The Victims of “Safety”: The Destiny of Armenian Women and Girls Who Were Not Deported from Trabzon

Abstract

Given its proximity to the Russian border, the city of Trabzon was a strategic port for the Young Turk government against the backdrop of war with Russia. While there is an extensive body of literature about Trabzon during the Armenian Genocide, the experiences of Armenian women and girls who stayed in the city remain unexamined. This chapter draws on the Trabzon trials and survivor testimonies to explore their experiences.

While Trabzon Armenians received an official order of deportation, on June 26, 1915, the Vali Cemal Azmi made an “exemption” for Armenian women in later stages of pregnancy and for children “when the parents so desired.” Girls up to 15 years old and boys up to 10 years old remained and were placed in large houses throughout the city. After four years, all male children disappeared, and the girls who survived mostly did so in Turkish households to which they were given as gifts or sold to serve as a wives, servants, or sex slaves.

In 1919, the Turkish Courts-Martial brought the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide to trial in Constantinople. Cemal Azmi, Yenibahçeli Nail, who was the Committee on Union and Progress secretary for Trabzon, and five officials who worked with him stood before the court. The charges against them included organizing and implementing the massive annihilation of the Trabzon Armenians, the plunder of their property, the rape and murder of women and children, and the drowning of around 50 pregnant women in the Black sea. There were 20 sessions of the Trabzon trial, held between March 26 and May 20, 1919, during which witnesses and survivors testified. Among them were Misses Siranush Manukian, Philomene Nurian, Sofia Makhokhian, Aruseak Gylchian, Miss Arabian, and other women who witnessed mass drownings, were survivors of rape, forced marriages, and forced prostitution. The trial was extensively covered by both the Armenian and the Turkish press, whose representatives were present at the daily hearings. Close examination of these women's testimonies and other shreds of evidence of this trial shows how gendered the Armenian genocide was and how women were targeted for both their gender and national identity.

Introduction

The genocide of Trabzon Armenians is one of the best-documented crimes of the Armenian Genocide, because after World War I the Turkish Courts-Martial brought the perpetrators to trial in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Evidence was collected and provided to the court, and many witnesses and survivors gave their testimonies during the trial’s 20 sessions. Most of the survivors were women, who were not deported from the city. During the course of the Trabzon trial, survivors and witnesses testified how perpetrators terrorized and robbed hundreds of Armenian girls and women of their jewelry and other possessions, raped them, kept some of them at the branch of the Red Crescent hospital as sex slaves, and distributed others among the Ittihadist (Committee of Union and Progress) leaders in Trabzon. Female witnesses testified how children were starved to death and killed and their bodies were thrown to the sea, and how young girls and women were raped in front of other women to terrorize them and force them to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men, who would come to choose them. Forced marriages, which usually followed the rape, were presented by the perpetrators as “their decision” or “an act of salvation” for these women.

Since the beginning of the formation of Armenian Genocide scholarship, researchers of the subject have referred, in one way or another, to different forms of sexual violence committed against Armenian women and girls. But this was never the main focus of their research, including in the Trabzon case. Armenian Genocide scholars such as Dadrian and Akçam,¹ Kévorkian,² Hovannisian,³ Suakjian,⁴ and Payaslian⁵ used the Trabzon trial records to shed light on the Armenian Genocide, but they did not focus on the experiences of women and girls who were not deported but stayed in the city and became victims of rape, forced marriages, and forced prostitution. Only recently have Armenian Genocide scholars started to pay attention to gendered aspects of it, because scholarship on gender and genocide is a relatively a new phenomenon.

As Dr. Allison Ruby Reid-Cunningham argues, forced intercourse and impregnation represent a symbolic conquest of women by the rapist, and rape is used as a war and a genocidal tactic because of its physical and psychological consequences for individuals, families, and communities.⁶ In this chapter, I argue that the strategy of widespread, systematic sexual violence and rape perpetrated against Armenian women and girls was intended to destroy them physically as well as their standing in their community and their identity both as women and as Armenians. Furthermore, the details of the Trabzon genocide show that “rape camps” were used as a tool of genocide against Armenians.

