It is unfortunate that the Turkish government has suppressed each and every one of you from learning the truth about the crimes your ancestors had committed. On April 24, 1915 the Ottoman Empire started their systematic attempt to annihilate every Armenian on earth. I’m happy to say that didn’t happen. However, 1.5 million Armenians did loose their lives due to the inhumane, ruthless actions of the Turkish generals. Today, Turkey occupies our lands and most importantly our people. The Turkish government purposefully oppresses its citizens from learning the truth because they know of their injustices and future reparations that will soon follow. If, the Armenian genocide really wasn’t a genocide, the Turkish government should have no reason to hide the FACTS. One day, the Turkish officials will come to their senses and admit to their mistakes. Due to their unethical, cruel and cowardly actions, GENOCIDES occurred in Darfur, Sudan, Rwanda and Bosnia. HISTORY HAS AND WILL REPEAT ITSELF  IF PEOPLE DO NOT OPEN THEIR EYES AND LEARN THE TRUTH. Our grandparents fought for their lives, their people and their country and NO ONE can take that pride away from us. Although, Turkey’s mission was to exterminate every Armenian on this planet, it is my honor to say that we are strong, proud and determined individuals. Please, do us all a favor and open your eyes to the truth of our nation.

Thank you.

MUHAMMET
RESIT GÜLESER

Father’s Name: Abdullah
Mother’s Name: Habibe
Place of Birth:
Van
Date of Birth: 1900

I was a young student at the Dar’ül-Muallimin school, around 15 or 16
years old during the Armenian massacres, and remember what happened quite well.
Before the First World War, we had good neighborly relations with the Armenians
(whose population was said to be approximately 17,000).

With the declaration of the constitutional monarchy in 1908, they
started to exploit the principles of independence, equality, and justice to
their benefit. Their leader in Van, Aram Pasha, was in the delegation that
notified Sultan Hamit that he would have to leave his throne. The Armenians set
up an underground organization in Van, and dug tunnels which extended from near
the Great Mosque (Büyük Cami) all the way to the old section of town. It was
even possible to go through these tunnels on horseback. One day the tunnels were
inadvertently discovered when a section caved near a guard. Even though Aram
Pasha was detained near the Great Mosque based on the intelligence provided by
an Armenian after the discovery, he was released without punishment due to the
political sensitivities of the time.

In short, the Armenians were very well organized. Already well
established in commerce, they were doing very well financially. After the
Armenians and Jews were permitted to join the military, groups of Armenians
joined the military during the retreat of the Van division. The Armenians
entered the military prepared — with their own weapons. Our soldiers were
carrying German-made primitive weapons that after firing four shots, would drop
the fifth bullet. According to what we had heard from Mr. Hacž Latif and others
who later returned to Van, the Armenians in the Van division were shooting our
soldiers in the back. There were also several cases of Armenian doctors and
nurses poisoning our wounded soldiers who were hospitalized in Van after
returning from the eastern front.

Regarding the situation in Van, the Russians were approaching from
three fronts, Muradiye, Özalp, and Baskale. The Armenians in the city were
rebelling and continued an aggressive campaign against the Muslim population for
29 days. We had three barracks, Hacž Bekir, Aziziye, and Toprakkale. Ten
soldiers would guard each one. They raided these barracks and slaughtered the
soldiers like sheep by slicing their throats. Ali Çavus was also martyred there.
While our weak militia were digging trenches to try to fight, the Armenians made
holes in the walls and were firing shots with machine guns, pouring cans of
kerosene, lighting fires, and escaping through the deep tunnels. This brutal
attack lasted 29 days. The decision to flee was finally made so that the Muslim
population would not suffer any more deaths. Those with carts used them; those
without were under desperate conditions, but we all joined the exodus. People
left their children on the road, others died from hunger and
disease.

It should be remembered that the Armenians not only committed large
massacres in Van, but in the villages as well. The homes in the villages of
Tžmar, Baskale, and Özalp were stuffed with hay and set on fire. Those that
tried to escape were killed with bullets and bayonets. The inhabitants of a few
villages in Zeve organized and fought the Armenians, but almost all of them —
from seven different villages — were killed. Mass graves are still being
uncovered in these villages and a memorial was built.

Of the twelve ships that carried the Muslim refugees from Van, four
of them carried government employees and their families. All of the sailors
aboard the vessels were Armenians. The Armenian bandits, aided by these sailors,
forced the four government employee boats to dock at the Adžr island, and killed
all of the passengers. As for those in the other eight boats, they were taken to
another island near Tatvan where Armenian bandits were waiting, but were able to
escape with few casualties because they were armed.

