48

Dr. Shushan R. Khachatryan is a theologian and head of the Armenian 
Genocide Victims’ Documentation and Data Collection Department at 
the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation. Her research in-
terests include theological and religious studies of genocides, religious 
clashes during the genocides, philosophy of Holocaust, theodicy, perse-
cutions of Christians in 20th - 21st centuries, etc. 
Email: khachatryan.shushan@genocide-museum.am



49

HALIDE EDIP AND THE TURKIFICATION OF ARMENIAN 
CHILDREN: ENIGMAS, PROBLEMS AND QUESTIONS

Dr. Shushan R. Khachatryan
Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation, Armenia 

It is a well-known fact that the Islamisation of Christian children in the Ottoman Empire has a long 
history. In the great majority of cases Islamisation was carried out forcibly, accompanied by the era-
sure of a child’s ethnic-religious identity for those who remembered it and totally hiding their ethnic 
roots and religious affi liation from those who didn’t. The whole process of cultivating a new identity 
and character was a matter of time and of contested methods.

This article identifi es a problem area, raising questions and analyzing the role of Turkish intellec-
tual Halidé Edip in the state policy of Turkifi cation of Armenian children at the Antoura orphanage 
during the Armenian Genocide. It draws comparisons between the three memoirs of Armenian or-
phans from that orphanage that are known to date, those of Garnik Banean (Karnig Panian as written 
in his English language memoir), Harutyun Alboyajyan, and Melgon Petrosean and that written by 
Halidé Edip. As a result, certain essential differences, ploys, as well as facts disguised by Edip have 
been collected and presented in this article. Therefore, the research carried out identifi es the prob-
lems areas relating to various aspects of the Antoura orphanage by raising new questions, offering 
explanations and new approaches as well as highlighting issues that need to be researched further.

Keywords: Armenian Genocide, Djemal Pasha, Halidé Edip, Adnan Adıvar, Antoura orphanage, 
Armenian orphans, Islamisation, eugenics.

The article was submitted on 05.02.2021 and accepted for publication on 19.03.2021.
 This is an extended version of the author’s article published in Armenian.

How to cite: Shushan Khachatryan, “Halidé Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children: Enig-
mas, Problems and Questions,” International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies 6, no. 1(2021): 
49-79.

Acknowledgment: The work was supported by the Science Committee of RA, in the frames of the 
research project № 19YR-6F036.



50

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021
https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0017

Introduction

“I saw Halide Edip Adıvar, the woman who had 
stayed behind afterJemal Pasha’s visit. She would 
often lean against the sundial and watch us play. 
She seemed carefree. Sometimes she journeyed 
to Beirut and returned a few days later with stacks 
of books under her arms. Some said that she was 
writing a book about the orphans; others claimed 
that at night, she sucked the blood out of the necks 
of the older boys. We didn’t know what to believe.”1 

The imperial institution instrumental in the Islamisation of Christian children was known 
as devshirme – the blood tax imposed on Christians, consequently producing janissary sol-
diers to serve the Sultan, who were notorious for their exceptional cruelty and bloodthirsty 
reputation. Interestingly, although the Janissary corps had already ceased functioning offi -
cially (albeit perhaps not yet culturally) since the early 18th century,2 the forced conversion 
of Christian children did not end. The social signifi cance of the conversion institution was 
enhanced and, during the Armenian Genocide, the forced Islamisation and Turkifi cation 
of Armenian children was carried out both in a sporadic, commonplace fashion and by the 
state elite and offi cials, through intentional selection and usage of them as slaves. Forced 
conversions and forced marriages to Armenian girls were characteristic in both cases.

Additionally, particular attention was focused on Turkish state orphanages, where Arme-
nian children were collected during the Armenian Genocide. Generally being the majority 
of the Christian children, they went through a forced erasure of their Armenian identity 
and the cultivation of a Muslim one. One such place where this happened was the Antoura 
orphanage, the history and diverse ideological aspects of which will be scrutinised in this 
article.

The Young Turk government opened orphanages in Aleppo, Beirut, Antoura, Mardin, 
Urfa, Diyarbekir, Kayseri, Malatya, Armash and in some other places with the aim of as-
similating a part of Armenian orphans. There are also references to Turkish orphanages 
or conversion and Turkifi cation centres in Ankara, Arabkir, Adana, Marash, Kastamuni, 
Kharni, Kharberd, Dort Yol, Boghazlyan, Mezre, Sebastia, Samsun and other locations. 
Armenian children were often transported from place to place, being kept in one place for 
only a short time so that their relatives would not be able to fi nd them.3 They were distrib-

1  Karnig Panian, Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 
2015), 94-95.
2  Artak Shakaryan, «Արյան հարկը» Օսմանյան կայսրությունում․ դևշիրմե [“Blood Tax” in the Ottoman Em-
pire: Devshirme] (Yerevan: Author’s edition, 2006), 128.
3 Comparing the stories of No. 1778 and 1779 in the list of inmates of the Aleppo rescue home and about the 
Turkish orphanage in Arabkir, it may be seen that the orphans were not left in the same orphanage for very long, 
staying there for a month, then being transferred to different villages. See United Nations Archives in Gene-
va (UNOG), Refugees Mixed Archival Group (Nansen Collection) 496 (1919–1947), Armenian Orphanage in 
Aleppo, admission fi les.



51

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children

uted among Turkish families and Ottoman offi cials who would choose them and take them 
away in person.4

There are very few studies on the activities of the structures engaged in Islamisation and 
Turkifi cation under the direct supervision of the Young Turk Party elite, central fi gures and 
supporters of the Party during the Armenian Genocide. One or two researchers are carrying 
out targeted studies on the activities of these orphanages, particularly of Antoura.5 One is 
Narine Margaryan6 with her fi rst Armenian-language scientifi c article dedicated to the topic. 
Another is the Turkish historian Selim Deringil.7

Narine Margaryan provides rich material about offi cial decrees that served as the basis 
for the Islamisation of Armenian children at state level, the specifi cs of the state policy, his-
torical events and the pedagogical methods employed, using the Antoura orphanage as an 
example. She also uses the orphans’ stories, details of the punishments administered in the 
orphanages, as well as describing the activities aimed at the return of the orphans to their 
Armenian identity.

The object of Selim Deringil’s research, as in our case, was Halidé Edip.8 In his article 

4 Hovakim Hovakimian (Arshakuni), Պատմութիւն հայկական Պոնտոսի [History of Armenian Pontus] (Bei-
rut: Mshak, 1967), 524.
5 Collège Saint Joseph, Antoura – a school founded by French Jesuit clergy in 1834 in the Antoura Valley of 
Lebanon within their mission building (constructed in 1773). It is considered to be the oldest preserved school 
in the Middle East. During the Great War, the Turks banished the Lazarist monks and turned the college into a 
Turkish orphanage under Djemal Pasha’s and Halidé Edip’s management. The real owners of the school returned 
after the end of WWI, in the spring of 1919, when the children that were formerly Turkifi ed and then put in care 
of the Red Cross were being moved to different orphanages – Jebeil, Ghazir, Antelias and Marzvan (Merzifon). 
The school was reopened and operates to this day as a French Catholic school with preschool (“Maternelle”) 
and 1-12 school grades. See the school’s website at http://www.college-antoura.edu.lb/, accessed 19.06.2021.
6 Narine Margaryan, «Հայ երեխաների թրքացման գործընթացն Օսմանյան կայսրության պետական 
որբանոցներում (1915 – 1918 թթ.)» [The Turkifi cation of Armenian Children in the Ottoman Empire’s State 
Orphanages (1915-1918)], Ts՚eghaspanagitakan handes 4, no. 1 (2016): 25-43.
7 Selim Deringil, “Your Religion is Worn and Outdated,” at https://journals.openedition.org/eac/2090, accessed 
20.06.2021. 
8 Halidé Edip (Edib) Adıvar (1884-1964), Turkish novelist, political fi gure; an ideologist of pan-Turanianism 
– creation of Turan - nationalist and fi ghter for women’s rights. The “Mother of the Turks,” as they often call 
her in Turkey, was born in Istanbul. Her father, Mehmed Edip was Abdul Hamid II’s secretary. Her mother, 
Fatma Bedirfem Hanim, died when she was very young (see Halidé Edip’s only grandson Omer Sayar’s (Hik-
matullah Zeki Sayar’s son) interview, where he says that Halidé came from a Jewish family exiled from Spain 
that adopted Islam. Her father Mehmed Edip was a manager under Ceyb-i Hümayun, who was in charge of the 
Treasury at the Sultan’s palace, “Bu dünyadan Halidé Edip Adıvar Geçti-1,” at http://www.24saatgazetesi.com/
bu-dunyadan-halide-edip-adivar-gecti-1/, accessed 02.07.2021. She obtained her education, with interruptions, 
between 1893-1901 – attending one of the Greek schools in Constantinople, learning Greek, as well as at her 
father’s house through private tutors, then by attending the American College for Girls in Istanbul, where she 
particularly deepened her knowledge of different languages. She was the fi rst unmarried Turkish girl to graduate 
from this College. Halidé Edip’s father was an anti-monarchist and an advocate of Ittihadism and their house 
was a gathering place for the intellectuals of the time; Halidé Edip later revived this tradition. For her ideas, 
opinions and approaches in March 1909 when anti-Ittihadist outbursts began, Halidé Edip had to fl ee for some 
time and hide in Egypt with her two children. During this time she travelled to England where she was  the guest 
of a British woman named Isabel Fry. It was there that she became acquainted with individuals who had certain 
social and political infl uence. She and her sister Nakiye Hanım were appointed superintendents of government 
schools and orphanages in Damascus, Beirut and Antoura under Djemal Pasha’s supervision in 1916-1917. She 
married her fi rst husband, the teacher-mathematician Salih Zeki Bey (from 1901-1910). Her second marriage 
was to Doctor Adnan Adıvar (from 1917-1964). She joined Ataturk’s nationalist movement with her second hus-
band, but assumed an oppositional stance after the proclamation of the Republic and had to live outside Turkey 



52

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

he wrote about the forced transfer of Armenian children from one group to another, collect-
ed studies carried out by genocide scholars around this issue and presented the story of the 
transformation of Antoura into a Turkish orphanage by Djemal Pasha. He dealt, individual-
ly, with the memoirs of the three Antoura orphans and Halidé Edip’s frequently contradic-
tory words, as well as the testimonies of contemporaries.

