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The
last Assyrians in Urmia,
During the World War one Massacres
by William Warda
Jan, 2005
During the World War One Turkey found it an opportune time to decimate not only its
own christian population including Assyrians of the country, and the Zaqrous mountains north of Mosul, also the
Assyrians in the plain of Urmia, and Salams, in northwest Iran.
A Fatwa of (Jihad) was issued against "infidles and enemies
of the faith" on November 14, 1914 by the Shykh ul-Islam
in front of the Fathi mosque, in Constantinople, it was intended to
define World War One into a battle between Islam and Christianity.
While it was ignored by most of the muslem world Turks carried out their goal to massacre the native christians wherever they found
them. Their methods varied but the result was always the death
of the innocents.
The massacre of the Christians
by the Turks and their allies the Kurds and Persian Azaris from
October 1914 through August 1919 can only be described as crime
against humanity, and the slughter of the innocents. With few
exceptions non Moslim citizens in Moslem countries were historically prohibited
from possessing weapons even for self defense, consequently Assyrians were unable to defend themselves and were at the mercy of
the greater population of the Turks, Kurds and Persian Azaris
equipped with modern weapons determent to wipe them out. It is
important to note that a majority of Moslems did not take part in such attrocities
but had no power to stop the radicals.
By the end of the war more than a million Armenians, and 750,000
Assyrians including members of the Chaldean and Syriac denominations
were killed in most cruel fashion in addition to hundreds of
thousands of the Pontiac Greeks. About the end of 1917 after
3 years of death and destruction Assyrians of northwest Iran
in desperation began to defend themselves against an overwhelming
enemy determent to wipe them out. Defeat at every location led
to the wholesale massacre of the unarmed Christian population.
To quote Abraham Youhannan:
"Every incident turned upon a pillage or murder, rape or
torture. The brutal creatures plundered the villages, killed
the men, dishonored the women, sized the portable property, and
returned leisurely home conscious of having done a good day's
work."
Worst yet they proudly thought they had done Allah a favor as
if he was powerless to carry out his own justice and needed the
help of the criminally minded to heap death and destruction on
helpless people. What they did clearly contradicted the first
statement of Koran where Allah is described as kind and compassionate.
By committing cruelties to fulfill their own thirst for blood
and claiming it was done in the name of Allah in fact they demeaned
Islam.
Urmia (assyrian City of
water) was one of the few regions where Assyrians as a community
had survived until the 20th century, living in the city and the
villages along the shores of a large salt lake known by that
name. An Assyrian church of Mart Maryam (St. Mary) in the city,
which still stands, is the oldest building in the region. Evidences
indicate that it may have been built in the 5th or the 6th century
A.D. The massacres started here in October of 1914 and continued
until June of 1919. This is a brief history of what happened
there.
Most of those who managed
to survive during the first year of massacres did so by fleeing
to Russia, hiding or taking refuge in the French and the American
missions in Urmia and Salamas- all suffered grievously. In describing
the plight of the Assyrians who had taken refuge in the American mission, from January 1st 1915 to the end of may 1915, one missionary
who had witnessed the death and the destruction of the community wrote:
"We
had a service of thanksgiving in the church (at the American
Mission) yesterday, the first time for many months, as it had
been occupied by refugees. Thousands have lived in such terror
and want, it is a wonder that many have not lost their minds.
It has seemed sometimes as if our tears were all dried up and
our emotions were dead, we have seen and felt so much. I suppose
it is nature's way of saving brain and nerve. When I look at
these poor wretched creatures and little children like skeletons,
I find I still have some feelings left. It is estimated that
four thousand people have died from disease, hunger, and exposure,
and about a thousand by violence. The suffering can never be
told, nor is it ended. Hundreds, yes thousands, are destitute,
and even if we empty our yard there is no one left but the missionaries
to save them from starvation..." (Diary of Missionary) |
The atrocities continued
for another 4 years. It will take great volumes to describe the
inhumanity inflicted on the defenseless Assyrians during the
entire world war one in Turkey, Mountains of Zagrouz (Kurdistan),
Urmia and elsewhere. Following is a brief description about the
plight of the Assyrians who were ubable to flee the massacres
in mid 1918 in northwest Iran .
On June 21st 1918
after repeated attacks the Assyrian defenders of Salamas were
vanquished by the Turkish armies and their allies the Kurds.
Their defeat led to a panic flight toward Urmia some 30 miles
to the south. Along the way several thousands of refugees were
massacred by the Shakak Kurds under the command of Ismaeil Simgo.
Assyrians know Simgo and his tribe as Kurds who inflicted various
massacre on them and in March of 1918 invited Mar Bejamin Shimoun,
the temporal leader of the Eastern Assyrians to peace talk only
to assassinate him at the behest of the local Persian authorities.