When we left Van, we first went to Bitlis, and later to Diyarbakžr.
We witnessed the Armenian savagery along the way. Finally, I will tell you about
what we saw and heard upon returning to Van. The Armenians applied all types of
torture to the inhabitants, God bless their souls. They paraded Isa Hodja, who
was over 100 years old, on a donkey through the village, raided and looted
homes, and gathered women and girls into Mr. Ziya’s home where they repeatedly
raped them. They threw the bodies of the dead into wells, and even filled the
well of our mosque with their victims’ bodies.

When General Cevdet entered Van for the first time, he asked the
gendarmes to escort 130 women whose husbands were at the front to Diyarbakžr.
They had been stranded in Van because they did not have any transportation.
About 30 of them stayed in our house. They spun wool to survive. They were also
given military rations. They told us that there was no end to the torture and
cruelties they suffered at the hands of the Armenian bandits. The Armenians
skinned the men, castrated them, and raped and impaled the women.

We returned to Van four years later. We stayed two years initially,
but were forced to flee again when the Russians arrived. This time we went as
far as Siirt. When we returned 200-250 Armenian families were seeking refuge on
the Çarpanak island. They were hoping that the Turks would leave, and that they
would resettle in Van. Most of them were artisans. A short time later, a new
decree was issued, and they were sent to Revan under the protection of the
government. However, Van, raided seven times by the enemy, was completely
destroyed except for the Armenian quarters. We had to rebuild the
city.

SEYH
CEMAL TALAY

Father’s Name: Cimsid
Mother’s Name: Fatma
Place of Birth:
Van
Date of Birth: 1901

The Russians were providing weapons to the Armenians. With military
assistance from the Russians and encouragement from England, France, and the
United States, all of which had consulates in Van, Armenians increased their
hostilities in the beginning of 1915. The Russians were secretly providing them
with sophisticated arms hidden in food supplies sent from Russia to the port of
Trabzon, and from there sent by caravan to Van. The goods on the caravans were
distributed in the center of the old city, and the hidden ammunition was
secretly distributed to the Armenian militants. The leader of the Armenian
rebellion in Van was Aram Pasha, but I don’t remember the name of the leader of
the Dashnaks. They all had land claims, especially in Van. The 11th squadron was
assigned to Van, but went to Erzurum to mobilize. The Armenian bandits were
emboldened by this and started their campaign of terror against the Muslim
inhabitants.

The militants were launching raids on the Muslim villages and
neighborhoods. The only thing we had to fight them with was a militia led by
IImam Osman, composed of those either too old or too young to join the
army.

Let me tell you a story which I will never forget. I went to a school
located near the government mansion. Armenians studied at the same school. Some
of the students in the Armenian underground went to get a Muslim student named
Rüstü from his home on the pretext of studying. They took him to the Isžtma
bridge near the industrial park. After insulting him, they raped and killed him,
leaving his body for his family to find the next day. The family later composed
a ballad to honor his memory.

I can remember the beginning of the skirmishes between the Muslims
and Armenians. Our militia, which would meet in the Mahmut Aga barracks across
the street from the Van State Hospital, was on duty a day before the war with
the Armenians started. The Armenians prepared the night before and positioned
themselves well. They had dug holes in the State mansion, and when our militia
was preparing for morning prayer at a fountain nearby, the Armenians showered
them with bullets. Many of our soldiers were killed. The fighting between local
Muslims and Armenians had begun. Everyone took to the streets, and mass
confusion ensued. Despite this, we got up and went to school. We had two
teachers, one from Selanik, one from Edirne. They said “Come on kids, let’s all
forgive each other, we might not see each other again,” and suggested we use the
side streets to avoid Armenian bullets. I left school with some friends, but
decided to take our regular route. We saw that weapons and munitions were being
distributed in front of a munitions storage area for protection against the
Armenians. We then noticed a few Armenians creeping up from behind, and notified
the man distributing the weapons. He threw down the munitions in his hand and
fired on them, and they ran away.

The wars started on April 2-3, 1915. In 1914, the Russians had not
been able to penetrate the front line, but they surrounded our soldiers from
behind by passing Çaldžran-Bahçesaray, and established a headquarters in the
Molla Hasan village.

It was difficult to provide our soldiers with military supplies since
the young students and elderly people carrying the equipment could not go
further because of the cold weather. Many of them died.

We couldn’t go anywhere either. But in the spring the Armenians went
completely crazy. On May 10, 1915, the Russians were moving toward Van. On
Governor Cevdet’s orders we evacuated Van, taking with us what we could carry.
During the war, Armenian brutality had reached a stage that no one, including
the old, sick, captive, women, or children, could escape. The atrocities reached
the degree that even the Armenians’ main supporters, the Russians, were trying
to prohibit their actions.