The Official Decree of the Deportation and Assurances of “Safety”

The official decree ordering the Armenian deportation was hung on the city walls of Trabzon on June 26, 2015. The document⁷ informed Armenians that they would be exiled within five days. The damp heat of summer, dust, and insects of Trabzon province made traveling difficult even for someone with proper transportation, but for pregnant women and children traveling on foot such a journey would have been fatal. The city’s residents understood this and tried to prevent the deportation of their friends and loved ones. Trabzon Armenians were actively involved in industrial and commercial life in the port towns of the Black Sea. Using their cultural and commercial ties with Europe, and being able to communicate in several languages, Armenians were connected at different levels to foreign representatives in the city. Some foreign representatives already knew that deportation under inhumane conditions had been implemented in the neighboring region of Erzurum, and their Armenian associates and employees consequently became aware of this. Accordingly, the American consul, Italian,⁸ German and Austro-Hungarian⁹ representatives, and the Greek metropolitan¹⁰ tried to intervene on behalf of the Armenian women and children and managed to achieve some concessions. Oscar S. Heizer, the American Consul in Trabzon, wrote to Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador in Constantinople, on June 30, 1916, saying:

The Vali informed me that it had been decided to make an exception in favor of old men and women, widows, women expecting to give birth soon, and Armenians in the employment of the Turkish government, but all others would be sent away.¹¹

As Kévorkian (2011) points out,¹² among the compromises given by perpetrators in Trabzon, that differed significantly from those made elsewhere was the fact that parents were allowed “whenever [they] so desire” to leave girls up to the age of fifteen and boys up to the age of ten in the city. With this announcement, the Vali took “responsibility” for their “safety” but Armenians did not trust the Turkish state with their children because they did not know how long they would be gone nor if they would ever return. To protect their children, Armenians entrusted them to their non-Armenian friends, the Greek metropolitan, American missionaries, and other Christian organizations operating in the city. Both Bishop Chrysantos and American College director and missionary Dr. Crawford communicated their readiness to shelter Armenian women and children. A day before the deportation, Armenians hurried to hand over their girls and children to Bishop Chrysantos for safekeeping. The building of the Greek metropolitan filled with Armenians.¹³ Many children and about 150 girls found refuge there, among them children of notable families. The missionary station of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Trabzon also made efforts to shelter women and children. In an urgent telegram sent through the American Consulate of Trabzon dated on June 28th, Dr. Crawford wrote to the American Ambassador in Constantinople:

We beg that little children of our schools and their teachers and caretakers, women and children generally, may be exempted from the orders of general deportation of Armenians from Trabzon on Thursday, July 1st.¹⁴

Two hundred pupils were summoned to the school and former students, relatives and friends came with them. According to Mrs. Crawford, up to 450 Armenians were crowded into the mission building.¹⁵ Meanwhile, Dr. Crawford met with the Vali and pleaded to keep the boys and girls who had come to them for shelter. The Vali gave him permission to choose 200 while the rest would be placed in nearby houses. Upon his return to the mission, Mrs. Crawford was given the task of deciding who should stay and who should go. Some of children were very small and there were a few newborns. Some parents left money or jewelry with the missionaries to cover the expenses of their children, or for safe keeping.¹⁶ The soldiers were to come at two o’clock to remove the 250 who were rejected. But after a few hours the soldiers came to remove all Armenians.¹⁷ The authorities also called upon Dr. Crawford to turn over all money and belongings given by the Armenian parents.¹⁸ On that day, the girls and children were also removed from the Greek metropolitan. Haykuhi, remembering those days, wrote only one sentence:

