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Subjects and Events Mentioned by Naim Efendi Corroborated in Ottoman Documents

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Killing Orders

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide ((PSHG))

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Abstract

In summary, the book completely shatters the arguments of the Turkish denialist school, which has for decades dismissed the Naim Efendi Memoirs and Talat Pasha telegrams as forgeries, fabricated to advance the Armenian position. In fact, there was an Ottoman bureaucrat by the name of Naim Efendi, he did write memoirs, and the people and events he mentions in them were real and actually did happen. And now it is possible to prove each and every one of these facts by virtue of Ottoman archival documents. The central pillar of the Türk denialist argument in this regard has been pulled down, and the cornerstone of its claims removed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Naim Efendi, Hatırat [11].

  2. 2.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 62/5, Cipher cable, dated 14 March 1916, from Talat to the Province of Aleppo. It should be noted that some of the names of the Armenians were probably written incorrectly!

  3. 3.

    Naim Efendi, Hatırat [02].

  4. 4.

    BOA.DH.EUM., 2.Şube, 57/12. We have used this document as a general source of the information here. In addition to this document, however, there are upwards of 10 other documents in the archives concerning Nalbantian’s attempts to intervene on behalf of his relatives (particularly his brother). For some of these, see BOA.EUM., 2.Şube, 37/01; BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/366; 57/297; 61/94; 61/282.

  5. 5.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/366, Cipher cable, dated 12 October 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  6. 6.

    BOA.DH.EUM., 2.Şube, 57/12.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 31.

  9. 9.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 55/19, Cipher cable, dated 15 August 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Provinces of Erzurum, Adana, Ankara, Bitlis, Halep, Hüdavendigar (Bursa), Diyarbekir, Sivas, Trebizond, Konya, Mamuretülaziz (Elazığ), and Van; and to the Provincial Districts of Urfa, Izmit, Canik, Karesi, Karahisar-ı Sahib (Afyon Karahisar), Kayseri, Marash, Niğde, and Eskişehir.

  10. 10.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 54-A/339, Cipher cable, dated 9 August 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Provincial District of Izmit.

  11. 11.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/291, Cipher cable, dated 5 October 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Adana.

  12. 12.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/345, Cipher cable, dated 10 October 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Provincial District of Karahisar-ı Sahib (For a similar cable to Afyon, see: BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/151).

  13. 13.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 57/29; 57/121 ve 58/4, Cipher cables, dated 16 October & 14 November 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Konya.

  14. 14.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/149, Cipher cable, dated 28 October 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aydın.

  15. 15.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/224, Cipher cable, dated 9 December 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Konya (For a similar cable on the same subject, see: BOA.DH.ŞFR., 57/136).

  16. 16.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/301, Cipher cable, dated 5 October 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  17. 17.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/6, Cipher cable, dated 14 November 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  18. 18.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 499/49, Cipher cable, dated 30 November 1915, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  19. 19.

    The parliamentary deputy’s name appears in many documents and sources as Hıralakyan, but we have used what is the the spelling in the text (i.e., Hırlakyan).

  20. 20.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 55/3, Cipher cable, dated 15 August 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  21. 21.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 57/103, Cipher cable, dated 24 October 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  22. 22.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 63/229, Cipher cable, dated 7 May 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Provincial District of Urfa.

  23. 23.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 64/61, Cipher cable, dated 18 May 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  24. 24.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 62/4, Cipher cable, dated 14 March 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  25. 25.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 62/9, Cipher cable, dated 14 March 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Provincial District of [Deyr-i] Zor.

  26. 26.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 62/177, Cipher cable, dated 30 March 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  27. 27.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 64/145, Cipher cable, dated 29 May 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  28. 28.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 65/4, Cipher cable, dated 14 June 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  29. 29.

    For some other examples, see: BOA.DH.ŞFR., 74/253; 75/218; 77/140; 78/1, 78/2; 82/138.

  30. 30.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/162, Cipher cable, dated 25 September 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  31. 31.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/282, Cipher cable, dated 4 October 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  32. 32.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/17, Cipher cable, dated 15 November 1915, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Syria.

  33. 33.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 59/203, Cipher cable, dated 4 January 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  34. 34.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 60/38, Cipher cable, dated 16 January 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  35. 35.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 506/66, Cipher cable, dated 23 January 1916, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  36. 36.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 71/27, Cipher cable, dated 18 December 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  37. 37.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 73/74, Cipher cable, dated 19 February 1917, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  38. 38.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 74/92, Cipher cable, dated 10 March 1917, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  39. 39.