My grandmother Mihri couldn’t flee with us because one of my uncles
was paralyzed from the waist down. Unable to speak because of the shock of what
happened in our absence, she later used sign language to explain what had
transpired. They shaved my uncle’s mustache along with his flesh, and then took
them to a house which they used as a detention center and tortured him and the
other captives until the Russians arrived.

When we became refugees there were 23 members of our family. We lost
most of our family on the road to Bitlis and Urfa. Only two of us returned to
Van. Our first stop on the road was Bitlis where we arrived in 11 days, and then
went to Siirt, where we had relatives with whom we stayed for a few months. When
we heard about the Russian advance, we again fled to Diyarbakžr. Our convoy
consisted of 250 people. We suffered from hunger and thirst on the way. We went
through Kurtalan and Diyarbakžr and the village of Kebir, where we didn’t stay
long, and again took the road to return to Van. When we reached Kurtalan, we
learned that the Russians had entered Van again and went to Siirt. In the spring
of 1916 we went to Baghdad, but fled to Mardin when the English advanced. In
1917 we arrived in Urfa. The French who entered Urfa started tormenting the
Muslims by bringing the Aleppo Armenians to the city. This time we fought for 22
days.

We had left Van in 1915. When we were finally able to return, only
two people remained from the 23-member family. Van was totally destroyed. The
Armenians burned and demolished everything except for the Armenian-owned homes.
In fact, when the Turkish army entered Van, around 2,000 Armenian artisans,
expecting retaliation for their repression of the Turkish population, sought
refuge on the island of Adžr. The Turkish government instead ensured their safe
passage to Revan.

BEKIR
YÖRÜK

Father’s Name: Yusuf
Mother’s Name: Gülnaz
Place of Birth:
Van
Date of Birth: 1900

Q: Can you tell us as best as you can remember what the Armenians did
in Van and Gevas?

A: We lived in the same neighborhoods as the Armenians. We too lived
in the Norsin neighborhood and got along well until the Russians intervened. In
those days, Armenian youths established committees with Russian encouragement,
and started causing trouble. They killed the superintendent of police and threw
him in the park. They killed the postman in Hasbagž. They bombed a building now
replaced by a bathhouse, and twenty people died in the explosion. When the
constitutional monarchy was declared, the mufti and the priest shook hands and
extolled the brotherhood of Muslims and Christians. The Mufti cried as he shook
hands, but events developed against us. The committee members became
increasingly out of control and the rebellion began. We fought the Armenians for
29 days in Hasbagž. We had no weapons. When the division went to Erzurum, we
remained completely defenseless.

The Armenians who joined the army after the establishment of the
constitutional monarchy used our weapons to shoot at us, and those who remained
in the army hit our soldiers from behind. They also bombed the barracks. The
young people and the elderly left in the Muslim neighborhoods would take turns
guarding against the Armenians. Meanwhile, the Russians were sending them gold
to finance their effort.

This struggle lasted 29 days until the arrival of the Russians. The
elderly Armenians didn’t want this fight because they were the wealthiest
inhabitants of the area, and feared sacrificing their standard of living.
Armenians owned up to 1,000 stores and sold European cloth in the old part of
the city of Van. When these events broke out, inhabitants of nearby villages and
towns all fled to Van, and those stores disappeared within two days.

Fifty vessels full of people left Van, three of which carried wounded
soldiers. Cevdet Pasha saw the passengers off at the pier. We went to Adžr
Island, where the Armenians were training underground. We stayed on the island
for nine days. The waves destroyed some of the ships with wooden sails. The
island had wells and two bakeries. No one brought any supplies from Van. We were
hungry and distraught. My elder brother was an officer and came back wounded
from Erzurum. My brother realized that the Armenians would cut us off. He
convinced his captain, and ten ships left from there, but we couldn’t go very
far. Thank God we stayed close to shore. The next day we reached Tatvan, but
under difficult circumstances. The day we left Van the Armenians had set
everything ablaze. There were wounded soldiers from all parts of Turkey in Van,
and the Armenians fired on apartments used as hospitals where they were staying.
That is why Van is sacred ground with martyrs from 67 provinces [in
Turkey].

My uncle, Terren Aga, was very old, and we couldn’t take him with us
when we left Van. His wife, daughter, and two grandchildren remained with him.
Armenian hoodlums beat my uncle and the children with an ax and killed them. His
daughter hid in an abandoned American school. When the Armenians found her, they
killed her by throwing her from the second floor.

