Deir ez-Zor concentration camp

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Map of the deportation camp near Deir ez Zor

The concentration camps Deir ez-Zor ( Turkish Deyrizor , Arabic دير الزور, Armenian Դեր Զոր Der Zor [z-] or Դեր Զորի կայանատեղի Der Zori kayanateghi ) were concentration camps in the Syrian desert, where Armenian refugees were forced to death marches during the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians . The US Vice Consul in Aleppo , Jesse B. Jackson, estimated the number of Armenian deportees south of Deir ez-Zor and east of Damascus at over 150,000, practically all of whom were in need.

history

Those Armenians who survived the first massacres during the genocide of 1915–1916 were driven in two directions by deportation law - either to Damascus or along the Euphrates to Deir ez-Zor. During the early period of the massacres, 30,000 Armenians were sent to various camps outside the city of Deir ez-Zor. Since the governor Ali Suad Bey guaranteed protection for the Armenians, the Ottoman authorities decided to replace him with Zeki Bey, who was known for his cruelty and barbarism.

When the deported refugees, mainly women and children (the men had already been killed earlier), reached Deir ez-Zor, some of them cooked grass and ate dead birds out of necessity .

Some of the women arrested were crucified as part of the atrocities , such as in Deir ez-Zor . A practice that also took place elsewhere, as reported by Aurora Mardiganian in her memoir “Ravished Armenia; The Story of Aurora Mardiganian, the Christian Girl, Who Survived the Great Massacres ”(1918) how sixteen girls were crucified and vultures ate their corpses in the city of Malatya - Sebastya .

memory

Armenian pilgrims in the Syrian village of Margadeh, near Deir ez-Zor, commemorating the 94th anniversary of the genocide of the Armenians

In the village of Margadeh (88 km from Deir ez-Zor) is an Armenian chapel dedicated to the memory of those killed during the pogroms, which houses the skulls and bones of those who were murdered. Lebanese , Syrians and Syrian Armenians make pilgrimages to this memorial, which is maintained by the Apostolic Church in Aleppo .

"For Armenians, Zor had a meaning similar 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 card. Anger is a term that hangs on you like a drill or a sting: “r” “z” “or” - hard, cutting, knife-like “.

gallery

  • The Genocide Museum in Deir ez Zor

  • The Armenian Genocide Memorial in Deir ez Zor

  • The Surp-Harutyun (Holy Resurrection) Chapel in Margadeh Village

literature

  • At the Crossroads of Der Zor: Death, Survival, and Humanitarian Resistance , by Hilmar Kaiser, Luther and Nancy Eskijian, Gomidas Institute, 2002.
  • To the Desert: Pages from My Diary , by Vahram Dadrian. Translated by Agop J Hacikyan, Taderon Press, 2006 ISBN 1-903656-68-0 .
  • Survivors: An Oral History Of The Armenian Genocide , by Donald E. Miller, Lorna Touryan Miller, University of California Press, 1999, ISBN 0-520-21956-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, by Christopher J. Walker, 2nd ed. 1990, pp. 210, 205
  2. ↑ Merchants in Exile: The Armenians in Manchester, England, 1835-1935, by Joan George, Gomidas Institute, 2002, p. 164
  3. ↑ America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, by JM Winter, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 162
  4. ↑ Hon. Hockey's Adjournment Speech, Armenian Genocide (Oct 20, 2008, House of Representatives) ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.joehockey.com
  5. ^ Refugees in the Age of Total War, by Anna Bramwell, Routledge, 1988, p. 45
  6. ↑ Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, by Christopher J. Walker, 2nd ed. 1990, pp. 223, 229
  7. ^ Saul S. Friedman : A History of the Holocaust , 2004, p. 330
  8. ↑ Crucified Armenian women in Deir ez-Zor (1915), some could be saved by Arab Bedouins. [1]
  9. ↑ Syria & Lebanon Handbook: The Travel Guide, by Ivan Mannheim, Footprint Travel Guides, 2001, p. 391
  10. ^ Ed Kinney: Mideast & Mediterranean >> Deir ez-Zor & its Armenian Genocide Memorial.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: International Travel News , July 2007 (English).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.intltravelnews.com  
  11. ^ Peter Balakian : Bones. In: New York Times , December 5, 2008 (English).