Letter from Marash, Turkey, January 28, 1923, marked “COPY,” from Dr. Jacob Kunzler to Mr. McAfee of NER, written at the close of Kunzler’s Greek refugee operations in Marash. With the departure of the Chardak quota on January 14, only 252 Greek orphans remain to be moved out; Kunzler reports that NER assisted 2,738 Greek adults and orphans in total at an expenditure of about Ltq. 1,500, with twenty refugees frozen to death crossing the mountains into Marash, many more arriving half-naked with frozen feet, and as many as 65 hospitalized in a single day with acute pneumonia and dysentery (sporadic typhoid; typhus avoided so far).
A concurrent “wholesale exodus” of Armenians began on January 6, leaving only 200–300 in Marash, with small parties departing daily. The Mission hospital is being closed for lack of staff; “Bethel” and Tasarmi orphanages hold only 27 and 16 children, and the College about 17–18 students. Kunzler describes harassment by Turkish authorities, asks McAfee whether emergency medical work elsewhere with Greek or Armenian refugees is available, and indicates he would rather resign than return to idle service.