We went to Bitlis from Tatvan where we remained for nearly two
months. When the Russians arrived, we again went on the road. We then went to
Hizan and Diyarbakžr. After we left, the Gendarme commander — who was crying
like a baby — brought my uncle (who was Deputy Governor Ömer Bey) a report. A
soldier named Mansur was also present. When we asked him to explain, he said
that three days after Van was emptied they went to pick up the bodies. Hundreds
of elderly women were impaled on stakes. They still had their scarves on and
looked as if they were sitting. When they got closer they saw that they were
killed before being impaled. They saw a woman who was split in two and her
unborn child was placed on her chest.

Muslims who witnessed these thousands of examples of inconceivable
brutality tearfully reported the incidents to Ömer Bey, who then told Mustafa
Kemal. When the Russians finally arrived, they were displeased with the
savageness which resulted in the destruction of four-fifths of Van. In addition
to those massacred by the Armenians, many people also died as they were fleeing.
Many collapsed on the road from hunger and disease. No one was able to take
anything with them when they left Van.

When we returned to Van from exile three years later we found the
Muslim neighborhoods leveled to the ground, but the areas owned by Armenians
were left undamaged. When we returned there were about 2,000 Armenians living in
Van who fled to the islands when the Turks started returning. Two years later,
the government sent them to Revan.

Q: Did you ever participate in the fighting or use a weapon?

A: No, I have never used a weapon. I didn’t have a gun, plus they
didn’t give me one because I was too young and didn’t know how to use it.
Instead, I would bring food and water to the combatants.

Q: What kind of equipment were the Armenians using?

A: They had the latest equipment which was provided by Russia and
England. They gave them weapons and had them fight us. The Armenians couldn’t do
anything to us, but when they were armed, the balance was upset.

Q: Did many people die in these and other clashes?

A: Of course, thousands of people died. After fighting for 29 days,
the then-Governor Cevdet Pasha commanded us to leave Van when he heard that the
Russian forces were approaching. Cevdet Pasha was actually a very courageous
man, but we had neither guns nor ammunition, while the Russians were armed with
top of the line weapons.

Q: Didn’t the Ottoman state take any precautions against the
Armenians arming themselves to this extent? Didn’t word get around?

A: People knew, and the government knew. Yet the military was on the
fighting front, and only a few gendarmes were left in Van. They couldn’t do
anything about it. The Armenians first shot Police Lieutenant Nuri Efendi, and
blew up the Hamitaga barracks. Many soldiers were killed. Then they placed bombs
in the Norsin Mosque and Hacž Naci Hodja Mosque. They blew up Hafžz Hodja along
with his son. Our women were raped, and our children shot.

Q: How was the evacuation carried out?

A: We left from here on 50 ships. That day the weather was stormy and
rainy, as if all hell broke loose. The ships ran into each other. They were
unable to approach the pier for a long time. The weather hadn’t warmed up yet —
I think it was April. We left before the Russians arrived. There were about 250
people in our group, and 60 died. Some died at the hands of the Armenian
bandits, others from cholera, disease, and hunger.

My uncle, his family and children, were all cut into pieces with a
hatchet under the mulberry tree in our neighborhood. They [Armenians] massacred
all those that stayed behind when we left. We lived in the Norsin neighborhood
at the time. They burned all of Van.

All of this was planned by the Armenian committees which
treacherously manipulated the Armenian population.

Q: Do you remember the names of those committees?

A: Dashnak was the most prominent one. There were others as well, but
I don’t remember their names now. They received money and gold from Russia and
England.

Q: Did the Armenians kill many women and children?

A: The elderly didn’t bother much, but all of their young people were
armed. They killed whoever they could corner. They killed them and threw them
into the lake or into the fire. For example, a woman was baking bread in a
nearby village, and had her young child was at her side. The Armenians went into
her backyard and asked her what she was doing. When she answered that she was
baking bread, they insisted she needed a kebab as well, and pierced her child
and threw him into the fire and burned him alive.

What else can I tell you? God knows the extent of what went on.
During our escape, we took off on the ships, and stayed around the islands for
four days. We couldn’t sleep at night because of the wails, crying, and screams
we heard all night. These were the cries we heard from surrounding villages:
Zeve, Bardakçž, Kalaç, and Molla Kasžm. I hope God ensures that we don’t have to
relive those days when these massacres took place.

Q: Where did you go after the islands?

A: From the islands we went to the Dervis village. It took us all day
to get there. Ten ships were tied together at the edge of the lake. We were very
frightened. In the morning we left toward Tatvan, and finally reached our
destination. We were able to rest there, and later left toward
Bitlis.

Q: Do you remember how many people were with you in your
convoy?