Greatly valuing and appreciating the research efforts made by Narine Margaryan and 
Selim Deringil, this study aims to contribute to the study of the institutions engaged in 
Turkifi cation. This article will try, through “micro-queries,” to invite the attention of schol-
ars to some of the contextual-ideological aspects of the activities which took place within 
the Antoura orphanage and to identify issues for further research.

Special attention has been paid here to two fi gures in the Young Turk hierarchy - the 
erudite pan-Turkist, feminist and writer Halidé Edip who enjoys the reputation of being a 
heroic woman and an ideological fi ghter in contemporary Turkey and her second husband, 
the positivist physician, ideological champion of the philosophy of science, editor-in-chief 
of the Encyclopedia of Islam, author of publications in various European journals, the mod-
ernist Abdülhak Adnan Adıvar.9

A point of view has occasionally appeared, saying that these two historical fi gures did 
not advocate the policy of genocide carried out against the Armenians, nor participated in 
violence and persecutions but, on the contrary, even saved Armenian children from death. 
until Ataturk’s death. She was a member of the National Assembly of Turkey from 1950 to 1954, having been 
elected by the city of Izmir. She is buried in Merkezefendi Cemetery in Istanbul. Halidé Edip was an infl uential 
fi gure of her time, whose opinion and work were important for the Ottoman Empire and later for the Turkish 
Republic. Her intellectual world embraced literature, various branches of science (philosophy, sociology and 
history) and religion, as well as various artistic trends – music and theatre. The outline of Halidé Edip’s biogra-
phy was extracted from her biographical and ideological works: Memoirs of Halidé Edib (New York, London։ 
Century & Co, 1926), The Turkish Ordeal  (London, 1928), Confl ict of East and West in Turkey (Delhi: Maktaba 
Jamia Millia Islamia, 1935), Turkey Faces West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930).
9  Abdülhak Adnan Adıvar (1882-1955), Turkish medical doctor, political fi gure, writer and theoretician, he was 
engaged in philosophy of science and history. He was an adherent of the Young Turk Party and one of the fi rst 
supporters of feminist movements in the Ottoman Empire. He was Halidé Edip’s second husband (they married 
on 17 April 1917). He was born in Gallipoli but moved to Istanbul with his father at a very early age, when his 
father was appointed deputy minister to the Bab-ı Meşihat, [Sheikh ul-Islam’s offi ce]. He came from a notable 
Ottoman scholarly family with its roots going back to Aziz Mahmud Hudayi Efendi, founder of the 17th-century 
Sufi  order called Jelveti Tarikat. He studied at Istanbul medical university, then at the Friedrich Wilhelm Univer-
sity (Berlin’s Humboldt University). He left his studies unfi nished and returned to Istanbul immediately after the 
Young Turk revolution took place. He took a leading role in Hilal-i Ahmer [Red Crescent] activities, becoming 
its chief manager; he was awarded the military rank of Major during the Great War and elected Chairman of 
the Hilal-i Ahmer Association after the war. In the last period of Young Turk rule, he was elected a deputy to 
the Ottoman Parliament and, when the Kemalists came to power in Istanbul in 1919, he and his wife joined 
the Turkish nationalist movement. He was health minister, interior minister and deputy speaker of the National 
Assembly of Turkey successively in Ankara before Mustafa Kemal occupied all of Turkey and established his 
centre of power there. Accused of complicity, with his wife, in plotting to assassinate Kemal Ataturk in 1926, 
the couple fl ed Turkey and moved to Europe. They returned to Turkey after Ataturk’s death, during Ismet In-
önü’s presidency. Abdülhak Adnan Adıvar is buried in Merkezefendi Cemetery in Istanbul. He wrote scientifi c 
articles and monographs and was the Chief Editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam. His works, including those on 
philosophy and history of science, oriental mysticism and anthropology (for instance: Yeni Adam, Belphégor, 
Isis, Oriente, Oriente Moderno, etc.) were published in Turkish and European journals. See Hakan Arslanben-
zer, “Adnan Adıvar: Science historian and liberal politician,” Daily Sabah, at https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/
portrait/adnan-adivar-science-historian-and-liberal-politician, accessed 20.06.2020; M. Cavid Buysun, “Doktor 
Abdülhak Adnan Adıvar,” at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/38327218.pdf, accessed 20.06.2021.



53

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children

Science does not tolerate uncertainty, especially in issues concerning genocide studies, and 
especially when it comes to the problem of saving or not saving people. In this case, at the 
heart of the “saved or not saved” argument, are Armenian children taken to orphanages 
opened under the state auspices which were instrumental in Turkifi cation, and that – the 
practice of moving children from one group to another - also fi ts into the defi nition of geno-
cide as formulated by Raphael Lemkin.10

Attempts were made, during the preparation of this article, because of the paucity of 
material, to fi nd clues to events linked to one another. This was done by taking contempo-
rary intellectual pivotal trends of thought, the spirit of the age and the philosophy of history 
which bordered on the veneration of science, into account. In addition, the peculiarities of 
European-style salons and clubs frequented by the Ottoman elite were considered, as were 
the concepts and culture that dominated them. Attention was even focused on the image 
of Halidé Edip presented in the cinema and the overall attitude shown towards her in the 
West.11

Choosing the content path of this article was a rather complicated problem due to the 
lack of sources. There are more or less accurate sources and memoirs that may be used for 
only one of the orphanages engaged in Turkifi cation – the Antoura orphanage in Lebanon. 
The memoirs of three inmates of the orphanage are well known. One is possibly unpub-
lished, existing as a memoir as a computer fi le, while the other two have been published.

There are, in addition, Halidé Edip’s English-language memoirs and several other sup-
porting text sources and photographs. However, relying on Halidé Edip’s memoirs would 
have been at the very least unscientifi c, as by studying them a subjective, one-sided, nega-
tive attitude to events and fi gures was discovered. In fact, this attitude was not just aimed at 
Armenians and was imbued with one-sided, subjective, manipulative thoughts and obser-

10 Edita Gzoyan, «Երեխաների բռնի տեղափոխումը որպես ցեղասպանական գործողություն. 
ձևավորումից դեպի քրեականացում» [Forcible Child Transfer as a Genocidal Act: from Conceptualization 
to Criminalization] Ts՚eghaspanagitakan handes 8, no. 1 (2020): 99-118.
11 See, for instance, the following artistic serial – “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones” (USA, 1991-1992, 
directed by George Lukas), part 17, titled “The Masks of Evil.” The general plotline of the serial revolves around 
Indiana Jones, the son of a family representing the American elite, depicting his encounters with famous people 
and fi gures in various countries, thus presenting social, political and cultural aspects, revolutionary characters 
and events of a given country that distinctly deviated from the usual historical line. Further instances are Lev 
Tolstoy, Pablo Picasso, the Suffragette movement, the Great War, the birth of jazz and blues in the USA, the 
Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920, etc. In this serial, particularly, a reference was made to Halidé Edip as 
a philanthropist, pedagogue and intellectual saving and taking care of children, including those of Armenian 
descent, orphaned because of the war. In those 6-8 minutes, Edip’s character has the following role: she hugs 
and kisses a girl and then tells Jones and his fi ancé: “Such a strong little creature! And yet what she needs 
most – simply to know that she is loved. I brought her with me from Syria. I don’t know whether she’s Turk-
ish, Armenian or Kurdish. At fi rst, she was too shocked even to speak. I believe she saw her parents butchered 
before her eyes. Now it seems you understand why this terrible war must end.” at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=7SoSEgrRyNM, accessed 25.06.2021. These words uttered in the movie encompassed Halidé Edip’s 
approaches refl ected in her memoirs, particularly about the issue of the Armenian Genocide. She performed 
extraordinary efforts to present or interpret everything, starting from the massacres at Adana, in a different light, 
as though the Adana events were carried out by the supporters of the old Ottoman regime and Armenian parties’ 
‘efforts’ to martyr their own people and attract attention (see Memoirs of Halidé Edib, 283-284). The Armenian 
Genocide is also called mutual slaughter, an equal massacre directed by foreign forces (ibid., 266, 428, 447). In 
this context, Halidé Edip may be considered to be one of the fi rst denialists of state-planned genocidal intent; 
moreover, her model of denial may be classifi ed as typical of the later period of Armenian Genocide denial.



54

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

vations. Hence more and more basic questions began to emerge which particularly focused 
on the problem that the erudite Halidé Edip, who possessed a unique way of thinking and 
intellect, also had a well-cordinated work style which used half-truths and concealed events. 
This took account of her time, future audiences and possible developments into consider-
ation. Therefore, her memoirs, containing multiple inaccuracies and secrets, give rise to a 
host of “whys” and “hows” and compel the researcher to focus on one key question: what 
is the truth, what are half-truths and what is fi ction in her writing? In addition, Edip’s mem-
oirs have engendered doubts concerning her honesty and impartiality, after the portrayal of 
the director of Antoura in a less than positive light, to put it mildly, in the memoirs of two 
former Armenian orphans.

