Collections
Batoum shelters 5,600 Greek refugees. NER Weekly, 6 Nov 1920.
Location
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Year
1920
Item Detail
A letter to E. A. Yarrow from the Greek refugees at Batoum, 5,600 of them, asked for transport out, and the issue reports ships already gone with 900 and 2,500 aboard and about 8,000 more expected from Kars. At Brousa 1,500 refugees had come in from beyond the Greek lines, and the station gave out 550 blankets and milk for more than eighty babies. The Aintab hospital's year closed with 767 inpatients, 12,705 clinic patients and 309 operations. Ernest W. Riggs arrives as Child Welfare Director, and the death of L. O. Fossum at Erevan is recorded.
Context
The Near East Relief Weekly Bulletin was a four-page weekly printed in Constantinople for the organization's own staff. It continued The Acorne, the bulletin of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, and took the new title with Vol. II, No. 42 on 23 October 1920, when the organization itself was renamed Near East Relief.
Because it was written for people already in the field and not for donors at home, the Weekly is plainer than anything Near East Relief printed in America. Station reports give the numbers (e.g., children fed, beds occupied, pairs of shoes made, tons landed at Batoum) and the personnel notes record who arrived, who transferred, who married and who died.
The run covers the fall of Kars, the landing of Russian refugees in Constantinople in the winter of 1920, the famine in Armenia through 1921 and 1922, and the French withdrawal from Cilicia.
-
Holding Institution
Columbia University Library
-
External Link
-
Attribution
Digitized by Columbia University Libraries; available through HathiTrust (Public Domain).
-
Rights
No known copyright restrictions. Based on available information, NERHS is not aware of copyright restrictions on this material. Items are presented for non-commercial research and educational use. Users are responsible for determining rights status and compliance with applicable law. If you believe you hold rights in this material or have information about rights holders not currently reflected, please contact [email protected].
-
Notes
Masthead: 'Near East Relief. Vol. II. No. 44. 25 Rue Taxim, Pera, Constantinople. November 6, 1920.'
Most of the people described in these pages were survivors of the genocide of the Ottoman Armenians and of the killing and deportation of Greeks and Assyrians in the same years. The bulletin does not use the word "Genocide," which was not coined until 1944. Its writers say "the deportations", "the massacres", or simply "the troubles", and often say nothing at all about how a child came to be an orphan. Where an issue documents the events or their aftermath, the record indicates this in the Subject field. The period's own vocabulary is kept in the original article titles and in quoted phrases.
-
Document Contents
The Yedi Koule hospital reports ninety tubercular children in September and twenty-four discharged as cured under Emma M. Wood; 'A Call for Help at Brousa' describes 1,500 refugees from beyond the Greek lines, 550 blankets distributed and milk supplied to more than eighty babies; the Batoum appeal records 5,600 Greek refugees awaiting transport, with ships carrying 900 and more than 2,500 people and about 8,000 more expected from Kars; a French prisoner at Diarbekir thanks Abby Noyes Little and Emily I. Wade for food, clothes and care; the Aintab hospital reports 767 inpatients, 12,705 clinic patients and 309 operations for the year; a correction credits Lila Downer with founding Harpoot's home for children with intellectual disabilities; Glee Hastings reports crowded Constantinople orphanages and new trachoma wards; Ernest W. Riggs arrives as Child Welfare Director; later notices cover a Leviathan workers' reunion, the Bacuba refugee camp, W. W. Peet's trip to Geneva, L. O. Fossum's death at Erevan and personnel movements.