His murder left Assyrians demoralized, divided and without an
effective leadership.
At Salamas, the Turkish commander Ali Ihsan Pasha ordered the
killing of the remaining unarmed christians including men, women
and children except for the young ladies and girls who had been
previously carried off by the Persians (Azari Turks) and the
Kurds. (Naayem)
Killers proudly posing above the corpses
of the Assyrians they murdered
About a month after the
fall of Salamas pursuant to nearly four years of massacres and
constant attacks against them by the regular Turkey's army and
their allies the Kurds and the Persian Azaries Assyrian defenders
in Urmia were defeated on July 30 1918. The panic stricken people
began to flee leaving behind all they had. Since the way to Russia
was blocked by the enemy their only escape option was southward
where they hoped to find Agha Potrus and his troops who had gone
to receive help from the British.
About seventy five thousand
Assyrians and Armenians fled from Urmia on the evening of that
day. Along the way they were pursued and attacked by the combined
forces of the Turkish 6th and the twelfth divisions, thousands
of irregular Kurds plus the Persian (Azari) troops under the
command of Majid-ul-Sultan. Like vicious predators they followed
the fleeing population determent to kill as many of them as possible.
When Majid-ul-Sultan succeeded in cutting off the retreat of
some refugees and murdered a couple thousands of them he sent
a telegram from Miandab to Tabriz bragging that he had sent 2,000
guiavoirs (infidels) to hell. His despatch was published on the
following day in the "Tidjaddad," the official organ
of the social democratic party at Tabriz. In Sahin-Galla he had
encircled another 3,000 refugees, but the timely arrival of the
brave Colonel Ezaria Tamraz and a handful of Assyrian riders,
spoiled his plans and forced his troops into retreat. Evidently
Majid-ul-Sultan was taken into custody by Father Gewargis at
Batoum but there is no details about how and what happened to
him. (ibid)
Colonel Mccarthy, a British
officers, who witnessed the plight of the fleeing Assyrians later
wrote: "Never shall I forget that retreat from Urmia when
I met the panic-stricken people on the Nidjar road and never
do I want to see anything like it again..... Apart from being
harassed by the enemy every known disease seemed to attack these
unfortunate people and hundreds died from typhus, dysentery,
small-pox and exhaustion. It was a common thing to see children,
abandoned on the roadside, the parents probably dead. Wherever
they camped for the night the ground next morning was littered
with dead and dying. What these unfortunate people suffered few
can realize. Some 10,000 were cut off by the Turks and no one
heard of them since." Only thirty five thousands Assyrians
and fifteen thousands Armenians made it to the Bakuba refugee
camps in Iraq after passing through Hammadon.
Below an official U.S archives
document describes the plight of a typical Assyrian family during
the tragic events. In response to an inquiry by Mr. Musey Benjamin,
an Assyrian resident of the United State concerning the whereabouts
of his father 'Yonan Benjamin', and the rest of his family in
Urmia the American Consul in Tauriz Iran replied with the following
letter.
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Received, Consular
Bureau, Dept of State, Sept 22 1920)
No, 154.
AMERICAN CONSULATE,
Tabriz, Persia, July 10, 1920.
Subject: Whereabouts
and welfare of Yonan Benjamin.
THE HONORABLE
THE SECRETARY OF STATE,
WASHINGTON.
SIR:
I have the honor to
report, in reply to the Department's telegraphic instruction
of October 17, 1919, and written instructions Nos. 163 (File
No. 391/19) and 173 (File No. 391.9115 B 43/-) of September 4,
1919, and April 3, 1920, respectively, as follows:
Yonan Benjamin is said
to have died in the village of Gulpashan, Urumia, Persia, on
or about July 24th, 1918; or about one week before the general
exodus of the Christian population of the Urumia region on the
advance of the Turkish forces. Aswa, the wife of Yonan and mother
of Musey Benjamin, together with Yonan's daughters-in-law Sonam
and Anna, the latter the wife of Musey, are reported to have
been transported with numerous other Christian women of Urumia
to Salmas by the Turks, and to have died at Salmas in the summer
of 1918, as a result of the hardship and exposure to which they
were subjected. Yonan Benjamin's daughter Marguerite is said
to have been abducted by the Kurds, and her whereabouts or fate
are unknown. Abram, the grandson of Yonan and son of Musey
Benjamin, is reported to have fled from Urumia at the time of
the Christian exodus and to have died at the village of Tazakand
near Hamadan, Persia, in the summer of 1918. It is reported that
the late Yonan Benjamin's house and vineyards at Urumia have
been destroyed and devastated by the local Moslems.