    Ibid.

  40. 40.

    Throughout an entire period that begin in May 1915, when the first deportation convoys reached Aleppo, thousands of orphaned Armenian children would remain in Syria, and the question of what to do with them became a serious problem. At first, a great number of orphanages were set up by permission of Cemal Pasha in areas within the control of the Fourth Army, chief among them Aleppo. These orphanages, most of which were attempts by local Armenian institutions and foreign aid organizations, were eventually closed and the children within them sent off to die. For more detailed information on the subject, see Nazan Maksudyan, Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014); Khatchig Mouradian, “Genocide and Humanitarian Resistance in Ottoman Syria, 1915–1917” (PhD diss., Clark University, 2016); Vahram L. Shemmassian, “The Reclamation of Captive Armenian Genocide Survivors in Syria and Lebanon at the End of World War I,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 15 (2006): 113–140; Shemmassian, “Humanitarian Intervention by the Armenian Prelacy of Aleppo during the First Months of the Genocide,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 22 (2013): 127–153.

  41. 41.

    Hatırat [32]–[33].

  42. 42.

    Hilmar Kaiser, At the Crossroads of Der Zor: Death, Survival, and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo, 1915–1917 (Princeton and London: Gomidas Institute, 2002), 52–54.

  43. 43.

    Hatırat [13]–[14].

  44. 44.

    Ibid., [31], for the original image of this document see Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 191.

  45. 45.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 503/91, Cipher cable, dated 10 February 1916, from [Aleppo] Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  46. 46.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 500/75, Cipher cable, dated 7 December 1915, from [Aleppo] Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  47. 47.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 508/30, Cipher cable, dated 6 February 1916, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  48. 48.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 61/18, Cipher cable, date 15 February 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  49. 49.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 61/20, Cipher cable, date 15 February 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo. The desire to the send Armenian orphans to Istanbul was not an attitude unique to Aleppo. Similar complaints and demands arrived from other provinces, and, like in Aleppo, Talat also rejected requests by other governors to have the Armenian orphans in their jurisdictions sent to Istanbul, ordering them distributed among the neighboring provinces instead. For cables dealing with his rejection of such a request from the Province of Kayseri, see: BOA.DH.SFR., 520/12 (17 May 1916) and 64/82 (20 May 1916).

  50. 50.

    BOA.DH.EUM, 2.Şube., 19/43-1, Cipher cable, dated 2 April 1916, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  51. 51.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 520/31, Cipher cable, dated 18 May 1916, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 66/229, Cipher cable, dated 13 August 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  54. 54.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 509/104, Cipher cable, dated 17 February 1916, from Sivas Governor Muammer to the Interior Ministry.

  55. 55.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 538/114, Cipher cable, dated 1 December 1916, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  56. 56.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 541/45, Cipher cable, dated 26 December 1916, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  57. 57.

    BOA.MF.MKT. 1221/81, Note, dated 11 December 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Ministry of Education.

  58. 58.

    BOA.MF.MKT. 1221/81, Note, dated 25 December 1916, from the Education Ministry to the Interior Ministry.

  59. 59.

    BOA.MF.MKT. 1221/81, Note, dated 4 January 1917, from Interior Minister Talat to the Ministry of Education.

  60. 60.

    DE/PA-AA/R14096, Report, dated 16 March 1917, from German Consul in Aleppo Rössler to Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg; http://www.armenocide.net/armenocide/armgende.nsf/$AllDocs/1917-03-16-DE-001 (Accessed 4 April 2016).

  61. 61.

    Genelkurmay Başkanlığı, Arşiv Belgeleriyle, Cilt VIII, 133.

  62. 62.

    Hans Lukas Kieser, A Question for Belonging: Anatolia Beyond Empire and Nation (19th–21st Centuries) (Istanbul: ISIS Press, 2007), 224.

  63. 63.

    For the relevant correspondence, see: BOA.DH.EUM., 5.Şb, 50/15.

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    The date that is seen on the photographic image of the document reads “2 Kanuni Evvel 1331” (25 December 1915). However, in his memoirs, Naim Efendi gives the date as “12 Kanuni Sani 1332” (25 December 1917).

  66. 66.

    Memoirs, [26]

  67. 67.

    Memoirs, [11].

  68. 68.

    Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 197.

  69. 69.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 66/136, Cipher cable, dated 4 August 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo. “The orphanage established by the commander of the Office of Logistical Support in Meskene was brought into existence by the order of which office? Clearly explain [the identity of] the party that bore the expenses for this orphanage, along with its current extent and level of importance.”

