The German, the Turk and the Devil

Tacy Atkinson (1870-1937) was an American from Salem, Nebraska. She lived with her family in the Ottoman Empire for fifteen years (1902-17) and witnessed the destruction of Armenians in 1915. Her diaries now constitute an invaluable resource for historians of this period.

Excerpts

"We all know such clear-cut, well planned, all well carried out work is not the method of the Turk. The German, the Turk and the devil made a triple alliance not to be equaled in the world for cold blooded hellishness." July 10, 1915

"Today large crowds have gone from the city. We are told that the people who started Tuesday were taken to Hulakueh only two hours distant. There the men were killed, the girls carried away, and the women robbed and left. . . . We do not know what is still coming. Large crowds of women and children are coming in today. I don't know where from and those who are here are dying as fast as they can, and are being thrown out unburied. Vultures that are usually so thick everywhere all are absent now. They are all out feasting on dead bodies. The women started out today were followed by a large crowd of Kurds and gendarmes." July 15, 1915

"We have had women, children and boys come to us bruised, hacked and bleeding. One little girl from Huiloo. She says that women were stripped, then laid two together and their heads cut off. She happened to be the under one and she escaped with a deep cut in the back of her neck and came here. These people I met were put into a church yard for over night. They can't go far. They will be killed close by." August 9, 1915