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“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.”
Toward the turn of this century, a series of large-scale massacres of the Armenian population were started and carried out by the rulers of Ottoman Turkey. During the period 1894-96, under the tyrannical rule of Sultan Abdul-Hamid, 300,000 Armenians were slaughtered. In 1909, massacres followed in Cilicia and Adan, wherein an estimated 15,000-30,000 Armenians perished. Then, exploiting the international confusion created by World War I , the Turkish authorities declared the native Armenians as Christians and therefore enemies of the Ottoman Empire (Kazanjian, 1989). Adult males, especially those identified as potential leaders, were arrested, escorted to desolate spots, and shot (Krieger, 1989). This process was designed to deprive Armenians