor During the early period of massacres 30 000 Armenians were encamped in various camps outside the town of Deir ez Zor They were under the protection of the Arab governor Ali Suad Bey until the Ottoman authorities decided to replace him with Salih Zeki Bey who was known for his cruelty and barbarity 3 4 When the refugees including women and children reached Deir ez Zor they cooked grass ate dead birds 5 and although there was a cave near a place called Deir ez Zor that was used at the end of one march to store prisoners until they starved no camp seems ever to have been planned for the Armenians 6 According to Minority Rights Group Those who survived the long journey south were herded into huge open air concentration camps the grimmest of which was Deir ez Zor where they were starved and killed by sadistic guards A small number escaped through the secret protection of friendly Arabs from villages in Northern Syria 7 According to Christopher J Walker Deportation was just a euphemism for mass murder No provision was made for their journey or exile and unless they could bribe their guards they were forbidden in almost all cases food and water Those who survived landed up between Jerablus and Deir ez Zor a vast and horrific open air concentration camp 8 Armenian genocide editFurther information Armenian genocide The Ottoman government persecuted the Armenian people and forced them to march out to the Syrian city of Deir al Zour and the surrounding desert without any facilities and supplies that would have been necessary to sustain the life of hundreds of thousands of Armenian deportees during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert 9 10 Haj Fadel Al Aboud who was the mayor of Deir al Zour provided them with food and housing and means of livelihood and security The Armenians returned the favor to Al Aboud when French colonial authorities sentenced him to death in Aleppo they supported and defended him which led the French to reduce the sentence to exile in Jisr al Shughur 11 Memorial editMain article Armenian Genocide Memorial Church Der Zor nbsp Armenian pilgrims gathered in the Syrian village of Margadeh near Deir ez Zor to commemorate the 94th anniversary of the Armenian genocideIn the village of Margadeh 88 km from Deir ez Zor an Armenian chapel dedicated to those massacred there during the genocide houses some of the bones of the dead 12 Lebanese and Syrians make pilgrimages to this memorial organized by the Armenian Apostolic Church of Aleppo 13 Nouritza Matossian wrote for Armenian Voice Last month I visited the desert of Deir ez Zor in the killing fields caves and rivers where a million Armenians perished I was shown a piece of land that keeps subsiding It is called the Place of the Armenians So many thousands of bodies were buried there that the ground has been sinking for the last 80 years Human thigh bones and ribs come to the surface 14 For Armenians Der Zor has come to have a meaning approximate to Auschwitz wrote Peter Balakian in The New York Times Each in different ways an epicenter of death and a systematic process of mass killing each a symbolic place an epigrammatic name on a dark map Der Zor is a term that sticks with you or sticks on you like a burr or thorn r z or hard sawing knifelike 15 In 2010 the President of Armenia Serzh Sarkisian stated Quite often historians and journalists soundly compare Deir ez Zor with Auschwitz saying that Deir ez Zor is the Auschwitz of the Armenians I think that the chronology forces us to formulate the facts in a reverse way Auschwitz is the Deir ez Zor of the Jews 16 The memorial and museum were destroyed by ISIL in 2014 17 The site was recaptured in 2017 18 Syrian President Bashar al Assad has pledged to restore the site as part of the rebuilding of Syria 19 Gallery edit nbsp The Armenian Genocide museum in Deir ez Zor nbsp The Armenian Genocide Memorial in Deir ez Zor nbsp The Surp Harutyun Holy Resurrection Chapel of Margadeh village nbsp Armenian refugee camp at Deir ez Zor nbsp The Ashjians