The authenticity and credibility of the memoirs of the former Armenian orphans, written 
independently of one another, may be used without any doubts, as they completely comple-
ment each other; there is no question concerning the level of accuracy of the description of 
events either. Those memoirs were also compared, based on scholarly objectivity, without 
provoking any general questions, except for some minor inconsistencies in the descriptions 
of some events and a discrepancy related to the Armenian names of the head boys (cha-
vush)12 of classes at Antoura.13

In this context, certain questions emerged about the specifi cs of Dr. Adnan Adıvar’s 
activities, as a darwinist, positivist physician. It is well known that there were two doctors 
in the Young Turk core leadership raising intellectual and policy questions and making 
and implementing decisions, who also stood behind medical experiments performed on 
Armenians. They were Dr. Nazim and Dr. Behaeddin. This was touched upon in Vahagn 
Dadrian’s article.14

Behaeddin Shakir, with his medical education, was in charge of the Hilal-i Ahmer [Red 
Crescent] organisation15 and was provably one of the masterminds behind the Armenian 
Genocide plan, as well being as the leader of the Teskilat-i Mahsusa secret organisation. He 
could not but have contact with Dr. Adnan Adıvar, who also worked in Hilal-i Ahmer and 
was a notable and honoured fi gure in Ataturk’s Turkey during that period too. At the same 
12 Chavush, Turkish. “Headman/corporal” the title corporals of Turkish troops were historically called. The 
head boys of the classes in Antoura orphanage were referred to by that title too.
13 Panian, Goodbye, Antoura, 84, 149, and Մելգոն Պետրոսեանի յուշերը Եղեռնի օրերէն, ամփոփուած 
Վարդիվառ Յովհաննէսեանի կողմէ [The Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean from the Days of Yeghern, compiled 
by Vardivar Hovhannissian]. AGMI Collection, s-8, folder 148, no. 231, p. 15.
14 Vahakn Dadrian, “The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of Ottoman Armenians,” 
Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1, no. 2 (1986): 169-192.
15 Hilâl-i Ahmer Cemiyeti or Red Crescent Committee, was founded on 11 June 1868, as a humanitarian char-
ity organization bearing the symbol of the Ottoman Red Crescent, which was used for the fi rst time during the 
Russo-Turkish war of 1876-78. It was renamed the Ottoman Red Crescent Society in 1877, then the Turkish Red 
Crescent Community in 1923 and Mustafa Kemal renamed it Turkish Red Crescent Society in 1935. It was given 
the name of Turkish Red Crescent Association [Kızılay Derneği] later, in 1947. Its curernt name is Turkish Red 
Crescent [Türk Kızılayı or simply Kızılay]. It is a part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent move-
ment, with a goal, like the general organisation, to provide medical aid to war prisoners, injured and sick military 
men and humanitarian aid to vulnerable groups affected by disasters, wars and infectious diseases, both in the 
past and in the present. Halidé Edip was an active volunteer in the Red Crescent (Chris Gratien, Seçil Yılmaz 
“Red Crescent Archives (Turkey),” at http://hazine.info/turkish-red-crescent-kizilay-archives-ankara/, accessed 
20.06.2021, “150 Years – From Hilal-i Ahmer to Kızılay (Red Crescent),” at https://www.skylife.com/en/2019-
06/150-years-from-hilal-i-ahmer-to-kizilay-red-crescent, accessed 20.06.2021).



55

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children

time, the Young Turk elite, during the years of the realisation of the Armenian Genocide, 
never showed a negative attitude towards the Adivar couple: if the latter really were saving 
Armenian children, then that should have been enough for their alienation and the creating 
of a negative attitude towards them by the elite circle of the ruling party.

If nothing else, it is proper to fi nd out how and whether they were loyal adherents car-
rying out orders who enjoyed their leadership’s trust. Because to claim otherwise, that they 
were insignifi cant fi gures, is just out of the question. Interestingly, Halidé Edip, in her mem-
oirs published for the fi rst time in English in 1923, in which she devoted 43 pages to the 
Antoura orphanage (pp. 428-471), generally never spoke of her husband’s role, whereas in 
Harutyun Alboyajyan’s memoir, Adnan Adıvar was not only present, but also had a very 
clear role. Using psychology, it was he who persuaded the orphans to move to Antoura and 
accompanied them from their temporary shelter in one of the Damascus mosques to Jounieh 
and fi nally to Antoura in the company of two military offi cers and several women, probably 
teachers.16

The reason behind a more in-depth view of the problem were these very persons, with 
their roles and specialisms, who had to be concerned with Turkifi cation, whose activities 
were perhaps broader than just that. However, Adnan Adıvar, his activities and his position 
in the criminal hierarchy of the Young Turks and therefore his participation in genocidal 
acts against the Armenians and association with the Antoura orphanage, will be dealt with 
in a separate article.

To clarify the details of the roles specifi c people had, it is advantageous to raise questions 
fi rst. This is what this article aspires to do as a minimum when broaching the subject. No 
attempt will be made in this article to provide answers to all the questions put forward here, 
only addressing several of them. The work of searching for answers to further derivative 
questions will be left until later.

Concerning One Peculiarity of the Islamisation of Armenian Children at 
the Antoura Orphanage: Were They Cultivating “New Janissaries”?

Reading the memoirs of the inmates of the Antoura orphanage reveals the fact that it was 
organised on military lines and that the children were being prepared for military service. 
Harutyun Alboyajyan who, apart from relating his memoirs also gave Verjiné Svazlian his 
biography with some very interesting differences and characteristics. For instance, he called 
their orphanage in Antoura a “military orphanage”17 with special rules. This defi nition is 
essential for this research. It is therefore expedient to also draw the readers’ attention to the 
conscription activities that took place before the children were moved to Antoura. 

According to Garnik Banean’s memoirs, the group of children witnessed the honorary 
reception of a military man at Hama station, the point of departure for Antoura: the name “ 
16 Harutyun Alboyajyan, Խաչելության ճամփաներով [Through the Roads of Crucifi xion] (Yerevan: VMV-
Print Publishing House, 2005), 36-37.
17 Verjiné Svazlian, The Armenian Genocide: Testimonies of the Eyewitness Survivors (Yerevan: Gitutyun, 
2011), Harutyun Alboyajyan’s Testimony (no. 247), 427.



56

“‘ Mahmud Shevket Pasha’18 was heard from various directions. The pasha, with a smiling 
face, passed in front of the orphans, then had a word or two with the high-ranking military 
offi cers and the Protestant pastor who were present. The orphans, witnessing all this, stood 
stock-still.”19 Judging from this, at fi rst glance it could be thought that the pasha, whose 
name they were calling, was the same military man who passed in front of the orphans, but 
Mahmud Shevket Pasha was already dead by that time. Calling his name out could indicate 
something else. It could be, for instance, that the orphans were taken to be prepared for a 
military education, particularly in military aviation, the founder of which, Mahmud Shevket 
Pasha, was the Ittihadists’ guardian but had been assassinated in the Ottoman Empire by 
then. He was a great military authority and uttering his name would have been a sign of 
remembrance and a sign of belonging. Perhaps it was that being a child, the name had been 
stamped on Banian’s memory, i.e. a name to be voiced while another was remembered, 
as Mahmud Shevket’s name was also chanted in glorifying songs sung by the Antoura or-
phans.20

Harutyun Alboyajyan relates that the very fi rst and only lesson in the orphanage was 
military marching drill. Other lessons were added later, when the number of children in-
creased; they started to have lessons facilitating Turkifi cation, such as the Turkish language 
and literature, Islam and its history.21

Melgon Petrosean conveys a detail which is important for the inference that boys in the 
Antoura Turkish orphanage were being specially prepared for military service; this, at any 
rate, applied to healthy children. He wrote that they “… were doing military exercises so 
that we all could be soldiers to go to Harbiye Mekteb-i,22 the military school.”23

That this result had been partially achieved was shown by the following refl ection by the 
same inmate:

In spring 1918 they tightened up much more; they separated 50 boys from the rebel-
lious and those more or less big than us and one or two teachers and took them to 

18 Mahmud Shevket Pasha (Mahmud Şevket Paşa, 1858-1913), was of Chechen origin.  He was a graduate of 
the Mekteb-i Harbiye [Military Academy] and was an Ittihadist fi gure and considered to be the founder of Otto-
man military aviation (1911). He was the commander of the Third Army stationed in Thessaloniki after the 1908 
revolution and suppressed the counterrevolution. He banished Abdulhamid II from Constantinople on 31 March 
1909, holding him in Thessaloniki. He was appointed Ottoman Grand Vizier from January 1913 but was killed 
by a relative of the assassinated Nazim Pasha as a revenge for the assassination of the latter six months later: 
“Mahmud Şevket Paşa” at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahmud-Sevket-Pasa, accessed 15.06.2021.
19 Garnik Banean, Յուշեր մանկութեան եւ որբութեան [Memoirs of Childhood and Orphanity] (Antelias-Leb-
anon: Armenian Catholicossate of the Great House of Cilicia, 1992), 129. It is noteworthy that a number of 
very important passages were omitted from the English edition of Garnik Baeian’s memoirs, one of which was 
this one, where the memoirist mentions Mahmud Shevket’s name. Considering this fact, this and several other 
passages will be quoted from the Armenian edition in translation.
20 Ibid., 155. “Mahmud Şevket paşa, Sen binlerde yaşa՜,” which can be translated in English as follows: “Mah-
mud Shevket pasha, Live forever and ever!”
21 Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 40, 44. Along with those mentioned, the children also had 
lessons in geography, arithmetic, etiquette, medicine, biology and zoology, music and singing and physical ed-
ucation. The Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean, 14, also, Panian, Goodbye, Antoura, 89, 92.
22 Harbiye Mektebi (Ottoman: Mekteb-i Erkân-ı Harbiyye-i Şâhâne or Erkân-ı Harbiye Mektebi or, shorter: 
 Harbiye Mektebi), the Ottoman Empire’s military academy. Its foundation date is considered to be 1834. It was 
an educational institution preparing career offi cers for the army of the Ottoman Empire. At present, offi cially 
it is called Kara Harp Okulu, but it is colloquially known as Harbiye Mektebi, preserving its historical name.
23 The Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean, 14. 

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57

Polis [Armenian abbreviation for Constantinople-Sh.Kh.]. We learned that they were 
kept in confi nement in one of the districts in Polis under strict control. We learned 
this news from an escapee from there, a boy from Ainteb who was called Mehmet.24

Harutyun Alboyajyan also maintained that Antoura inmates had been moved to Constanti-
nople, mentioning a lesser number, 20-30 boys; but it is hard to say whether the two orphans 
speak of the same transfer or those transfers to Constantinople were regular practice. The 
text clearly indicates that the transfer took place before the autumn of 1918: “In those days a 
Turkish naval offi cer visited our orphanage with his bodyguard Rejab Onbashi [corporal], 
who was a very resourceful man. They came to take 20-30 orphan boys from the orphanage 
to study at maritime school. After making their choice and staying for 10-15 days, they went 
away. As the political situation was unstable, several of the leaders of the orphanage left. 
Among them was Reshad Bey.”25

In any case, it is clear that at least some of the children, who were fi t for the task, were 
being prepared for military service, perceived as them being “new janissaries”. This was 
because, among other things, of the roles and titles given to the children: chavush, oghlu/
oghlan, etc., which were also common in the janissary corps, which in their time, besides 
being the core of the military system, also possessed the fundamental attributes of an order 
(“bektashi” order of dervishes).26

In other words, a group of Antoura orphans had, nevertheless, been used in the Turkifi ca-
tion process undertaken by the Turkish government to achieve a certain goal. It is important 
to know what happened to them: did the Armenian rescue services or individuals searching 
for orphans returned them to their Armenian identity after the war, or were they permanent-
ly lost to the Armenian nation; perhaps it was both, which is also probable.