My God, after throwing us into the street what did they not do to us.¹⁹

Zvard Khushian, who was there with his 12-year-old brother Arsen, and 22-year-old aunt Vartiter, wrote:

The first group of Armenians was exiled on Thursday morning. We spent that night in the Metropolis. The next day the second group was leaving the city, among them our family. In the morning, while we were crying for our families, the building was surrounded by four policemen and a hundred gendarmes, who came to get us out from the building.²⁰

All the children and girls were taken from the Greek metropolitan to the Turkish school Zeytinlik. Zvard recalled:

When we entered the school, we found a large number of children from Latin and American schools. Then Nail Bey²¹ came, separated the children from the girls, and ordered to deport the girls.²²

Frustrated with these events, the Greek metropolitan convinced the Vali not to deport young women and children and agreed with him to open an orphanage for them, under the care of the Greek community. On July 3, the third day of the deportation, the American consul reported to Constantinople that the children had all been taken and placed in “schools” which the Vali and the Greek metropolitan organized together.²³ They formed a local committee for this purpose, with the Vali as president and the Greek metropolitan as vice president. The Turks placed approximately three thousand Armenian children in homes called orphanages or schools. Several Armenian women and girls stayed in these houses to look after the infants and children. The schools were guarded by gendarmes and each had a Turkish Mudir or director.²⁴ Nonetheless, after a very short time, the shelter provided to the Armenian children and girls in these schools, with the Greek metropolitan’s participation, was abandoned. Once all the Armenians were deported from the city, the real plan was launched for those who received permission to stay in the city.

Four years later, only a few Trabzon Armenians placed in these schools and hospitals were still living and most were women and girls. They survived in Turkish households where they were given as gifts or sold to serve as wives, servants, and sex slaves.

Female Witnesses of the Trabzon Trial

In 1919, the Turkish Courts-Martial brought the perpetrators of the Trabzon Genocide to trial. Cemal Azmi, Nail Bey and five officials who worked with them stood before the court. The charges against them included organizing and implementing the annihilation of the Trabzon Armenians, the plunder of their property, the rape and murder of women and children, and the drowning of around 50 pregnant women in the Black Sea. The Trabzon trial was held over 20 sessions between March 26 and May 20, 1919, during which witnesses, and survivors testified. Among them were Misses Siranush Manukian, Philomene Nurian, Sofia Makhokhian, Aruseak Gylchian, Miss Arabian, Verjin Odabashian and other women who were survivors of rape, forced marriages, and forced prostitution. Despite the impact of denial, victim-blaming, and stigmatization, these women testified in detail about their experiences in front of the perpetrators and their community.

A representative of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople also attended the trial sessions and took extensive notes, which were immediately published in the local Armenian and French daily newspapers covering the trials.²⁵ The trial proceedings were partly published in the Turkish press too, but the official journal Takvim-i Vakayi only published the final verdict of the trials. These detailed publications attest to the intent to eliminate those who remained in the city for their safety.

Upon being taken from the Greek metropolitan and American missionaries, Armenian women and children remaining in the city were kept in ten large houses, some of which belonged to Armenians deported from Trabzon. These so-called temporary orphanages or schools were placed under the control of Mehmed Ali, who was simultaneously the chief customs officer, president of the local Red Crescent, director of the Red Cross hospital, and one of the leaders of the ruling Ittihad in Trabzon. Around 50 pregnant women, the sick, and elderly Armenians who were not deported, were placed in the Red Crescent and Red Cross hospitals, again under the supervision of Mehmed Ali.

