Armenian Genocide survivors

The Armenian Genocide survivors are the Western Armenians who were not killed in the Genocide of 1915. The total number of Armenians who survived the Genocide is 880,000. Most of the Genocide survivors (about 810,000) became refugees outside Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire.

About 70,000 Armenians remain in Turkey, mostly in Istanbul. This figure does not include an unknown number of assimilated Crypto-Armenians.

Distribution

The following table shows the distribution of Armenian refugees from Turkey according to Justin McCarthy's Muslims and Minorities book.^[1]

Country/region	Number of Armenian refugees	Main destination centers
Russian Empire
Russian Empire	400,000	Eastern Armenia, Caucasus, Black Sea coast
Middle East
Syria	100,000	Aleppo, Deir ez Zor
Lebanon	50,000	Beirut
Iran	50,000	Tehran
Egypt	40,000	Cairo, Alexandria
Iraq	25,000	Baghdad, Mosul, etc.
Mandatory Palestine and Jordan	10,000	Irbid, Jerusalem, Amman, Haifa, etc.
Middle East	275,000
Europe
Greece	45,000	Athens
France	30,000	Marseilles
Bulgaria	20,000	Varna, Plovdiv, Burgas
Cyprus	2,500	Nicosia, Larnaca
Other European countries	2,000	Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Italy, United Kingdom
Europe	99,500
Other countries
North America	35,380	Boston, Fresno, Philadelphia, Montebello, etc.
Others countries	1,000	Japan, China, India, Latin America
Other countries	36,380
TOTAL	810,880

The US State Department document of the Armenian population in 1921.

According to the US State Department, there were 817,873 Armenian refugees from Turkey in 1922.^[2] However, this figure accounts for Armenians with refugee status throughout the world without a specific time period of origin. The figures were based upon information furnished by the British Embassy, Constantinople, and by the agents of the Near East Relief Society, in 1921. The total given does not include able-bodied Armenians, who are retained by the Kemalists, nor the women and children, - approximately 95,000, - according to the League of Nations – who have been forced to embrace Islam.

According to the same source, among these survivors included those 281,000 Armenians in Turkey in 1921: 150,000 In Constantinople (Istanbul) and 131,000 in Asia Minor.

Eastern Armenia

There was also an Armenian settlement problem that brought conflict with other ethnic residents. In all, there were over 300,000 embittered and impatient Armenian refugees escaping from the Ottoman Empire which were now the DRA government's responsibility. This proved an insurmountable humanitarian issue. Typhus was a major sickness, because of its effect on children. Conditions in the outlying regions, not necessarily consisting of refugees, weren't any better. The Ottoman governing structure and Russian army had already withdrawn from the region. The Armenian government had neither time nor resources to rebuild the infrastructure. The 393,700 refugees were under their jurisdiction as follows:

Districts	Number of refugees
Yerevan	75,000
Ejmiatsin	70,000
Novo-Bayazit (Gavar)	38,000
Daralagyaz (Vayots Dzor)	36,000
Bash-Abaran (Aparan)	35,000
Ashtarak	30,000
Akhta - Yelenovka (Hrazdan - Sevan)	22,000
Bash-Garni (Garni)	15,000
Karakilisa	16,000
Dilijan	13,000
Armenia	350,000

The government of Hovhannes Kachaznuni was faced with a most sobering reality in the winter of 1918-19. The newly formed government was responsible for over half a million Armenian refugees in the Caucasus. It was a long and harsh winter.^[3] The homeless masses, lacking food, clothing and medicine, had to endure the elements. Many who survived the exposure and famine succumbed to the ravaging diseases. By the spring of 1919, the typhus epidemic had run its course, the weather improved and the first American Committee for Relief in the Near East shipment of wheat reached Batum. The British army transported the aid to Yerevan. Yet by that time some 150,000 of the refugees had perished. Vratsian puts this figure at around 180,000, or nearly 20% of the entire nascent Republic. A report in early 1919 noted that 65% of the population of Sardarabad, 40% of the population of eight villages near Etchmiadzin and 25% of the population of Ashtarak had died.

Armenian refugees in Aleppo, Syria
Armenian refugee camp In Beirut, Lebanon
Greek and Armenian refugee children near Athens, Greece, in 1923, following their expulsion from Turkey

Notable survivors

Documentary films

2011 – Grandma's Tattoos (dir. Suzanne Khardalian)

References

↑ McCarthy, Justin (1983). Muslims and minorities: the population of Ottoman Anatolia and the end of the empire. New York: New York University press,. ISBN 0-87150-963-6. OCLC 9780871509635
↑ Approximate number of Armenian in the world, November 1922
↑ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971). The Republic of Armenia: The First Year, 1918-1919, Vol. I. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 126–155. ISBN 0-520-01984-9.