Narine Margaryan provides a quotation from such a testimony in her article: an Ar-
menian child, Khoren Glchyan, not an Antoura inmate, reported that he was taken to the 
Harbiye Mekteb-i: “Khoren Glchian was taken from Aleppo to the Harbiye central military 
school in Constantinople. Here they were all given copper seals with their new Turkish 
names on them. He got a seal bearing the name “Ali Oghlu Islam,” which he had to wear 
around his neck as instructed by the management.”27

The Turkish military authorities forcibly transferred the Armenian children of one of the 
Aleppo Armenian orphanages, among whom was Khoren Glchyan, to the Ingliz bahche. 
They gave Khoren’s mother the same answer as they did to the Protestant pastor who was 
the principal of Banean’s Hama orphanage: “…go home, mother, take care of yourself, your 
son will go to Istanbul to become a man.” 28

Feeding and entertaining the children on the way, they took them to Haydarpasha station 

24 Ibid., 16.
25 Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 49.
26 Georgiï Vvedenskiï, Янычары: история, символика, оружие [Yanissari: History, Symbols, Weapons] (St. 
Petersburg:  “Atlant” publishing house, 2003), 21.
27 Margaryan, “Turkifi cation of Armenian Children,” 33. In this passage, the word “seal” is most probably used 
to mean a badge, which was used both in the military and police system, as well as in prisons.
28 Khoren Glchian,Վերապրող որբի մը յուշերը [Memoirs of an Orphan Who Survived], (handwritten memoir), 
AGMI collection, s-8, no. 44, p. 21:

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International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021
https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0008

in Constantinople, then to the Harbiye Mektebi, where thousands of orphans had already 
been gathered.29 Therefore, one of the above-mentioned questions has been answered by 
Khoren Glchyan: the selection and transfer of Armenian children was a regular occurrence 
as shown by the number of children collected there. It is a fact worthy of special note that, 
according to Khoren Glchyan, both Talaat and Enver Pashas visited the Harbiye Mektebi in 
1917, when he was seven years old.30

However, the writer of this memoir testifi es that afterwards the children did not stay long 
in the Harbiye Mektebi, the whole orphanage being moved to Buyuk Ada [Big Island] on the 
Sea of Marmara, with the children being housed in a building previously owned by Greeks. 
Here the lessons and discipline were raised to a higher level; they even started giving money 
to the children.

According to the memoir, an Armenian Catholic priest named Father Hovhannes Nal-
bandyan came to their orphanage after the end of the war with a special document-order 
issued by the British mandatory authorities, to separate the Armenian children and return 
them to their nation. This was done with some diffi culty, because the Armenian children 
who remembered their nationality were afraid to confess they were Armenians.

Glchyan reports that about 200 Armenian children, with the signatures and mutual con-
sent of the Turkish and Armenian representatives, were released from Turkish orphanage 
and placed for a time in the school attached to the Convent of the Immaculate Conception 
in Constantinople.31

Garnik Banean, already more mature, provided just such a description in a single para-
graph:

Antoura with its regime, its understanding of pedagogy, its cruelty of giving the 
orphans nothing to eat for a long time was forcing us to become thieves, raiders and 
street swindlers. Only whatever was happening, was not in our hands. It was the state 
of things in life severing us from humanity and maiming our souls. So, if it were 
not for our conscious or instinctive opposition and if we were Turkifi ed one day, we 
would have added over a thousand of thieves, rogues and unspeakable people to the 
Turkish nation, very convenient for forming new janissary regiments.32

We believe that Turkifi cation was only an intermediate, though important phase and that 
the ultimate goal was to turn the orphans into servants of the state by erasing their Armenian 
and Christian identities which, in case of some of the children, as we saw above, was most 
likely achieved. The prospect of making military men of the boys stemmed, initially, from a 
lack of manpower. Men were needed who would be capable of mastering the use of military 
machinery that was being developed and updated during the war. Hence the remnants of the 
exterminated Christian nations of the Ottoman Empire – those children with their intellec-
tual abilities– could  be guided in that direction.

29 Ibid., 22-23.
30 Ibid., 24-25.
31 Ibid., 30-31.
32 Banean, Memoirs, 215.



59

By an interesting coincidence, one of Halidé Edip’s books, published over a decade later, 
titled Turkey Faces West could be singled out for the ideas expressed in it about the janissary 
tradition being quite democratic. One of these ideas ran as follows: “To combine love of 
order and discipline with democratic principles demanded the association of every race of 
the empire in this important class [the military class - Sh.Kh.]. They [the Turks - Sh.Kh.] 
accomplished this by conscripting a certain number of children from all the subject races... 
though the Christian historians have spoken of the system as the ‘Blood Tribute.’”33

Edip was against calling the system “blood tribute” following the words used by Chris-
tian historians and added that it should not be viewed from the ethical standpoint, but from 
the perspective of whether it was worthwhile for the state or not. She had one answer: it 
was worthwhile before the institution of bourgeois favouritism had it pushed into the back-
ground and it was dissolved.34 These ideas naturally show the attitude and approach that 
Halidé Edip, the erudite writer had when she cooperated with the Young Turk elite when 
participating in the Turkifi cation of the Armenian Genocide orphans. At least the sacrifi cing 
of ethics for the sake of expediency, which the Young Turks practiced with respect to the 
Armenians by carrying out the Genocide from 1915 to 1923, may be seen. Moreover, we be-
lieved that if, at the time of publication of the book, the transfer of children from one group 
to another was criminally punishable under the international law, Edip positioning herself 
as an advocate of the values of the Western Enlightenment and deeply concerned about her 
image and reputation, would have passed over and avoided expressing these ideas. We think 
that she was indeed taking care of her reputation by leaving out, from her memoirs, many 
undesirable episodes related to the Turkifi cation of Armenian children in which she and her 
husband had both been involved. This was because their international reputation also was 
needed to pursue the important goal of them appearing to be enlightened and progressive 
to the West.

It would not be surprising, if one day it turned out that, for instance, the Armenian wom-
an called Sabiha Gökçen-Khatun Sebiljian had also been in Antoura or in an orphanage like 
it, where all those instruments of Islamisation and Turkifi cation were used. By an interesting 
coincidence, she had been prepared for a military career, and Turkologist Ruben Melkonyan 
even characterized her as a “janissary.”

… if we put aside unnecessary sentimentality, we could say that Sabiha Gökçen or 
Khatun Sebiljian with her biography and career as a combat pilot, no matter how 
rude it sounds, qualifi es as a ‘janissary’. She was Turkifi ed and Islamised in early 
childhood; given a military education and was brought up with a mentality of being 
the daughter of the “Father of the Turks.” The supposed fl ashes of national self-con-
sciousness that various sources testify about have always been subordinated to the 
image of the fi rst Turkish pilot, in other words “janissary.”35 
This notion of being the “daughter of the Father of the Turks” also has its counterpart 

in the concept of the Janissary corps. That is, the janissaries being the property of the Sul-

33 Edib, Turkey Faces West, 20.
34  Ibid., 21.
35 Ruben Melkonyan. Իսլամացված հայերի խնդիրների շուրջ [On the Issues of Islamized Armenians] (Yere-

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tan, acting to protect him and his power and being directly subordinate to him, perceived 
themselves as the “Sultan’s children” and the Sultan as their father; they were ready to die 
for him.36 It was an elite military corps made up of children of Christian origin specifi cally 
trained since childhood, converted to another religion and at the same time brought up with 
ruthlessness and inhumanity.

Thus, in this context, it is believed that the negative traits listed in the last passage quoted 
from Garnik Banean’s memoirs (“thieves, raiders and street swindlers…”) were being nur-
tured on purpose: they may be called both new Janissarism or psychological experiments 
and torture. The Antoura management was inciting the children to develop resilience and 
fi ght for survival through starvation and thirst, being provoked into stealing and banditry, 
using physical torture (falakha; beating, mostly on the head) as well as psychological im-
pact, changing their psychology, outlook and mentality by means of images, for instance by 
using the theatre.37

By starving the children, for example, the issue of Islamisation was addressed in the 
following context:

We ate fl our soup the next morning; before we left [the dining room-Sh. Kh.] they 
announced that those who chose to adopt the “hakk din” (the Turkish faith) had to 
choose a name and be registered. They would then have a meat meal privately in the 
afternoon, with as much bread as they wanted, etc… We were like skeletons eating 
the soup made of fl our mixed with water, and when we smelled the meat, some reg-
istered while we, with our fellow-villagers, waited in a corner for the fl our soup.38 

The purpose of feeding children with fl our mixed with water was obvious: offering good 
food instead of physical exhaustion and recurring unpleasant fare on condition that children 
agree to convert to Islam. Here too are the direct signs of efforts to break their will, urging 
them to satisfy their instincts and physical needs.