  70. 70.

    Genelkurmay Başkanlığı, Arşiv Belgeleriyle, Cilt VII, 73–75. In the statements given during the investigations, the times and dates given were “the beginning of June” and “July 3.”

  71. 71.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 74/15, Cipher cable, dated 1 March 1917, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  72. 72.

    Raymond Kévorkian, Soykırımın İkinci Safhası, 251. This information was taken from the “secret newspapers” that were used by the Armenians living in the camps during that period to communicate with one another. The persons who survived wrote their recollections on scraps of paper so that others would discover and learn about the things they experienced. The task of communicating in this fashion was largely entrusted to small children, whose movements would not be noticed by guards or others.

  73. 73.

    Raymond Kévorkian, Soykırımın İkinci Safhası, 280, 311.

  74. 74.

    Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 109.

  75. 75.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 73/8, Cipher cable, dated 14 February 1917, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  76. 76.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 73/58, Cipher cable, dated 22 February 1917, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  77. 77.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 545/91, Cipher cable, dated 25 February 1917, from Aleppo Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  78. 78.

    Raymond Kévorkian, Soykırımın İkinci Safhası, 280, 311.

  79. 79.

    Memoirs [23].

  80. 80.

    Ibid., [27].

  81. 81.

    Ibid., [28].

  82. 82.

    Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 60.

  83. 83.

    Memoirs, [29].

  84. 84.

    BOA.DH.EUM., 2.Şb., 73/61ve BOA.DH.ŞFR., 666/122, Cipher cable, dated 6 November 1915, from Adana Provincial Governor Ismail Hakkı Bey to the Interior Ministry. BOA.DH.EUM., 2.Şb., 73/60-01, Cipher cable, dated 9 November 1915, from Osmaniye District Governor Fethi to the Interior Ministry.

  85. 85.

    For some examples of cables sent to the provinces requesting that the Armenian rail workers not be deported but left in place, see BOA.DH.ŞFR., 55/48, 287, 318; 54-A/307.

  86. 86.

    Three examples of such cables, sent in August and September 1915 are BOA.DH.ŞFR., 482/30; 488/80 and 489/99.

  87. 87.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/77, Cipher cable, dated 19 September 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Konya, Ankara, Hüdavendigar (Bursa), and Adana; and to the Provincial Districts of İzmit, Karahisar-ı Sahib, Kütahya, Eskishehir, and Niğde.

  88. 88.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 490/95, Cipher cable, dated 25 September 1915, from the Director of Immigrant and Refugee Settlement in Aleppo Şükrü Bey to the Interior Ministry.

  89. 89.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 56/232, Cipher cable, dated 29 September 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  90. 90.

    For more detailed information on the commission’s decision, see: Krikor Guerguerian Archive, 07, “02-Andonian Analysis Dossier IX” [.pdf, pp. 117–128].

  91. 91.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 492/129 ve 493/62, Cipher cables, dated 9 and 13 October 1915, from Cemal Pasha to the Interior Ministry.

  92. 92.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/25, Cipher cable, dated 16 November 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Director of Immigrant and Refugee Settlement [in Aleppo] Şükrü Bey.

  93. 93.

    BOA.DH.EUM.2.ŞB 73/64, Written communication, dated 8 December 1915, from the Military Commissioner of the Baghdad Railroad to the General Directorate of Security in Istanbul.

  94. 94.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 479/19, Cipher cable, dated 11 November 1915, from Refugee [and Immigrant Resettlement] Director (Muhacirin Müdürü) Şükrü Bey to the Interior Ministry.

  95. 95.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 58/223, Cipher cable, dated 9 December 1915, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Adana.

  96. 96.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 501/42, Cipher cable, dated 14 December 1915, from Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  97. 97.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 506/64, Cipher cable, dated 23 January 1916, from Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  98. 98.

    For more information on the attempts made by the rail company to block the deportation of Armenians, see: H. Kaiser, “The Baghdad Railway,” 67–112.

  99. 99.

    The complete detailed story of this affair is told in the book by Grigoris Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, chapters 11–13, 77–95.

  100. 100.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 60/45, Cipher cable, dated 16 January 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Aleppo, Adana, Konya, and Ankara; and to the Provincial Districts of Eskishehir and İzmit.

  101. 101.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 60/157, Cipher cable, dated 29 January 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Adana and Aleppo.

  102. 102.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 61/1, Cipher cable, dated 13 February 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Adana and Aleppo.