A: There were between 10 and 20 thousand people in our
convoy.

Q: Did many people from your convoy die in the exodus?

A: Of course.

Q: Could you tell us how they died?

A: The women couldn’t take care of the children. Some would leave
them in remote areas. Hunger and disease were rampant. For example, Ömer Efendi
wrapped his child in rags and left him alive under a tree as we approached the
Bitlis creek. There were many other children like this thrown into the Bitlis
creek, or buried when they died. But Ömer Efendi regretted what he did, and a
few days later went to retrieve the child and brought him back
alive.

Q: How long were you a refugee?

A: Three years.

Q: What did you find when you returned to Van? How was Van, was there
much damage?

A: I saw Van; it was completely destroyed and burned

‘Despite the historical importance of the Muslim losses, it is not
to be found in textbooks……

‘According to Caleb F Gates, president of Robert College, the
Armenian population statistics in January 1921, as confirmed by the Armenian
Patriarchate was as follows: Armenians in Ottoman provinces approximetely 600
000; Armenians alive 944 900; Armenian total loss 355 000. (FO 371/6556/E 2730:
Gates to Rumbold, 16.2.1921, giving the statistics of the Armenians then living
in Turkey, obtained from the Armenian Patriarch)’.

‘In the light of these statistics, how can the loss of about 400
000 Armenians be labelled as ‘massacres, genocide, or proto-Holocaust’ and the
loss of over one million Muslims, as a result of Armenian activities, is not
even mentioned? What kind of a holocoust is it that the aggressive side
suffered much more losses than the attacked side?’

 ‘……..Other Western scholars
and writers too, agree that, rarely in history have facts been deliberately so
distorted as to give a completely wrong Picture, as the Armenians have done for
more than a century in connection with the so-called ‘Armenian question’. They
succeeded in deceiving the public opinion of the Christian world because they
posed as a martyred nation in the cause of Christ….’

‘…In the field of propaganda, no one could surpass the Ottoman
Christians, including mainly the Armenians, who used their positions as
translators/interpreters in the embassies and consulates of the Powers to
convince those Powers of their stories, and to sway their relief workers,
missionaries and ecclesiastical leaders, about the genuineness of their case.
Many a time a gullible Western journalist was trapped by their vociferations,
and spread their tales……..’

‘……According to the Reverend Dr Cyrus Hamlin, the first president
of the American Robert College in Istanbul (now Bo?aziçi University), a
propaganda bureau was set up in London in the 1870s which had, for its object,
the foreign dissemination of all news prejudicial to the Turks. Hamlin stated
that the onslaught of this ‘one-sided and unreliable information’ about any
people would, after a period of years, stir up a hostility and hatred that
could not be easily overcome………..’

(Sonyel Salahi. The Great War and The Tragedy of Anatolia.
p.170-182)

Islam will always remain a death cult for a certain percentage of
its followers when they don’t get their way. About no other major faith can
this be said.

Finally,
Mohammed is one of the most despicable figures I have ever come across in
history respecting the capacity of one person for malevolently influencing
future history. Hitler and Marx are way up there too on the list. That’s the
kind of company I put Mohammed with. And you should see the eyes open when I
narrate Mohammed’s bloody and sexually perverted record to one who still knows
very little about Mohammed. For anyone who has retained their common sense and
moral intelligence, the more one knows about Islam and Mohammed the more that
person is going to be disgusted by Islam and Mohammed. Count on it.

In addition, Malta trials by British government is great
example in order to show the lack of evidence. During those days, over 70
Ottoman government officials were arrested on charges of “Committing Genocide
on Armenian people” and taken to the Malta Island. British investigators
searched Ottoman government archives during the days of British invasion in
Istanbul (around 5 years) and couldn’t find any evidence to support their
claims. Finally, Turkish officials were released and brought back to Turkey.

Today, around 20 countries that recognized the relocation
in 1915 as ‘genocide’ have no historical basis. They did not create any
historical commission to investigate the issue or invite Turkish government to
present their position. They declared defendant as guilty on the evidence (in
this case, evidence is grandparents’ diaries) of prosecution alone. What a
democracy!

How about the quotes from Joseph Stalin where stated as: “The agents of
the Allied Powers are exaggerating Turkey’s campaign in Transcaucasia, take it
easy.” In the rest of the documents, he points out the large scale Armenian
revolt against Ottoman military camping before the relocation. In past couple
years, historian M.Perincek and his studies in Russia brought
significant evidence from Bolshevik archives. http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/03/2389-logical-fallacies-of-armenian.html

And the 21st century begins with threats by MUSLIMS to commit genocide against the Jews of Israel.

Is anyone connecting the dots here?