Aram Antonyan also testifi ed in his book that Armenian children were really made into 
new Janissaries:
van: Noravank, 2009), 26-27։
36 Vvedenskiï, Yanissari, 12, 13.
37 See Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 46, where the author referred to a performance of a play 
titled “Joseph the Handsome,” put on in pure Turkish at a girls’ orphanage in Beirut (the name of the orphanage 
was written as “Nkhatkhana” in the text, possibly being the result of misreading the handwriting, because an 
orphanage with such a name could not be found) that the orphans playing in the orchestra watched regularly 
on their visits to Beirut. Alboyajyan said that it was strange that a biblical episode was performed by the Turks. 
As it turned out, the actresses were Armenian girls who had been Turkifi ed and “adopted” by Halidé Edip in 
Constantinople and had moved to Beirut with her (ibid., 48). We believe that this biblical plot was not chosen at 
random, as the story was about a youth who achieved certain success after being betrayed and abandoned by his 
brothers, after deprivation, captivity and slavery, which could fi t into the general logic of Turkifi cation – exciting 
the orphans with parallels of their possible future in their minds. At the same time, it is thought that the author 
of the play the orphans watched was Halidé Edip herself and that Alboyajyan watched Edip’s play “Shepherds 
of Canaan”: see Halide Edib, Kenan Cobanları (Istanbul: Orhaniye Matbaası, 1918). It touched upon concepts 
of feminism as well as the lives of the Jewish patriarchs, thus Turkish society was quite astonished by this new 
theatrical fashion – and not necessarily in a positive way: see Selahattin Çitçi, “Halide Edip Adivar’ın feminist 
ve semitik bir operası: Kenan Çobanları,” Turkish Studies International Periodical for the Languages, Litera-
ture and History of Turkish or Turkic 4/3 (2009):655-668.
38 The Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean, 13.



61

… The later instructions specifi ed that only children under fi ve were only to be spared. 
They would be converted to become Turks and raised as Turks in private orphanages 
They would then one day serve to make up for the human losses the Turks suffered 
that were caused by the war, and graft a race so endowed with high qualities, the 
Armenian race, onto the Turkish race. Just like in the past with the Janissaries39 [The 
italics used in this and other quotations have been inserted by the author – Sh.Kh.].

This section is closed with this remark by Aram Antonyan, highlighted by us, is materi-
ally signifi cant. First, the revival of the idea of the “new Janissaries” (seconded by Antoura 
orphan Garnik Banean in the abovementioned passage), which seemed to have gone down 
in history, and second, “…graft a race so endowed with high qualities, the Armenian race, 
onto the Turkish race …,” which shall be dealt with next in this article.

The “New Man” (Yeni Adam) of Pan-Turkism and Eugenics40

Confl icting with Banean’s foregoing question-provoking report is a corresponding episode 
from Halidé Edip’s memoirs. Banean reported that before being moved to Antoura, their 
group of Armenian children had found refuge in a Protestant pastor’s orphanage in Hama. 
However, their happy life in the orphanage, which was apparently a private one, in other 
words outside the supervision of major humanitarian organisations, quickly came to an end, 
as military offi cials dispatched by Djemal Pasha arrived and demanded that the pastor hand 
the orphans over to them to be transported to Antoura. This was grave news and there were 
no possibilities for refusal for the Armenians; it became clear to them that the orphans were 
going to be Turkifi ed. An interesting detail particularly attracted attention: “Djemal Pasha 
is the military commander in this area. The visiting military offi cers said that Djemal Pasha 
would like to collect all the Armenian children into his care, to educate them, bring them up 
and make them worthy human beings and eventually give them back to their people at the 
end of the war.”41

Banean’s testimony is at odds with the words attributed to Djemal Pasha in Halidé Edip’s 
memoirs, the dialogue taking place between the two of them. It is deemed necessary to 
quote the passage completely, as each sentence is relevant to this study:

You have been as good to Armenians as it is possible to be in these hard days. Why 
do you allow Armenian children to be called by Moslem names? It looks like turning 
the Armenians into Moslems, and history some day will revenge it on the coming 
generation of Turks.

39 Aram Antonian, Մեծ ոճիրը [The Great Crime] (Yerevan: Arevik, 1990), 178-179.
40 Eugenics – a doctrine concerning the improvement of the hereditary traits of the human race with the objec-
tive of actively infl uencing human evolution, perfecting human nature, enhancing the inheritance of talent and 
restricting the transmission of hereditary diseases to future generations. The term “eugenics” was fi rst used by 
Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, in 1883. This teaching especially enjoyed popularity in social and 
political circles during the fi rst few decades of the 20th century. It subsequently developed a negative connotation 
resulting from its use by Nazi Germany and identifi cation with the latter among other ones. Nevertheless, the 
term eugenics has its modern substitutes and further developments.
41 Banean, Memoirs, 122.

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You are an idealist, he [Djemal Pasha - Sh.Kh.] answered gravely, and like all ideal-
ists you lack a sense of reality. Do you believe that by turning a few hundred Arme-
nian boys and girls Moslem I think I benefi t my race? You have seen the Armenian 
orphanages in Damascus run by Armenians. There is no more room in those and there 
is no more money to open another Armenian orphanage. This is a Moslem orphanage, 
and only Moslem orphans are allowed. I send to this institution any wandering waif 
who passes into Syria from the regions where the tragedy took place. The Turks and 
the Kurds have that orphanage. When I hear of wandering and starving children, I 
send them to Aintoura. I have to keep them alive. I do not care how. I cannot bear to 
see them die in the streets.42

Edip replied, as written in her memoirs, that she did not want anything to do with such 
an orphanage. Djemal Pasha then said that she would want everything to do with it if she 
saw their misery and suffering…

A question: in that case why, according to Banean’s testimony, did they move hundreds 
of orphans to Antoura from the Protestant pastor’s orphanage, where they already had found 
refuge, instead of the thousands of homeless orphans wandering about under the walls of the 
orphanage, if the reason was the purely philanthropic urge to collect wandering children?

This passage naturally raises a few more questions in connection with the following 
point attributed to Djemal Pasha by Halidé Edip: “Do you believe that by turning a few hun-
dred Armenian boys and girls Moslem I think I benefi t my race?” Why would the Islamisa-
tion and Turkifi cation of just the Armenians be referred to as benefi cial in such a defensive 
question? This therefore alluded to eugenics, echoing what Aram Antonyan said: “…graft a 
race so endowed with high qualities, the Armenian race, onto the Turkish race. Just like it 
once was with the Janissaries.”43 

The subject had at least been discussed in those days as well; it could, however, have 
been Edip’s attempt at self-justifi cation.

This begs another question: who was such philanthropy for, as it was defi nitely not for 
the Armenian race? Beatings and torture and other forms of abuse were used, as testifi ed by 
the orphans, at the Antoura orphanage to ensure the erasure of Christianity and the forced 
forgetting of the Armenian language. It is believed, therefore, that the human beings they 
wanted to shape the Armenian children into were intended to fulfi l the ideas of Ottoman 
Turkey and for the future. “Djemal pasha had ordered that we should be given proper care 
and attention, since he appreciated the Armenians’ brains and talents and hoped that, in 
case of victory, thousands of Turkifi ed Armenian children would, in the coming years, enno-
ble his nation and we would become his future support.”44

It was this vision, this idea conveyed by the military personnel who came to the pastor’s 
orphanage to fetch the orphans: “…․ Djemal Pasha will run [it] as a school, not an orphan-
age and educate and prepare decent people for the homeland.”45

42 Memoirs of Halidé Edib, 428-429.
43 Antonian, The Great Crime, 178-179.
44  Svazlian, The Armenian Genocide, 426.
45 Banian, Memoirs, 127.



63

This quite neatly fi ts in with the idea of a new Pan-Turkic country, Halidé Edip’s New 
Turan [Yeni Turan], a new homeland [Yeni Yurdu], a new nation, the new man [Adnan 
Adıvar played quite an active role in the Yeni Adam [New Man] magazine of this genre 
published in Republican Turkey] and the close links with the new culture, the realisation of 
which was one of the ideological aims of the Young Turks and related circles.46 

It is a well-known fact that during WWI the warring parties, including Germany and 
Austria-Hungary, carried out medical experiments, as did Ottoman medical establishments 
and various international relief organizations operating within the Ottoman Empire. In this 
regard, Harutyun Alboyajyan conveyed the following:

The next day all the orphan boys were given a piece of bread, and we again hit the 
road. We reached the station shortly after. There was this most sumptuously dressed 
offi cer at the station, whose name was Adnan Bey… Adnan Bey said that we should 
now go to an orphanage, where we would be very well taken care of; we would have 
whistles at the end of our spoons to express our wishes. Adnan Bey was a doctor, the 
husband of one of the progressive Turkish women, Halidé Khanum. Apparently, he 
was telling very good things about the orphanage, so that we would not put our minds 
to running away, but we had no place to escape.47

A whistle has always been an interesting children’s’ toy: it is convincing that, in this 
episode doctor Adnan Adıvar has been using a psychological mechanism for the children 
to go with him or them, as it was very important for the children to follow them for some 
reason. At the same time, we cannot forget that, for example in Nazi Germany, doctor Josef 
Mengele48 used to bribe children with sweets then subject them to medical experiments. 
What attracts attention at this point is Adnan Adıvar’s profession, his presence and role, 
combining all this with another fact: the presence of the second Antoura director, Lutfi  Bey 
who succeeded Naid or Nahid Bey49. The second director referred to in the orphanage’s in-
mates’memoirs, Lutfi  Bey was, according to them, also a physician. Our research was then 

46 For this ideology of “new,” as well as about Halidé Edip’s participation see, for instance, Umit Kurt, Dogan 
Gurpinarb, “The Young Turk Historical Imagination in the Pursuit of Mythical Turkishness and its Lost Gran-
deur (1911–1914),” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 43, no.4 (2016): 564-565, 568-569, 573.
47 Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 36-37.
48 Josef Mengele (1911-1979), an SS offi cer and physician in Nazi Germany, known by the nickname of “the 
Angel of Death.” He is best known for performing medical experiments on people at the Auschwitz concentra-
tion camp, often resulting in death. Josef Mengele was also part of the medical staff selecting the victims to be 
killed in the gas chambers. Mengele had a doctorate in anthropology and medical science, possessed in-depth 
knowledge of then-current genetic/racial theories and conducted tests and experiments in person. He lived in 
disguise in various countries after the war and was buried under a pseudonym. See, for instance, Gerald L. Pos-
ner, John Ware, Mengele: The Complete Story (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000). 
49 Naid or Nahid Bey, a military man, was referred to only in Harutyun Alboyajyan and Melgon Petrosean 
memoirs. According to Alboyadjian he was a military offi cer from Marash who, after some time, was transferred 
to Palestine (Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 43), while Petrosean only mentioned the name (The 
Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean, 12). A Young Turk activist was found with this name who was a European-ed-
ucated military man named Mehmet Nahid Kerven, but he wasn’t from Marash. See “Mehmet Nahid Kerven,” 
at https://www.bu.edu/ckls/home/mehmet-nahid-kerven/, accessed 02.06.2021. The identifi cation of the fi rst 
director of Antoura might well prove helpful in answering many Antoura-related questions.