a family deported to Deir ez Zor and killed in 1915 photo c 1909 nbsp Uncovering the bones of Armenian victims at Deir ez Zor in 2009 See also editDeir ez Zor Fadel Al Aboud Haj Fadel Government Armenian Genocide Memorial Church Der Zor Church of the Holy Mother of God Aleppo Death march Holy See of Cilicia List of Armenian genocide memorials Armenian Apostolic Church Armenian genocide Armenians in Syria Destruction of cultural heritage by ISILReferences edit Winter Jay 2009 America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 Cambridge University Press p 162 ISBN 978 051 149760 5 OL 34442571M Bramwell Anna C 2021 1988 Refugees in the Age of Total War Taylor amp Francis Group p 45 ISBN 978 100 045957 9 OL 33927375M Walker 1990 p 223 220 Kieser Hans Lukas 2020 Talaat Pasha Father of Modern Turkey Architect of Genocide Princeton University Press p 263 ISBN 978 0 691 20258 7 OL 29464070M Friedman Saul S 2004 A History of the Holocaust Vallentine Mitchell p 330 ISBN 0 8530 3435 4 LCCN 2003057169 OL 17142643M Everdell William R 1997 The First Moderns Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth century Thought University of Chicago Press pp 124 125 ISBN 0 2262 2480 5 LCCN 96044334 OL 1004603M George Joan 2002 Merchants in exile the Armenians in Manchester England 1835 1935 Gomidas Institute p 164 ISBN 1 9036 5608 7 OL 22062404M Walker 1990 p 205 210 Exiled Armenians starve in the desert Turks drive them like slaves American committee hears Treatment raises death rate The New York Times 8 August 1916 Archived from the original on 2 February 2012 cited by McCarthy Justin 15 August 2010 The Turk in America The Creation of an Enduring Prejudice University of Utah Press p 177 ISBN 978 1 60781 013 1 Danieli Yael 1998 International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma Springer Science amp Business Media p 23 ISBN 978 0 306 45738 8 Victims were often held without food for days so they would be too weak to escape Alshamary Anwar Biggest Baggara Tribe Dar Almaref Homs 1996 Page 363 Mannheim Ivan 2001 Footprint Syria amp Lebanon Handbook Footprint Handbooks published 25 July 2001 p 391 ISBN 978 190 094990 3 OL 8762669M Deir ez Zor International Travel News 2007 Archived from the original on 2008 12 04 Retrieved 2008 12 29 Ararat World Premier in Cannes by Nouritza Matossian Armenian Voice Summer 2002 Issue 46 Archived from the original on 2005 03 17 Retrieved 2009 01 10 Bones by Peter Balakian The New York Times December 5 2008 Marutyan Harutyun 2014 Museums and Monuments comparative analysis of Armenian and Jewish experiences in memory policies Etudes armeniennes contemporaines 3 57 79 doi 10 4000 eac 544 ISSN 2269 5281 ISIS Destroys Armenian Genocide Memorial in Syria 29 September 2014 Photos Der Zor s Armenian Genocide Memorial Church Liberated by Syrian Armed Forces 6 November 2017 Assad to rebuild Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Deir Ezzor 10 January 2019 Archived from the original on 15 November 2019 Retrieved 30 July 2019 Further reading editWalker Christopher J 1990 Armenia The Survival of a Nation Croom Helm ISBN 0 7099 0210 7 OL 16322719M Tatrean Vahram Dadrian Vahram 2003 Ara Sarafian ed To the desert pages from my diary Translated by Agop Jack Hacikyan Gomidas Institute ISBN 1 9036 5627 3 Kaiser Hilmar Eskijian Nancy Eskijian Luther 2002 At the Crossroads of Der Zor Death Survival and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo 1915 1917 Taderon Pr ISBN 978 190 365612 9 OL 12267751M Miller Donald E Miller Lorna Touryan 1999 Survivors an oral history of the Armenian genocide University of California Press ISBN 978 052 021956 4 OL 7710700M 2011 Documentary Film Grandma s Tattoos dir Suzanne Khardalian sv External links editDeir ez Zor Armenian Genocide Memorial Deir ez Zor Armenian Genocide Memorial Church at YouTube Monument and Memorial Complex at Der Zor Syria Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Deir ez Zor camps amp oldid 1183471043, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.