All property of the
former Christian inhabitants of the Urumia region is at present
either vacant or occupied by the Persian Moslems, and all personal
possessions of the Christians remaining after the Turkish withdrawal
from that region have also been stolen or destroyed by their
Moslem neighbors. No Christians have resided at Urumia since
the withdrawal of the Christian remnant after the massacre of
the refugees at the American Mission in Urumia by the Persians
on May 24th, 1919, as reported by this Consulate to the American
Legation at Tehran.
It has been impracticable
to obtain the information necessary for a prompt reply to this
and similar inquiries, for the reason that the families of the
Urumia Assyrians, and others having such information, are scattered,
and considerable delay is occasioned in communicating with such
persons; more particularly since postal communication with Tabriz
during the past year has been uncertain and not infrequently
interrupted.
I have the honor to
be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Gordon Paddock
Consul. |
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In his book "Shall
this nation die?" Joseph Naayem in similar fashion describes
the plight of the Assyrians who for one reason or another were
unable to escape from Urmia on July 30, 1918 as it was reported
to him by the priests and bishops of the Chaldean church who
had remained behind and survived the ordeal.
When the commander of the
Fourth Corps Turkish army, Salah-Eddin Pasha, arrived in the
city he granted three days and nights of killing the helpless
Christians by the Turks, Kurds and the Persian Azaris. Every
night the sound of the carts carrying off the bodies to be thrown
into mass graves could be heard. Some 16,000 Assyrians were massacred
at that time. Hundreds of women and young girls were carried
off by the Persians and the Kurdo-Turks. The Sisters of the French
school at Urmia,who took refuge in the church of the Mission,
among other women were dishonored by the Persian soldiers of
Arshad-Homayoun. Dr. D. Israel, and few others were hanged by
the order of the Turkish Commandant Kheiri Bey. The Turks shot
to death all the wounded who were being cared for at the American
hospital.
One clergy reported Fourteen
members of his family, including his mother, were murdered or
died of typhoid and other epidemics.. His sister's family including
her son John, her brothers-in-law James, Lazarus, Nicholas, Thomas
and Issa, her cousins Paul Warda, Joseph Basile, Mary, and her
aunt Rachel were killed in her presence. She was taken captive
by the Turks and was later transferred from Salamas to Urmia
with others. Only those who took refuge in the French Mission
were left alone.
Jean Djoumma, a Chaldean
Assyrian who had returned to Khosrawa when it was safe to do
so in a letter to Abbe Decroo in Tauriz dated May 3, 1919 wrote:
| "You
know all the horrors suffered by our Christians during the massacres.
Our women were burned alive, others were sawn to pieces, men,
women and children were crucified or hacked to death. So great
indeed were the horrors that the barbarous Turks were astonished
to find at Urmia Moslems were more barbarous than themselves,
Bishop Thomas Audo, a French missionary and Mar Dinkha were led
naked through the streets of Urmia before being martyred. My
heart is torn, and I cannot tell you all the cruelties and the
different tortures invented by the moslems for our thousands
of martyrs. . . ." (Naayem) |
After the flight of the
Christian population at he end of July 1918 and Turkey's withdrawal from northwest Iran about eight hundred fifty Assyrians
mostly women children, orphans and older people had been ubable
to escape. They were being taken care of by the American missionaries
who latter were ordered to leave the city. The responsibility
to take care of the refugees was assumed by Raabi Judith David,
an Assyrian lady together with Gasha Yago. The American Mission
in Tauriz was allowed to function and the Missionaries had enlisted
Ismaeil Simgo's help to provid some protection to the besieged
Assyrians in return for paying him. In a letter to a Chaldean
priest in Tauriz on 14th of April, 1919 Simgo claims that he
had hired guards to protect the Christians hiddding in the Mission
from being molested.
In May 1919 the American
missionary Dr. Hubert Packard was allowed to return to Urmia
to take over the Mission. Previously Sardar-i- Fateh the governor
of the city had been able to restore order and keep the peace
with the Kurds but his replacement decided to assassinate Ismaeil
Simgo by sending him a package containing a bomb which exploded
when it was opened killing three including Simgo's brother, wounding
others and slightly injuring Simgo. This triggered a battle between
the Kurds and the Persians which resulted in driving the Kurds
out of the city but they remained in control outside the city.
(Muller)
Following this event on
May 24th the Persian Azaris including soldiers forcibly entered
the American Mission compound, looted it and massacred 200 Assyrians and wounding a hundred more. The mayhem was stopped
at the behest of the city governor who gave Mr. Packard who had arrived in Urmia and the
surviving refugees protection at the governor's compound. This
kindness was undoubtedly motivated by the fear of retaliation
by the United States. The attackers justified their mayhem because
of Dr. Packard's financial help to the Kurds, but found it easier
to kill the helpless natives. A cable was sent by the
Presbyterian mission in Tabriz to the President Wilson in Paris
"Fresh massacres of Christians. American Mission Urmia Persia.