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International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

centred on one individual, Dr. Lutfi  Kırdar50 who, it is believed, was the abovementioned 
Dr. Lutfi . This person later held high level government positions in Republican Turkey, 
becoming Health and Social Security Minister, as well as being the mayor and governor of 
Istanbul.

It is believed that it was not merely by chance that physicians were present before the 
transfer of the children and before they met Adnan Adıvar, about which the same Harutyun 
Alboyajyan said that when their caravan of deportees stopped at a caravanserai in the city 
of Homs, which was already full of deportees, a doctor appeared:

…we were approached by a well-dressed Arab or Turkish offi cial. Before approach-
ing, he was looking around carefully. He spoke Turkish very well. He approached me 
and asked whether I would want to be his son, but I resented bitterly and said that I 
would not leave my mother. He took out a purse of gold from his bosom and showed 
it to my mother. There were other boys next to us, who wanted to go with him, but he 
absolutely wanted to take me. He said that he was a doctor and would give me a good 
education if my mother and I agreed to his offer. So, every day he was coming for me 
and urging me to agree to go with him. Seeing that he could not persuade me, he start-
ed to threaten us that he would take me with the help of the police. I found a way out; 
the moment I saw him coming from a distance, I hid so that he would not see me․․․51

The doctor’s interests might not have been limited to just one child. His fi eld of opera-
tions was defi nitely wider and, from the same passage, it may clearly be seen that he was 
cooperating with the chief of police. He probably had permission for his activities from 
state bodies too. It is impossible not to pay attention to the presence of physicians in various 
episodes recounted in the Antoura orphans’ memoirs.

Passages concerning eugenics may be seen in the memoirs of the Armenian inmates of 
Antoura:

Far from being for philanthropic reasons, Djemal Pasha’s decision of placing the Ar-
menian orphans in “caring hands” was a brutal and mean trap, a shameless attempt to 
Turkify the orphans and thus ennoble the Turkish blood. The Turks are well familiar 
with the Armenians. Having fed on the Armenian bread, Armenian labour for cen-
turies, today also, in these hapless days of the Armenians, he has been putting into 
operation the devilish plan of assimilating the Armenian children.52

50 Lütfi  Kırdar (1887-1961), Turkish physician, public and political fi gure, Health and Social Security Minister 
(1957-1960) and mayor of Istanbul in Republican Turkey. He was born in Kirkuk (now in Iraq). He studied 
intermittently in the department of medicine of Istanbul University from 1908 and graduated in 1917. After the 
Great War, he joined the Turkish Red Crescent organisation and participated in the Kemalist movement as the 
head of the military medical service. Upon the proclamation of the Republic in 1923, he left for Vienna and 
Munich, retraining as an ophthalmologist. Returning a year later, he assumed various government positions 
before dying of a stroke in 1961 while defending himself against accusations before a military tribunal (“Lütfi  
Kırdar,” at https://www.beyaztarih.com/ansiklopedi/lutfi -kirdar, accessed 02.06.2021, also, “Lütfi  Kırdar,” at 
https://www.biyografi .net/kisiayrinti.asp?kisiid=1415, accessed 02.06.2021).
51 Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 26.
52 Banian, Memoirs, 126.



65

or:

Halidé Edip would look at the boys and rejoice in her heart, as in several years these 
boys would be Turkifi ed and ennobling the Turkish blood.53

The same was reported by Harutyun Alboyajian in his testimony given to Verjiné Sva-
zlian and quoted in the previous section; however the focus of this section is on another 
matter, therefore the part of the passage presented in italics is also different, in line with this 
section’s subject:

Djemal pasha had ordered that we should be given proper care and attention, since 
he appreciated the Armenians’ brains and graces and hoped that, in case of victory, 
thousands of Turkifi ed Armenian children would, in the coming years, ennoble his 
nation and we would become his future support. Towards that aim Djemal pasha had 
teachers brought from Constantinople; he had brought physicians, because most of 
the orphans fell ill with scurvy and died.54

At the same time the medical and sanitary situation in Antoura gave rise to many ques-
tions: 

The number of children getting sick was increasing among the orphans, the complete-
ly vacant hospital during the fi rst days was starting to feel cramped and nobody knew 
how professional was the physician at the orphanage, he would examine the patients 
coming to him, give them medications, and yet instead of getting better, they would 
shut their eyes not to open them again. Eight to ten of them have already died in a 
few weeks.55

Consequently, the propensity of the Young Turk Pan-Turkic ideologists and elite for rel-
evant medical, biological, anthropological, genetic and racial theories, as well as for med-
ical services used and perhaps, also, the likelihood of experiments being carried out at the 
Antoura orphanage. To this aim can serve, for example, examination of bone remnants of 
the buried orphans of Antoura orphanage. This must be studied in the usual way to perhaps 
reveal many new aspects and phenomena of the Young Turks’ overall genocidal ideas and 
to complete existing ones.

53 Ibid., 168.
54 Svazlian, The Armenian Genocide, 426.
55 Banian, Memoirs, 146.

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66

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

The Veil of Secrecy and Hoax: Halidé Edip’s Memoirs Versus Those of 
the Armenian Orphans

Halidé Edip may rightly be considered as one of the fi rst revisionists of the Armenian Geno-
cide; in fact her model may be classifi ed within that of the denialism of the Armenian 
Genocide, typical of the modern period, in which the actual reality of the massacres is not 
being rejected time and again, but interpreted as a mutually administered, equal massacre, a 
confl ict in the war56 and never as a state, planned genocidal policy. “They were Turks, Kurds 
and Armenians. Each child had a drama and each had its parents massacred by the parents 
of the other children, and now we’re all stricken with the same misery and disaster. Each 
child had a Turkish or Moslem name.”57

The following “confession,” made by Edip, is noteworthy in the context of being con-
cerned about Antoura and the orphans’ living conditions: “The two months from September 
to November, 1916, were to me the most painful during the war. I was in utter despair; the 
great calamity and hopeless misery which overwhelmed my country seemed to be everlast-
ing. The war seemed endless and human suffering unlimited. I was unable to write a line, 
and if there had been a monastic life for women in Islam I should have entered it without 
hesitation.”58

Garnik Banean contradicted this account of Halidé Edip, saying:

I saw Halide Edip Adıvar, the woman who had stayed behind after Jemal Pasha’s 
visit. She would often lean against the sundial and watch us play. She seemed care-
free. Sometimes she journeyed to Beirut and returned a few days later with stacks 
of books under her arms. Some said that she was writing a book about the orphans; 
others claimed that at night, she sucked the blood out of the necks of the older boys. 
We didn’t know what to believe.59

Even if this is about various periods of Halidé Edip’s life, such contraditctions should be 
brought together to reveal their links and address them in the context of her image, role and 
relation to the orphans of the Armenian Genocide.

Halidé Edip never referred to her husband’s involvement in persuading the children to 
move to Antoura as already noted above; however, she mentioned his name twice in the 
section about Antoura: once relative to her decision to marry him and the marriage itself 
(which took place on 23 April 1917 in Brusa),60 and for the second time, about his arrival to 
Syria in June 1917 “Dr. Adnan, who was inspecting the hygienic conditions of the Turkish 
armies, came to Syria in June, and we traveled home together.”61

As seen from Halidé Edip’s memoirs, she stayed in Antoura until the last moment; par-

56 Edib, Turkey Faces West, 142-144, 165-166, 174․
57 Memoirs of Halidé Edib, 428.
58 Ibid., 431.
59 Panian, Goodbye, Antoura, 94-95.
60 Memoirs of Halidé Edib, 450.
61  Ibid., 452.



67

ticularly illustrative is the following passage where she explicitly indicated that the incident 
occured during one of her last visits:

In connection with another Kurdish child I have another dramatic but happy pic-
ture fi xed in my mind. It happened in one of my last visits to Antoura. After the 
announcement that the parents able to prove their identity could take their children 
away, some Armenian women had appeared. But as there are very few Turks and 
Kurds in Beirut and Lebanon, none of these nationals had turned up to claim their 
children.62 

Such an order to return the children might have been - and was - issued at the end of the 
War, (at the end of 1918), as Patriarch Zaven recalled, when the Turks lost their positions 
in the Middle East and were defeated.63 Therefore, returning children could seem to be an 
extremely humanitarian act, whereas it had been imposed on the Ottoman authorities and 
the military. As she stayed at the orphanage till the end and at was at least privy to the events 
that took place there, it is very suspicious that she hid many details or used manipulative 
stories to present them as a normal state of affairs.

The reasonable doubts raised about the veracity of Halidé Edip’s memoirs reaches its 
culmination with the description of the closing events of Antoura as a Turkish orphanage. 
She presented everything as if it was the result of her exhortations: she particularly present-
ed the arrival of the Red Cross workers and assuming the management of the orphanage as 
an expression of her humanitarian attitude: “I requested Dr. Bliss and Mr. Dodge to come 
and see me and begged them to take Antoura under the auspices of the Red Cross as soon 
as the clashes broke out in Beirut. For four months, the children were provided for thanks 
to Major Kemal, and the director had to stay with some of the staff members until the last 
minute.”64

This notion prompts some questions, if not enigmas and one of these was the following: 
the memoirs of the orphans read that the Turks left ubruptly with only the orphanage’s phar-
macist staying behind, whose name was given by both Melgon Petrosean65 and Harutyun 
Alboyajian, as being the military doctor Riza Bey, who had been ordered to poison the 
children before leaving:

․․․ Unexpectedly, the pharmacist of the orphanage, Riza Bey (a military doctor with 
the rank of colonel) entered the dining room. Walking along the room, he approached 
Enver, the chavush of the highest grade and said: “Enver chavush, son!” Enver cha-
vush stood up. Riza Bey asked: “Enver, son, what is your Armenian name, do you 
remember it?” “Yes, I do, Toros.” Thus, repeating the same thing with everyone, he 
approached and asked me the same question; I told him that my name was Harutyun. 

