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Five camps hold 3,000 Armenian refugees. NER Weekly, 20 Nov 1920.
Location
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Year
1920
Item Detail
Mabelle C. Phillips spent a morning with the Constantinople Case Committee at Kadi Keuy among twenty-two widowed mothers, and explains the aid that kept 5,000 children with surviving mothers rather than in institutions. More than 3,000 Armenians driven from the war districts were living in five camps in the city, short of bread, milk, blankets, soap and medical care. Derindje was caring for 741 refugees from villages near Adabazar. At Tarsus, St. Paul's College opened on schedule on 6 October amid the roar of cannon, and the Beylerbey shoe shop was turning out thirty pairs a day.
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.
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Holding Institution
Columbia University Library
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External Link
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Attribution
Digitized by Columbia University Libraries; available through HathiTrust (Public Domain).
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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].
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Notes
Masthead: 'Near East Relief. Vol. II. No. 46. 25 Rue Taxim, Pera, Constantinople. November 20, 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.
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Document Contents
'A Morning with the Constantinople Case Committee of the Near East Relief', by Mabelle C. Phillips, follows twenty-two widowed mothers at Kadi Keuy and explains the aid given to 5,000 children who remained with surviving mothers; Glee L. Hastings reports the Kuleli boys' athletics, the Beylerbey shoe shop's output of thirty pairs a day and bread and winter-clothing controls; Derindje shelters 741 refugees from villages near Adabazar; 'Constantinople Refugee Camps' describes more than 3,000 Armenians at Haskeuy, Psamatia, Scutari, Beshiktash and Ortakeuy, with severe shortages of bread, milk, blankets, soap and medical care; 'Tarsus News' reports St. Paul's College and paid knitting and fancy work; brief articles cover Girl Scout work, a Mennonite home for Russian refugee children and restrictions on mail to the interior; 'News in Brief' records orphanage moves and an industrial home for older girls; arrival and personnel notices list new workers and changes in the Beirut, Derindje, Broussa and Caucasus posts.