Collections
3,000 refugees reach Deurt Yol. NER Weekly, 11 Dec 1920.
Location
Adana, Turkey
Year
1920
Item Detail
Elizabeth S. Webb traveled by armored train out of Adana on 20 October to Deurt Yol and Euzerli, where about 3,000 refugees from Hassan Beyli and Adana had gathered, three families to a one-room house. Near East Relief sent 400 sacks of flour, fat, cloth, quinine and 1,750 blankets, sold some supplies cheaply and spent the proceeds on roads and water. At Bardizag, John H. Kingsbury found dispensary cases dropping from more than forty a day to about twenty once shoes were issued, and six of his wife's advanced sewing pupils made ninety pairs of trousers in a week.
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. 49. 25 Rue Taxim, Pera, Constantinople. December 11, 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 Visit to Deurt Yol and Euzerli', by Elizabeth S. Webb, follows an armored-train journey from Adana through damaged stations and unploughed fields to towns sheltering about 3,000 refugees from Hassan Beyli and Adana; Near East Relief sent flour, fat, cloth, mats, quinine and 1,750 blankets, sold supplies cheaply and used the proceeds for road and water work; C. W. Strowger visits five fishing villages on Marmora with quinine and cod-liver oil and reports malaria and tuberculosis; John H. Kingsbury's October report from Bardizag describes winter stores, boys cooking and gardening, model houses, and sewing classes that made ninety pairs of trousers in a week; Sophie S. Holt reports 150 orphanage children attending Mary E. Kinney's new American school at Ismid; notices record a large clothing shipment, the death of Jay H. Robinson and personnel assignments.