62 Ibid., 467.
63 Archbishop Zaven. Պատրիարքական յուշերս. վաւերագիրներ եւ վկայութիւններ [My Patriarchal Memoirs։ 
Documents and Testimonies] (Cairo: Nor Astgh, 1947), 254.
64 Memoirs of Halidé Edib, 469.
65 The Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean, 12.

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children



68

Then he asked the chavushes and orphans to take their seats. He said that no one from 
the management of the orphanage was there, no soldiers either. He himself might 
not have been there as well, but in that case, the orphans would not have been there 
too. Later we learned that while running away the Turks had ordered the pharmacist 
Riza Bey to poison the orphans during their last supper and then leave. But Riza Bey 
refused to agree to such a crime.66

Edip did not present the Antoura closure in a complete way; it is true that the Red Cross 
mission arrived when the Turks left, but many questions were left unanswered or were 
omitted.

It is not thought that Halidé Edip might simply have been unaware of all this and that in-
human orders and atrocities had been issued and carried out only by the military leadership 
headed by Djemal Pasha, because at the time of publication of the memoirs in 1926 Edip 
at least should have been aware of what had happened about seven or eight years earlier. 
In addition, the last quotation from her book, which was cited above, was immediately 
followed by the following continuation, indicating that she had been very well informed 
of the details of further developments:“I also begged them to pass the Armenian children 
to the Armenians through the Red Cross, and the Moslem children to the Red Crescent in 
Constantinople, if the necessary moment came. They promised, and they kept their promise. 
They sent up Mr. Crawford in the name of the Red Cross when the Allied armies entered. 
This was my last service to Antoura.”67

She fi nished her memoirs with a tale about Antoura, indicating that they stayed in Syria 
until 4 March 1919.68 Did this abovementioned notion - “… [to hand over - Sh.Kh.] the 
Moslem children to the Red Crescent in Constantinople” - not serve to gloss over the fact 
that several dozen children were moved to Constantinople and kept in a secret place as 
reported by the orphans, among whom were some who were Armenians, of which one es-
caped, as mentioned above? Moreover, why did Halidé Edip, who recommended herself as 
a philanthropic and impartial intellectual, conceal those facts, if she honestly did not have 
anything to do with them? Perhaps she had feared for her own life; after all, she would have 
been relating things that would have given rise to multiple moral issues and, if she had 
divulged everything, might have lost her her position and authority. Finally, it could have 
ended with her disclosing military secrets. Selim Deringil quoted a passage from Halidé 
Edip to Ismail Hakki Bey, the mutasarrif of Lebanon, which is another piece of evidence of 
Halidé Edip’s complicity. It said:

In the eventuality of the situation [of the war] going against us, it would be a political 
and humanitarian error to abandon such a large group, whose parents were killed by 

66 Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 50, see also, Svazlian, The Armenian Genocide, 429: “He [the 
pharmacist Fevzi of the Antoura orphanage-Sh.Kh.] did not continue, but later we learned that they had asked 
the pharmacist to poison our last supper, but he had refused to obey their order. And really, soon they came with 
Arab Sheriff, put handcuffs on his hands and took him away. We all were sad and silent. When they were taking 
him out.”
67 Memoirs of Halidé Edib, 469.
68 Ibid., 471.

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021



69

Turks, [ebeveyni Türkler tarafından őldürülmüş] to the foreigners. To abandon the 
orphanage would be an error enabling them to use it as political and humanitarian 
evidence against us. For this reason, I am in favor, for now, of immediately trans-
ferring Antoura to Istanbul […]. The children can be moved to Istanbul in relative 
safety only if you provide transport for the staff. If Antoura is indeed to be abandoned 
I request that you leave Mount Lebanon.69

With all this in mind Halidé Edip could confi dently be called an accomplice, as she could 
have concealed, but avoided, the urge to present all this under a manipulatively positive 
light, which was something she didn’t do in her memoirs or decades later. She never edited 
her own work in any way, even though she was active in politics and society until her death 
in January 1964. Therefore, her memoirs are - and at the same time cannot be - a source 
concerning the Antoura orphanage, state Islamisation and the Turkifi cation policy as they 
raise a host of questions and issues and contradict the orphans’ memoirs.

The methods of persuasion chosen by the teacher of religion or hoja to coerce the or-
phans, which might have been of service in previous times, are also interesting. Moreover, 
the words used were diametrically opposed to what Halidé Edip was trying to communicate 
to us through Djemal Pasha’s words. There is no doubt about Islamisation being on fi rm 
foundations, nor was there any doubt about the desire to create Turks from Armenian chil-
dren and speaking Armenian had been forbidden too. But Halidé Edip’s diplomatic efforts 
to conceal those facts are of interest too.

Thus, Melgon Petrosean, compared to Garnik Banean for instance, had some knowledge 
of Turkish and remembered some of the phrases used to convert Armenian children by the 
teachers at the Antoura orphanage: “My dear children, in olden times you have been chil-
dren of Turks, the infi dels converted your mothers into “gavurs” forcibly, you should go 
back to your mother religion. Your religion is old and outdated like the fi re worship. Your 
prophet Jesus is also worn out and like a worn-out shirt we throw it away and put on an-
other.”70

Ziya Gökalp71 was, in the later years of the Ottoman Empire, the father of the idea 
that Christianity was an old and outdated religion and that Islam was new and innovative, 
tending towards novelty and modernity and containing layers of thought that were in line 
with Western thinking. Halidé Edip followed that ideological line both virtually and in her 
writings, as was well known. In this sense, the Islamisation of Christians, unifi ed with the 
approaches developed by the ideologists of pan-Turkism, was used for the fi rst time and at 
least the ideological line is noticeable. This, then, is another point that adds doubt to Halidé 
Edip’s direct quotation above, stating that she was against the idea of the Islamisation of 

69 See No.68 reference of the article: Deringil, “Your Religion is Worn and Outdated.” 
70 The Memoirs of Melgon Petrosean, 12-13. The expressions were in Turkish and we express our deep grat-
itude to AGMI researcher, Turkologist Dr. Elina Mirzoyan for converting the Turkish text in Armenian script 
into literary Turkish.
71This was briefl y touched on in our following article: Shushan Khachatryan, «Երիտթուրքերի 
գաղափարախոսական ուղենիշները: Կրոնը՝ քաղաքականության, քաղաքականությունը կրոնի մեջ» 
[The Young Turks’ Ideological Guidelines: Religion in Politics and Politics in Religion] Ts՚eghaspanagitakan 
handes 4, no. 1 (2016): 125-126.

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children



70

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

children, as Christian religious identity was regarded as an impediment to the establishment 
of pan-Turkism. In other words, future studies must allow for the following question: was 
the Islamisation carried out at Antoura orphanage by its staff headed by Halidé Edip done 
for the sake of religion, as carried out in the Ottoman Empire in previous centuries, or did it 
have political, civilizational, cultural and ideological foundations conspicuous in pan-Turk-
ist writings and its ideological line? It is believed that the second was a link in the chain 
dependent on the fi rst, as Islam was only one element of a synthesis - the primary link - but 
not the ultimate aim. There was an urge to create a new cultural environment, а new culti-
vated and cultured man within the substantial solidity of pan-Turkism. Armenian children 
were Turkifi ed in this sense.

This phenomenon, fi tting into the concept of pan-Turkism, has been studied many times 
on various occasions by different specialists, but needs further, extensive coverage and de-
tailed elaboration in the context of the Antoura orphanage and the subtext of the Turkifi -
cation of Armenian children, which has been outlined in this article and is its subject. It is 
necessary, at the same time, to draw parallels with the phenomenon of the Sunnifi cation72 
of non-Muslim and non-Sunni groups carried out in previous centuries under the vertical 
subordination of the leadership of the Ottoman Empire and recently conceptualised with 
the much-cherished agenda of religious and ideological homogenization of the Ottoman 
Empire. This is the context in which studies should be made as to which generalities exist 
and what differences there are and whether the above phenomenon was the precursor of 
pan-Turkism and if the genocidal mentality cultivated against Armenian Christians also has 
its roots in this pan-Sunnitisation phenomenon.

Conclusion

The aim of this question-posing research is to open up the fi eld for various sub-studies, 
where the future work of various specialists able to take advantage of an important area 
of the philosophy of Islamisation and Turkifi cation of Armenian children at the Antoura 
orphanage and generally during the Armenian Genocide may be seen. The foregoing indeed 
only contributes to the number of questions and problems requiring clarifi cation, but this is 
the true purpose of this article.

The name for what Halidé Edip did at the Antoura orphanage is genocide. Research car-
ried out concludes that Halidé Edip’s character should fi rst and foremost be the subject of a 
psychological study. A female leader having infl uence not only on political leaders, but also 
on the masses, who was one of the future-builders of Turkey was an unprecedented event in 
Ottoman history. She was rushing, with her right foot to the West and her left to the East to 
Turkify orphaned and homeless Armenian children. She also had her right hand on the con-
cept and implementing of the ideas of modernizing Turkey, while her left was conceiving 
and realising the ideas of the erasure of the identity of Armenian children.

She would put on a smiling face when associating with the elite of Western cultural life, 

72 For this phenomenon see Derin Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization: А Historiograph-
ical Discussion,” Turcica 44 (2012-2013): 301-338.



71

while scowling at infl uential ladies and gentlemen and playing a painful role in the life of 
the world-famous genius Komitas Vardapet, even denying that he was an Armenian. What 
did she hate so much in Armenians? What was the reason for her obviously metaphysical 
hatred? If a professional interdisciplinary group could be tasked with answering these ques-
tions, there would be a new set of phenomenological explanations as to why the Armenian 
Genocide was planned. Historical examination of this woman’s character may lead to errors 
being committed but that is up to the court of psychologists, scholars of religious and cul-
tural studies, anthropologists and others.