Hranush Makunts was an ordinary girl from Trabzon who was engaged to a young Armenian man from the Caucasus named Ghazar. Her mother died a year before the deportation, and her older brother was seriously ill and in the hospital. She lived with her elderly father and two younger brothers and sisters when they received the news of the official deportation decree. Two days before the deportation, Ghazar decided to entrust his fiancée’s protection to a Georgian man named Sergo, one of the leaders of the Georgian legion of Trabzon. Sergo was Ghazar’s closest friend and promised him “to protect her honor at any cost.”²⁶ After securing Hranush’s safety, Ghazar left the city with his two friends (Artashes Kuleserian and Arshak from Baberd) and hid in the mountains somewhere next to Zurmela village.²⁷ At the same time Hranush’s father heard that he could leave his children with American missionaries, and took Arpik (age three), Tsolin (age five), Gaspar (age seven), and Melik (age ten) to the missionary station. His eldest son Melik did not want to be separated from him and was deported with him, but the other three stayed with the missionaries. During her stay in Sergo’s house, Hranush heard about the horrific massacres of Armenian deportees and how Armenian children were taken from Greeks and Americans and placed at some schools in the city. Despite the danger, she convinced Sergo to let her go to these shelters to try to find her siblings. Accompanied by a Georgian man named Hasan, who was appointed by Sergo, Hranush searched for her siblings in the schools. She found them in Paltrian’s house in Yeni Mahale, where, according to her memoires, about 300 children were crowded into 8–10 rooms. Hranush noticed that “all of them were younger than 8 to 7 years old.²⁸” Not being able to take her siblings out of the building with her, she asked the Mudir of the school to stay in the house and take care of them. She recalled her days in that house:

Few young women like me with the broken hearts were working day and night to take care of these orphans, and provide some food for them, which was not regular and not on time. There were no beds, and children were sleeping on the floor. But the worst was the situation of newborns, who were covered with dirt and constantly attacked by flies and mosquitos. Those wretched children were crying day and night, and this was unbearable for all of us.²⁹

Mehmed Ali found a way to resolve the issue with newborns and children, who often cried and disturbed Müdürs. They were either killed at the houses or transferred to hospitals and poisoned there.³⁰ The bodies of victims were put in baskets and thrown into the sea. Armenian survivors and Turkish witnesses confirmed these crimes during the Trabzon trial sessions. Verjin Odabashian, who was responsible for caring 30–40 boys between the ages of two to four at the hospital, appeared as the second witness during the eleventh session of the trial on April 7, 1919. She testified that, one day, Ittihadist Nail and director of health services Dr. Ali Sahib told her that there were deaths among the children and ordered her to bring baskets. They filled the baskets with the corpses of dead babies and threw them into the sea.

I could not look at it. I knew one of these children. There was not enough food for the children. For 40 children only two packs of Nestle per day was not enough. They were starving to death.³¹

Azniv Ghaptanian, a Catholic Armenian girl from Tots village was brought to Trabzon and placed in the Malkhasian’s house, which was robbed after its owner’s deportation, and confiscated by Ittihadists. This house, which was full of children and young girls, was similar to other houses where Armenian children and girls were placed. One day, the Müdür opened the doors for Turks to choose children and girls to take. Eventually, those who were not chosen were transferred to the branch of the Red Crescent hospital in front of Meydan, where they stayed for five days. Azniv went with them and witnessed how the exhausted and skeletal children were poisoned by a doctor. Afterward, the same doctor ordered horses to bring the corpses in baskets directly to the seaside.³² Azniv wrote:

From all these children only my sister’s san survived thanks to Eomer effendi who was acquainted with my uncle Yervand. He gave the child in the care of a Turk who brought him to Polis [Constantinople] after the war and returned him to my sister. My uncle paid him in full.³³

During the trial, survivors testified how Mehmed Ali terrorized and robbed hundreds of Armenian girls and women of their jewelry and other possessions, raped them, kept some of them at the branch of the Red Crescent hospital for his pleasure, and distributed others among the Ittihadist leaders in Trabzon. Miss Mannik, who was kept at the same school with Hranush Makunts, testified at the twelfth session of the trial on April 14, 1919 that children were starved to death and killed in the basement of the house on Mehmed Ali’s order. Moreover, he raped a girl in front of other women to terrorize them and force them to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men, who would come to choose them.³⁴