  103. 103.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 63/23, Cipher cable, dated 17 April 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Ankara, Konya, Hüdavendigar (Bursa), Adana, and Aleppo; and to the Provincial Districts of Izmit, Eskishehir, Karahisar-ı Sahib, Kütahya, and Niğde.

  104. 104.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 516/81, Cipher cable, dated 19 April 1916, from Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  105. 105.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 61/17, Cipher cable, dated 15 February 1916, from the Interior Ministry to [Fourth Army Commander] Cemal Pasha.

  106. 106.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 506/48, Cipher Cable, dated 22 January 1916 from Adana Governor Hakkı to the Interior Ministry.

  107. 107.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 510/69, Cipher Cable dated 22 February 1916 from Cemal Pasha to Interior Ministry.

  108. 108.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 61/128, Cipher cable, dated 27 February 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Adana and Aleppo.

  109. 109.

    Regarding the date of his appointment, see BOA.MV., 241/287, Draft (layiha), dated 9 March 1916. and: BOA.DH.İ.MMS. 201/25, Imperial Decree, dated 11 February 1916. In fact, Cevdet arrived in the Aleppo region long before his actual appointment as governor of the province. In the Armenian version of the Memoirs, Andonian locates him there already in February, [Medz Vojirě, 52]. An official document from the Ottoman archive confirms this. See, for instance BOA.DH.ŞFR., 61/197, Cipher cable, dated 6 March 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to Van Provincial Governor Cevdet (who is in Aleppo).

  110. 110.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 523/54, Cipher cable, dated 18 June 1916, from [Adana] Provincial Governor Cevdet to the Interior Ministry.

  111. 111.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 515/88, Cipher cable, dated 31 March 1916, from Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to Interior Ministry.

  112. 112.

    Hatırat [23]–[24].

  113. 113.

    Hatırat [23].

  114. 114.

    The information here was taken from: BOA.DH.2.Şube, 29/43.

  115. 115.

    BOA.DH.2.Şb., 30/7, Cipher cable, dated 31 October 1916, from the Provincial Governor of Aleppo to the Interior Ministry.

  116. 116.

    BOA.DH.2.Şube, 29/43.

  117. 117.

    Ibid.

  118. 118.

    As an example, the following document shows the unease (and subsequent correspondence in response) created within the Ottoman regime by a report appearing in a Berlin paper and claiming that more than one million Armenians had been killed, among which were 100,000 Catholics (including four bishops): HR.SYS., 02883/6.

  119. 119.

    Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 136, 141–143, 146. In the Memoirs text in our possession, the telegram is not to be found, but instead the photographic image that appears in Andonian’s edition. Naim’s name is also mentioned in the cable. We translated the text from the photographic image: “Certain information has been procured by the American consulates in various areas regarding the manner in which known individuals [Armenians] have been deported; we deduced that this procurement is being organized secretly from the memorandum we received from the American Embassy in Istanbul, which was acting on direct orders of its government. Even though we informed them in our response to this memo that the deportations are being carried out in an atmosphere of security and ease, this alone will never be sufficient to convince them. For this reason, during the deportation of people in cities, towns, or in areas close to [population] centers, you must practice caution and avoid drawing attention, in order produce the belief among the foreigners wandering around in those parts that the purpose of the deportations is nothing other than the relocation. To achieve this, the temporary implementation of compassionate treatment is necessary for political reasons, and the usual measures (massacres) known to you should be implemented in the appropriate regions. Those persons surveilling the area for purposes of observation should be apprehended using other excuses and be delivered by other means to the courts-martial.”

  120. 120.

    Memoirs [22]. According to Andonian, the reporter for the Armenian paper Jamanag mentioned in the document was Yervant Odian. As for the photographer, it was Matthew Yeretzian (Mateos Yeretsyan), secretary to the Archbishop of Aleppo; finally, the person who delivered these documents and such to Jackson, the American consul, was Aram Gülyan. Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 146–147.

  121. 121.

    Memoirs [22].

  122. 122.

    Ara Sarafian (ed.), United States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915–1917 (London: Gomidas Institute, 2004), 386.

  123. 123.

    For examples, see: BOA/DH.ŞFR., 59/40, 46, 47, 48; 76/42, 43-1, 44, 210.

  124. 124.

    For examples, see: BOA/DH.ŞFR., 60/178, 281; 62/90, 129, 181; 65/25; 69/210; 72/18; 74/66.

  125. 125.

    BOA/DH.ŞFR., 62/210.

  126. 126.

    BOA/DH.ŞFR., 61/32, Cipher cable, dated 13 February 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provinces of Aleppo, Adana, Mosul, and Diyarbekir; and to the Provincial Districts of Urfa and [Deyr-i]Zor.