At the same time, without repeating what kind of research problems have occurred, it 
is relevant to highlight that each person, place-name, profession and every action relating 
to Antoura must be made the subject of examination and thorough collation. The Antou-
ra orphanage may be called a touchstone not only the issues of forcible Turkifi cation of 
Armenian children, but also generally of the revelation of many aspects of the Armenian 
Genocide. The mere existence of this orphanage with its methodology, staff and ideology 
combines, within itself, the implementation of Pan-Turkism, assimilation, as well as the 
new methods and scientifi c theories of nation-building that were employed by Young Turk 
offi cials and theorist-adherents. The names of Antoura inmates, their stories and the staff of 
the orphanage should also provide subjects for study, particularly focusing on the collection 
of the memoirs or testimonies of inmates still unknown to us and the biographical and ideo-
logical details of the Turkish staff. To keep things in order, an appendix containing relevant 
tables is attached to this article.

It should be noted that the issue of the existence of the Antoura orphanage is broader and 
fi ts into the framework of contemporary scientifi c and anti-scientifi c theories as well as in 
ideologies and philosophical-political phenomena. In this sense the involvement of Halidé 
Edip’s second husband Adnan Adıvar in the establishment of the Antoura orphanage that 
has been concealed so far will be the subject of our next study when a suffi cient number of 
relevant sources have been identifi ed.

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children



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International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

Appendix

Table 1. Antoura Orphanage Staff

Position Name [+Profession] N

General 
Inspector

Halidé Edip 1

Directors
Naid/Nahid Bey 

[military]
Lutfi  Bey 

[Physician]
Reshad 

Bey 
Abraham Bey 
Romashvili 

4

Over-
seers-Con-

trollers

Favzi/Fevzi Bey 
[military, In-
ternal Affairs 

Mudir]

Mukhtar 
Bey 

≈273

Teachers 

Nejmeddine 
[Hodja/mullah, 
teacher of reli-

gion]

Nabihe 
Hanim 

[Turkish 
teacher]

X [Rules 
of eti-

quette and 
Medicine 
teacher]

Aishe [A teach-
er who praises 

the fruits of 
Turkey and 

teaches geogra-
phy]

X 
[Arab 
music 
teach-

er]

≈5

Pharmacist /
Physician

Riza Bey [doc-
tor with military 

rank]
X74 X ≈1

Offi ce Staff X Arabs X

Accountant Muhasabaji Bey ≈1

Storekeeper Shukri ≈1

Responsi-
ble for the 

Canteen and 
Cleanliness 

Emine Hanim ≈1

73  The approximately symbol ≈ was used as it is not clear whether there have been others or not, or because the 
orphans mentioned others in their memoirs but their number is still unknown to us. 
74 The X indicates that there was a reference in the text also to other people occupying the given position, but 
no name or exact number has been indicated. 



73

Carpenter Josef (Arab) ≈1

Guard ≈30

Total ≈47

Table 2. The Antoura Orphanage Curriculum

N Subject

1 Marching drill

2 Religion and history of religion 

3 Turkish

4 Writing exercise 

5 Music 

6 Etiquette 

7 Medicine 

8 Arithmetic 

9
Natural science or “Talks about wildlife, domestic plants and animals in Tur-

key”75

10 Geography 

Table 3. Armenian Children in the  Antoura Orphanage According to the Memoirs 
Written by G. Banean, H. Alboyajyan and M. Petrosean

N

Baptismal Name

Surname /Other 
Notes

Orphanage 
Number

New Turkish 
Name

Birth-
place, Or-

igin

Other Avail-
able Data

1
Melgon Petrosean 

(1905-1990)76
8

Nezhip [=Nejip/
Nejep]

Sarılar, 
Amanos 

75 Banean, Memoirs, 135:
76 Fabrice Grognet, “Les mémoires d’un père en heritage,” Hommes & migrations 1281 (2009): 174-179, at 
http://journals.openedition.org/hommesmigrations/404, accessed 09.09.2021.

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International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

N

Baptismal Name

Surname /Other 
Notes

Orphanage 
Number

New Turkish 
Name

Birth-
place, Or-

igin

Other Avail-
able Data

2
Harutyun Alboyajyan 

(1904-1994)
534/53577

a․ Saleh, b․ 
Shukru 

Finticak

3
Garnik Banean (1910-

1989)
551 Ahmed Kyurin 

4
Toros Karapetyan or 

Big Toros78
Enver chavush /

küçük Enver 
Kyurin 

According to 
M. Bedrosian 
he only one 
circumcised 
willingly and 
the 10th grade 

chavush 

5 Vardan 
Djemal chavush 
/küçük Djemal 

Kyurin 
Chavush of M. 

Bedrosian’s 
class 

6 Hrand?
Talaat chavush /

küçük Talaat 

7 küçük Hasan 

8 Hovsep 
Mahmud cha-

vush 
Trumpeter 

9 Izzet chavush 

77 In Harutyun Alboyajyan’s memoirs, 534 (Alboyajyan, Through the Roads of Crucifi xion, 40), and in Verjiné 
Svazlian’s miscellanea, 535 (Svazlian, The Armenian Genocide, 439).
78 Küçük Enver or Enver chavush, real name Toros Karapetyan, was referred to in the memoirs of all the three 
orphans. The most detailed account of him was given by Harutyun Alboyajyan, as they stayed in touch with each 
other even after the Antoura orphanage was closed and later the orphans were repatriated and settled in Soviet 
Armenia. Toros Karapetyan apparently was one of the most important fi gures in the Antoura orphanage. A small 
personal investigation revealed the names of his grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is hoped that it 
will be possible, in the near future to contact them to fi nd more details about his persona and stay at the Antoura 
orphanage, thus make new discoveries about it. 



75

N

Baptismal Name

Surname /Other 
Notes

Orphanage 
Number

New Turkish 
Name

Birth-
place, Or-

igin

Other Avail-
able Data

10 Shekir chavush 
Chavush of H. 
Alboyajyan’s 

class 

11 Nshan Midhat Sis

12 Manuel 

Leader boy 
cursing the 

Turkish fl ag, 
related to G. 

Banean 

13 Mkrtich 
Leader boy 
cursing the 
Turkish fl ag 

14 Gevorg Muhamed Sis 

15 Yusuf Adana 

16 Serob

17 Murad [?] Murad [?]

18 Grigor 

Orphanage 
storekeeper, 
Karnig Ba-

nean’s cousin 

19 Mihran 

One of the 
leaders of K. 

Banean’s secret 
group

20 Galust Sebastia
Brother of the 

next two

21 Poghos Sebastia

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International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

N

Baptismal Name

Surname /Other 
Notes

Orphanage 
Number

New Turkish 
Name

Birth-
place, Or-

igin

Other Avail-
able Data

22 Hovhannes Sebastia

23 Vagharshak Erzrum

24 Sarı Marash 
The only com-
pletely Islam-

ized 

25 Aysha 
M. Bedrosian’s 

sister 

26 Lutfi a 
M. Bedrosian’s 

sister

27 Abraham Ibrahim
Blind from 

forced looking 
at the sun. 

28
Toros Tadevosian/

Zhamkochyan or Lit-
tle Toros 

Ahmed79

29 Arshak 549 Ahmed80

30
Hovhannes Karapog-

hosian81 

31-32
Tadevos and Sedrak 

Khashkhashians 

79 An orphan by the name of Ahmed was referred to in both Garnik Banean’s and Harutyun Alboyajyan’s 
memoirs; the latter mentions his Armenian name, while Garnik Banean twice referred to an orphan by the same 
name with his number mentioned as 549 in one place and his Armenian name in another. Not being sure about 
the particulars of the number given by Banean or whether the reference was made to the same person or not, it 
was preferred to footnote it. 
80 See the previous footnote. 
81 There is Hovhannes Karapoghosian’s brief unpublished memoir mentioning about the Antoura orphanage: 
Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Autobiography by John Jacob Karaboghosian, 36 pp. AGMI col-
lections, s-40, no. 1316: 



77

N

Baptismal Name

Surname /Other 
Notes

Orphanage 
Number

New Turkish 
Name

Birth-
place, Or-

igin

Other Avail-
able Data

33 Minas 
N i c k n a m e d 
“kyalaji”

34 Mustafa 

35 Hrach 

36 Tovmas
H. Alboyajyan’s 

friend

37 Karapet
H. Alboyajyan’s 

brother

38 Taguhi Gyurjian
H. Alboyajyan’s 

friend

39 Emmi oghli

40 Izyat Adana

After Antoura 
orphanage he 
was studying 

at the Maritime 
College

41 Verjiné Gyulumian

42 Vertahim Svazlian

43 Hovsep 
M. Bedrosian’s 

relative 

44 Panos 
M. Bedrosian’s 

relative 

45 Mehmet Ainteb 

One of those 
who were 

locked in near 
Constantino-
ple, who had 
escaped from 

there  

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children



78

International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies: Volume 6, No. 1, 2021

N

Baptismal Name

Surname /Other 
Notes

Orphanage 
Number

New Turkish 
Name

Birth-
place, Or-

igin

Other Avail-
able Data

46-48
Three boys from the same village as Melgon Bedrosean with who the latter fl ed from 

Antoura orphanage

49 Garnik Banean characterizied him as a spirited boy making anti-Turkish speeches 

50-51 Harutyun Alboyajyan’s two cousins who died early 

52-54
Three Armenian boys helping intendant and physician Riza Bey, one of whom was 

called Arif [Hovhannes Karapoghosian’s name was Arif]

55 A boy from Adana who was beaten for trying to escape, he limped afterwards 

56 A boy who developed mental problems because of forcible conversion and died 

57 An 8-year-old kid subjected to beating for wearing a cross 

[+50]
In the spring of 1918, some 50 boys and several teachers were moved to Istanbul and 

kept in confi nement under strict control in one of the districts there. Here is where Meh-
met from Aintab escaped from 

Table 4. The route taken by Garnik Banean and other children in his group to Antou-
ra, starting from conscription to transportation

Hama [Armenian Reverend’s orphanage]        Homs      Baalbek       Beirut      Antoura orphanage 



79

Shushan Khachatryan: Halide Edip and the Turkifi cation of Armenian Children

Table 5. The route taken by Harutyun Alboyajyan and other children in his group to 
Antoura, starting from conscription to transportation

 

Mismiyah         Dera           Mismiyah          Damascus Mosque*        Jounieh*     Antoura orphanage*

*Accompanied by Adnan Bey 

Table 6. The route taken by Melgon Petrosean and other children in his group to An-
toura, starting from conscription to transportation

           Hama          Baalkek         Rayak          Beirut          Antoura orphanage