Collections
Anna McIntyre records the deportation of the Zeitoon refugees from Marash. 1921.
Location
Marash (Kahramanmaras), Turkey
Year
1921
Item Detail
The army brought the Zeitoon refugees into Marash in the last week of June 1921 and the Americans met them on the hills behind the college. Saladdin Bey asked that they be taken into the seminary compound and arranged rations. When he left with the troops in July the civil government ordered them to the old Turkish hospital, and the next day the mutasarrif ordered them deported. The Americans protested and telegraphed. The refugees were marched out at dawn, and Saladdin Bey's reply forbidding the deportation arrived at the end of the week, too late. Forty women, babies and disabled people were held back.
Context
Nellie Marie Miller Mann (1897–1997) was a member of Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana, and a graduate of Goshen College. The Mennonite Relief Commission placed her with Near East Relief in 1921, one of two Mennonite women it sent to the Near East in these years. She was appointed on 20 August 1921, sailed the same day aboard the S.S. Patria, and reached Beirut on 20 September. At the Syria-Palestine headquarters she was secretary to the treasurer and, by April 1923, in charge of the individual remittance department. She left Beirut at the end of August 1923.
The collection holds her letters to her family and to her fiancé Cleo Mann, her appointment papers and contract, and the Near East Relief reports, rosters and field accounts she kept. Together they document the Beirut office through the movement of orphans out of Anatolia and Cilicia into Syria and Lebanon in 1922, the Greek deportations of the following winter, and the deaths of two NER workers, Menno Shellenberger at Diarbekir and Lester James Wright on the Aleppo road. David W. Mann published his mother's writings as Letters from Syria, 1921–1923 (2013) and gave the originals to the Near East Foundation.
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Holding Institution
Rockefeller Archive Center
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External Link
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Attribution
Rockefeller Archive Center. Near East Foundation records, FA406. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14.
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Rights
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Notes
Typed in the document: "The Zeitoon refugees were brought into Marash by order of and under the escort of the Army the last week in June 1921." / "The next day word came that the mutaserif had ordered their deportation. We immediately protested, but the mutaserif was adamant." / "The Zeitoonlars were deported on August 39th at dawn." / "We had nine patients at the hospital and at the last moment were able to save forty women babies and cripples."
Signed: "Anna McIntyre"
The deportation date is typed "August 39th" in the original. No date can be recovered from the page.
Sources for the Item Detail:
• Dr. Lorrin A. Shepard, "The Siege of Aintab, A Phase of the Turkish Nationalist Movement," 1921, on the same American compounds in Cilicia. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Letter from Marash to Mr. McAfee, 28 January 1923, naming "Bethel" and "Acorn" with twenty-seven and twenty-three orphans remaining. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
About this group
• Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Near East Foundation records (FA406), Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Near East Relief appointment certificate, 20 August 1921, signed C. V. Vickrey and C. M. Fowle ("Miss Nellie M. Miller has been duly appointed a member of the relief expedition"). Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Near East Relief, Syria-Palestine Area, Organization and Personnel, 28 April 1923, sheet I ("Secretary to Treasurer & in charge of Individual Remittance Dept. — Miss Nellie M. Miller"). Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Nellie Miller Mann, Letters from Syria, 1921–1923, transcribed and edited by David W. Mann (Morgantown, Pa.: Masthof Press, 2013).
• Rockefeller Archive Center finding aid, Near East Foundation records: https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/Ahi2i3M7wcFTbQuXZgxDib
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Document Contents
One-page typescript headed "Zeitoon Refugees in Marash," signed Anna McIntyre and undated, describing events from the last week of June 1921 into the following autumn. McIntyre records the arrival of the Zeitoon refugees under army escort, their registration, and the appointment of the Badvelli Abraham as their sponsor at the Government's request. Saladdin Bey asked that they be housed in the seminary compound and arranged two meals a day with bread. After he left with the troops in July the civil government ordered them to the old Turkish hospital at the foot of the citadel, and the mutasarrif then ordered their deportation despite American protest. The refugees were deported at dawn, Saladdin Bey's countermanding reply arriving too late. Nine hospital patients and forty women, babies and disabled people were saved, and about twenty-five orphan boys and one girl who had hidden in the city were later gathered into the orphanages. The second paragraph describes winter housing for the Zeitoonlars and about 150 boys from the Ebenezer and Acorne orphanages in the seminary compound, with the College gymnasium offered as a dormitory.