  127. 127.

    BOA/DH.EUM. 2.Şb., 73/42, official communique of censor officer Artin to the Department of Censor Inspectorate dated 20 September 1915.

  128. 128.

    BOA/DH.ŞFR., 492/41, Cipher cable, dated 5 October 1915, from Governor Bekir Sami to Interior Ministry.

  129. 129.

    BOA/DH.ŞFR., 492/41.

  130. 130.

    BOA/DH.ŞFR., 508/29, Cipher cable, dated 6 February 1916, From Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to Interior Ministry.

  131. 131.

    BOA/DH.ŞFR., 61/226, Cipher cable, dated 8 March 1916, from Interior Minister Talat to the Province of Aleppo.

  132. 132.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 513/34, Cipher cable, dated 16 March, 1916, from Governor Mustafa Abdülhalik to the Interior Ministry.

  133. 133.

    Memoirs [24].

  134. 134.

    Ibid., [10]. The date of the telegram is given as 2 February 1917, while the emptying out of the camp at Bab actually occurred during January or February 1916. Thus, it must be assumed that the year given is incorrect and should be 1916. Since we don’t possess the image of this document (Andonian never published an original image of it), we do not have the opportunity to review and correct the date.

  135. 135.

    Aram Andonian, Medz Vojirě, 97–98. These annotations by Naim are not found in the Memoirs in our possession.

  136. 136.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 510/95, Cipher cable, dated 24 January 1916, from Deyr-i Zor District Governor [Ali] Suat to the Interior Ministry.

  137. 137.

    DH.EUM. 2.Şb. 74/30-01, Report, dated 30 October 1916, [Author unclear] to the Interior Ministry. From the text of the report it can be understood that the report was penned by an official who was sent to the areas of Meskene, Rakka and Deyr-i Zor in order to solve various problems surrounding the deportations.

  138. 138.

    Takvim-i Vekayi, no. 3540, 5 May 1919. The indictment was read at the first session of the trial, on 27 April 1919.

  139. 139.

    Ibid.

  140. 140.

    Ibid.

  141. 141.

    Krikor Guerguerian Archive, 24 Krieger 02, 01 Box V 01, PDF p. 334. Guerguerian took this document from the archives of the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem; it is found in box number M578 within the latter’s holdings.

  142. 142.

    Hilmar Kaiser, The Extermination of Armenians in the Diarbekir Region (Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, 2014), 189, 348–350.

  143. 143.

    DE/PA-AA/BoKon/170, Appendix 1 to the Report, dated 27 September 1915, from the German Consul in Aleppo Rössler to the German Embassy in Istabul. http://www.armenocide.net/armenocide/armgende.nsf/$AllDocs-de/1915-09-27-DE-014?OpenDocument (Accessed 13 February 1916).

  144. 144.

    Memoirs [08].

  145. 145.

    Ibid., [08]–[09].

  146. 146.

    Ibid., [09].

  147. 147.

    The request for photographs and other documentation of murders and depredations caused by “Armenian revolutionaries” in Anatolia were an important policy of the government. The Ottoman regime published these images and documents in 1916 in a work known as the “White Book.” For a recent republication of this work, see Erdoğan Cengiz (ed.), Ermeni Komitelerinin Âmâl ve Harekât-ı İhtilâliyesi; İlân-ı Meşrutiyetten Evvel ve Sonra (Ankara: Başbakanlık Basımevi 1983). For the documentation requested from the regions in question, see BOA.DH.ŞFR., 54-A/213; 55/150; 56/382.

  148. 148.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 62/57, Cipher cable, dated 19 March 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Provincial District of Marash.

  149. 149.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 59/127; 63/263, 272, 282 Esat Bey, who would later adopt the surname Uras, would later go on to publish the well-known work Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi (Ankara: Türkiye Matbaacılık Ve Gazetecilik A.O, 1950). This work would come to represent one of the main sources for supporting information for the Turkish regime’s “official version” of the history of this period.

  150. 150.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 63/185, Cipher cable, dated 3 May 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  151. 151.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 63/241, Cipher cable, dated 8 May 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  152. 152.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 63/248, Cipher cable, dated 9 May 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

  153. 153.

    BOA.DH.ŞFR., 65/201, Cipher cable, dated 13 July 1916, from the Interior Ministry to the Province of Aleppo.

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    Taner Akçam

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Akçam, T. (2018). Subjects and Events Mentioned by Naim Efendi Corroborated in Ottoman Documents. In: Killing Orders. Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69787-1_5

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