At the “school” the situation was getting worse every day. We were envious of those who were already dead … One day we were surprised to see that the doors of all “schools” were open for the public. The right was granted to those who wanted to adopt some of those orphans or marry girls. After a while, in the “schools” only a few dozens of children left. Some young girls from our building were also taken to be forcibly married, but many of them, especially provincial girls, preferred to die rather than go and live a disgraceful life in Turkish harems. Those who refused these marriage offers were deported, and no one knew what happened to them.³⁵

Sergo took all measures to rescue Hranush Makunts from the school. A Muslim man named Hasan agreed to marry her, and after passing legal proceedings (converting to Islam, changing her Armenian name, registering their marriage), returned her to Sergo’s house. Hranush recalled:

Because my sisters were beautiful, whoever came wanted to take them, so I warned them whenever Turks would show up to hide from them. I had the intention to take children with me, but the officials were against it. – Why you do not allow me to take my relatives?”: – Hranush asked them: – “We do not want them to have your influence”: – was the answer: – “Why? I am already Muslim, and my name is Fatma”: – contradicted Hranush. “This is not enough to become a real Turk.

Thanks to Sergo, who had a good reputation among Turks in Trabzon, she managed to save her siblings and later reunited with her fiancé when the Russian army occupied the region. But the other girls were not as lucky as Hranush Makunts. On April 11, 1919 at the seventh session of the trial, the testimony of policeman Nuri was read at court, detailing that Mehmed Ali sent four packages of carpet plundered from deported Armenians along with three Armenian girls to Constantinople as a present. Mehmed Ali confirmed that the governor sent these girls to the Ittihad members as gifts.³⁶ During the trial, it was revealed that certain documents signed by Nail Bey and a few other people, ordered: allot such-and-such a person so many girls.³⁷ The governor alone took 15 girls according to Mehmed Ali Effendi, who testified on the ninth session of the trial.³⁸ When the beautiful and healthy girls were taken, the rest were kept at the schools as sex slaves and after few months were deported and killed not far from Trabzon. Girls chosen by Mehmed Ali were transferred to a branch of the Red Crescent hospital, which became a rape station for them. According to a statement of the survivor Miss Arapian, read in court on March 20, 1919 and corroborated by other evidence, Ziya Bey abducted her from the hospital and took her to his house.³⁹

Sofia Makhokhian and her mother also became victims thanks to the safety provided by Mehmed Ali and his friends. Being members of one of the wealthy and prominent Armenian families of Trabzon, they gave Dr. Avni, the health service inspector, 300 gold pieces to keep them in the Red Cross hospital. Later, the property of the Makhokhyan family was completely looted- an act in which Dr. Avni was also actively involved. Not satisfied with the plunder, he demanded more from the Makhokhyan women hoping to get more gold. But the director of the hospital, Mehmed Ali, got to the women first. Sofia Makhokhian testified at the third session of the trial that she was temporarily placed in the Red Crescent hospital and then forcibly Islamicized and adopted by Mehmed Ali.⁴⁰ Verjin Odabashian told the court that Mehmed Ali came to the hospital every day demanding that Sofia reveal where she had hidden gold. Tiring of his threats, Sofia told him what she knew.⁴¹ At the seventh session of the trial, the presiding judge asked Mehmed Ali what happened to Sofia Makhokhian, and he answered: “She was at the hospital, she wanted to convert to Islam, we did it.” “What happened to their property?”—he was asked. “I have no idea”—insisted Mehmed Ali.⁴²

Approximately 50 pregnant women were placed in the Red Crescent hospital to be deported as soon as they were able to go. Mehmed Ali and his accomplice Dr. Ali Saib murdered them all by poisoning or drowning in the sea. A survivor named Azniv, another victim of Mehmet Ali, was kept at the hospital during the genocide. Mehmed Ali Islamized and adopted Azniv as he did with Sofia. He plundered all their family shops, proof of which was provided in the court. During the second session of the trial, Azniv told the court that many Armenians who had been brought to the hospital were poisoned and killed by Dr. Ali Saib. Those who were administered his medication suffered from blue marks on their skin and all died the same way. This was the fate of the pregnant women, of whom Azniv personally knew a woman named Araksi.

