The purpose of the paper is to examine the socio-economic, political, religious, cultural and educational situations of the indigenous Armenians of Aleppo during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries with a particular focus on their evolution during the relocation process and the following years. At first, the Aleppine Armenian community’s structure, way of life and efficiency in many branches of Ottoman life will be situated within the Ottoman context. Then, the process of relocation itself will be assessed at the level of Aleppo, that is, the questions of how did the relocation process affected the indigenous Armenians of this centre and under which circumstances they continued their lives will try to be answered. Furthermore, their relations with each other as well as the Syrian government will also be touched upon widely. The main incentive that determine the focus of the paper as Aleppine Armenians is that Aleppo was a crucial centre for both the Armenian community and the Ottoman Empire in the sense that Aleppo neighbored the historical Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and was a place where, especially in and round Aleppo, old Armenian communities had settled as early as twelfth century and also included the important See of Aleppo of the Armenian Cilician Catholicate beginning from the fourteenth century which contributes the significance of Aleppo for the Armenian community. On the other hand, the proximity of the region to the Vilayet-i Sitte (Six Provinces), the area considered as highly populated by the Armenians, as well as its central position during the relocation process added the significance of the region for the Ottoman Empire. The material for this study is based on original documentation from Ottoman, American, and European consular, diplomatic and private archives and memoirs. Especially, the main task of the paper is necessarily grounded on the Ottoman provincial year-books or salnames which record the names, ranks and functions of the paid officials and unpaid community representatives and private citizens who served in numerous local bodies as well as the geographic, demographic and socio-economic situations of the provinces.

This study will highlight women’s experiences during the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide. Specifically, it will focus on women’s behaviors and choices which challenge preconceived gender roles. By examining the difficult narratives, we hope to gain a thorough understanding of women’s experiences during these horrific events. Initially, the Holocaust literature focused on women’s heroic or noble behavior. These studies focused on women’s roles as “mothers” and “caregivers.” Narratives that were inconsistent with preconceived gender roles were difficult to acknowledge. Similarly, during the Armenian Genocide, some women behaved in ways that are not considered suitable for females. During both the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, there were many who behaved “heroically,” while there were others who made difficult decisions in order to ensure their survival. Women were unable to fulfill the role of motherhood. Some chose to detach from their children in order to increase their chances of survival. For instance, during the Holocaust, women abandoned their children so that they would not be sent to the gas chambers with them. In fact, some women killed their newborn children, strangling them so that they could live. There were also mothers who poisoned babies that they had just delivered. Similarly, during the death marches of the Armenian Genocide, women would leave their children behind, knowing that their children would face certain death. Women who could no longer carry their babies would place them on the ground and walk away from them. Stories are told about Armenian women selling young children in return for a few pieces of bread. Drawing from Holocaust and Genocide survivor memoirs, this paper will present the diversity of women’s experiences during the Holocaust and Genocide, focusing on stories that may be considered unpleasant. These stories will be analyzed in order to better understand the circumstances that women faced and the decisions they made. Had these women not been targeted for extermination, they might have fulfilled their roles as mothers. But having found themselves under these extreme conditions, they behaved in ways that were unexpected.

Between 1915-1917, 1.5 million Armenians were sent on death marches and killed as part of the Ottoman Empire’s campaign to exterminate its Armenian population. While many works have been published about the Armenian Genocide, few studies have relied on survivor testimonies. This study is based on a collection of Genocide survivor interviews gathered between the 1970s to 1990s. For this project, 350 preliminary sampling data sheets were examined to select interviews that describe stories of intervention. Afterwards, the selected interview transcripts were read to better understand the circumstances surrounding these events. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the types of action and the category of non-Armenian individuals who acted to save Armenians. The classification scheme will identify different ways people intervened, and the types of individuals who intervened to establish a relationship between the kind of intervention and category of person. The types of action which resulted in preventing or delaying death are divided into two large categories—legal means (advocacy and exemption) and illegal or subversive acts (providing shelter, safe passage, warning, and food; and protection by government officials). The most dominant category of intervention was providing shelter, encompassing a wide range of subcategories with very different motivations. This category includes those who were adopted, bought as slaves, kidnapped, married, and resided with families. The next largest category was providing safe passage which included providing information about safe routes to take and putting deportees on trains other than the intended ones that would have led to certain death. The third largest category, exemption, refers to those whose lives were saved because of government-granted exemptions. Often these individuals had relatives serving in the army, possessed skills that were considered to be of value to Turkish society, or were of a particular religious denomination. Many other lives were saved as a result of warnings about impending danger, or through the advocacy of non-Armenians who interceded to rescue lives. In the last two categories, individuals were provided with food or protection by government officials. Since the Genocide occurred in the Ottoman Empire, not surprisingly, the majority of individuals who assisted Armenians in all categories of intervention were Turks. However, it is worth noting that many other ethnic groups (Arabs, Kurds, Azeri, Assyrian, Circassian, American, German, Russian, and Dane) came to the assistance of Armenians. The lives of those who survived were protected through the legal and subversive actions of these individuals.