One hundred girls freed from Turkish households assemble. Aintab, 1919.

Item Detail

In 1919, Near East Relief sent Loyal Lincoln Wirt, its International Commissioner, to assess the needs of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, and the photographer Glen Russell Carrier traveled with him through Aintab, Marash, and Aleppo. In Aintab, they found one hundred girls "rescued from slavery in Turkish harems after having endured every imaginable suffering and indignity."

Context

American photographer Glen Russell Carrier served as the official photographer of Near East Relief. In 1919, he traveled with Dr. Loyal Lincoln Wirt (1863–1961), NER's International Commissioner, who had been sent to assess the needs of survivors of the Armenian Genocide and report back on relief operations in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Carrier's photographs in this collection document inland Cilicia and northern Syria — Aintab (Gaziantep), Marash (Kahramanmaraş), and Aleppo — and the Armenian refugee camp at Port Fouad, Egypt. They record NER relief workers, orphans and children, refugee families, prisoners of war, and the destruction across the region. These photographs are one part of the larger Near East Relief Collection (AKP061) at the Harvard Fine Arts Library, which holds 487 prints from the survey.