When Araksi gave birth, we thought she would stay at the hospital. But she was taken away, her baby was killed, and she went insane. Then a person named Neshat took her and drowned her in the sea, this man was involved in every drowning case.⁴³

Other survivors, including Siranush Manukyan, Aruseak Ghltchian, and Miss Satenik, confirmed that pregnant Armenians placed at the hospital were either poisoned or drowned in the sea.

There is logic to the fact that most of the women and girls who were forcibly converted, and adopted or forcibly married to Ittihadists were from wealthy and prominent families. It was the easiest way to legalize their plunder and to become the owner of both their bodies and property.⁴⁴ The case of Mrs. Noemi Arslanian,⁴⁵ the wife of respected municipal doctor Levon Arslanian,⁴⁶ was not an exception, but her wealth and beauty became the reason for her murder. Dr. Arslanian secured a new position as a military doctor in Erzurum after the official decree of deportation, and his family was supposed to join him there soon. But Arslanian never reached Erzurum. He was killed in Gümüşhane, and when the news of his murder reached Trabzon, Naomi was forced to join a convoy of deportees with her son Mishel. They soon returned upon getting permission from the Ittihad’s delegate Nail Bey who personally stepped in to get her back. Agent Mustafa⁴⁷ placed Mrs. Arslanian in a relative’s house to save her from other men interested in her fortune and beauty. Eventually, she was set to marry a man named Rushdi, and give her wealth to Agent Mustafa, but when the Vali learned this, he took her from Rushdi’s house and temporarily placed her in the school with other Armenian women and children while deciding what to do with her.⁴⁸ In addition to Agent Mustafa, Rushdi, and the Vali, Dr. Ali Sayib was also interested in Noemi. Some witnesses believed that Dr. Ali Sayib had ordered the murder of Dr. Levon Arslanian in order to take his wife, whom he knew before the deportation. He asked Noemi to marry him, but she refused.⁴⁹ Her wealth and her reputation for beauty made her desirable to many Ittihadists, who started to fight over her among themselves. One day, when she was at the school, the police took her away while many near the seaside witnessed them pulling her as she cried for help. She was put on a boat, taken not far from the city, and murdered.⁵⁰ Her body was thrown into the sea upon the decision of the Vali, who seized her gold after her murder.

Conclusion

The events of the Armenian Genocide in Trabzon had a different character from localities elsewhere in the empire for several reasons: First, the organizers of the genocide, under the pretext of “humanitarianism” permitted a limited number of women, pregnant women, and children to stay in the city. Those Armenians were placed in special institutions where they were subjected to hunger, neglect, starvation, murder, and institutionalized rape. Sexual violence was a tool to foster submission and terror, humiliation, self-hate, and stigmatization. As genocidal rape also prevented births within the target group through damage to the reproductive capacities or the social status of women, it made it easier for Armenian women and girls to become victims of forced marriages. After taking the most desirable Armenians for themselves, the instigators allowed the Turkish residents of the city to choose whom they desired. After being selected, these Armenians were converted to Islam, given Turkish names, and handed to their new owners. Those who refused to be converted and forcibly married were killed not far from the city. After World War I, few of these women were liberated from their captors; many were afraid to return to their community and restore their national identity. Yet, despite the impact of denial, victim-blaming, and stigmatization, these women testified in detail about their experiences in front of the perpetrators and their community. Their testimonies in the Trabzon trial show that systematic sexual violence against women and girls was one of the main components of the Armenian genocide, and the perpetrators used rape camps to make their crimes even more effective.