Besieged remnant lost unless immediately relieved." Signed
American Presbyterian Mission. (ibid)
In Tauriz a daring plan
was devised by the American consul Mr. Gordon Paddock to rescue
Mr. Packard and the Christians from Urmia before they were subjected
to further violence. The plan was for Mr. Paddock along with
the former governor of Urmia Mr. Sardar-i-Fateh, together with
Missionary Hugo Mueller and few others to travel in cars from
Sharaf Khana to Urmia and ask the city governor to allow Packard
and the six hundred surviving Assyrians to be allowed to leave
on ship to Tauriz. (ibid)
On their way to Urmia members of the expedition arrived in Dilman
which they described as Kurd infested, i.e. Kurds went through
the streets in twos and threes with lowered rifles. Shops were
closed and locked, and most people kept off the streets. Salamas
according to Hugo Mueller was in the midst of a famine. Dead
bodies littered the streets. The villages along the way were
desolate. In Khosrawa one hundred eighty five christians had
survived and were being supported by funds provided by the American
mission. They consisted of three men, the rest were women and
children who feared soon some disaster may fall on them
for one political or religious reason or another. (ibid)
The expedition safety was assured by Ismaeil Simgo from Salamas and Urmia. The villages
in between were mostly deserted but Kurds were everywhere. The
cars bearing the American flag finally entered into the city
of Urmia and headed to the Governor's compound. Inside the yard
Mueller was reunited with Raabi Judith whom he described as heroic,
along with gasha Yago, Raabi Suriya and others. During a visit
to the American consul in the city he was informed of rumors
that men with knives, sickles, axes, spades, etc, had gathered
on the streets ready to attack the Christians to prevent them
from leaving.
At the Governor's compound
Mr. Paddock introduced himself as speaking in behalf of America,
Great Britain and France. An official document he presented to
the Governor declared that he had the authority of the American
Government. There was a possibility that along the way the refugees
may be attacked. One small disturbance could have triggered another
wholesale killing. To prevent such incident the Governor agreed
to provide security guards to assure their safe departure. As
a deterrent about two hundred foot and mounted soldiers were
brought into the governor's compound to accompany the Christians
out of the town.
On a day in June of 1919
at four p.m. about six hundred battered Assyrians, once members
of a thriving community which had lived in Urmia for as long
as history remembered were led through the winding streets of
the city without any incident on a thirteen miles walk to the
lake. Once outside the city the danger subsided because in contrast
to the past Kurds were not expected to be of much trouble. The
group passed through the deserted Assyrian village of Degala
on its way to the lake where all were loaded on a ship. At Sharaf
Khana they were transferred to the train heading for Tauriz.
At the station a large crowd was waiting for their sick, wounded,
and weary friends and relatives. Many were smothered in tears
of joy but others cried in sorrow for those who had died and
the pains they has suffered.(ibid)
Turkey's Massacre of the
Assyrians during World War One not only uprooted them from their
historic homeland in Iran also from the cities of southeast Turkey,
the mountains of the Kurdistan and the villages north of Duhook
in Iraq. Starting in mid 1920's some Assyrians who had fled to
Russia and Iraq found it safe to return to their former villages
in Urmia but when they were plundered and some were killed at
the end of the World War II it became obvious that they could
no longer live there and migrated to the larger cities of Iran
where they could live in peace and later many departed to the
Western countries. By some estimate about fifteen to twenty thousands
Assyrians presently live in Iran. The uprooting of the Assyrians
from their homelands which had served as sanctuaries for their
unique culture and heritage plus their being scattered in several
countires of the Middle East and the west including United States,
Canada, Australia, England, Russia and elsewhere has diminished
the chances of their long term survival.
Incidentally Ismaeil Simgo
the leader of Shakak Kurds who in 1918 traitorously assassinated
the Assyrian leader Mar Benjamin Shimoun was himself assassinated
in 1930 by the Persians in similar manner . The Kurdish Chiefs
including Simgo were invited to a conference in the city of
Oshnouk some 50 miles south of Urmia with promise that they would
receive official authority from the Iranian government. Ismaeil
Simgo who did not suspect any foul play was shot to death by
the Iranian soldiers a day or two after his arrival in the city.
1- (Abraham Youhannan,
"Death of a Nation", G.P. Putnam's Sons, New york 1916
p.131.)
2- (Diary of Missionary, Edited by Miss Mary Schauffler Platt,
and Published by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A.
3- (Joseph Naayem, "Shall This Nation Die?", Chaldean
Rescue New York 1920)
4- (US Archeives Consular Bureau, Dept of State, Sept 22 1920,
No, 154.)
5- (Hugo Muller, "Letter to His Wife" Tabriz Persia,
June 22, 1919) |