All language subtitles for The.River.Ran.Red.2008.WEBRip.x264-ION10

"How I loved
the snow-clad mountains.

"Clear, cool streams.

"The river,
an unbridled monster

"in the spring
pulverizing rocks

in the swift flow."

Khoren Davidson, survivor.

"At the water's edge,
some Armenian women,

"watching the slaughter,
pleaded,

"'Please shoot us and not cut
our throats with the knife!'

"and the kind Turk answered,
'Don't be afraid.

"The knives have
been sharpened well,

and you will not suffer much.'"Abraham Hartunian, survivor.

I was born on the banks

of the Euphrates River,

but my people
have long since vanished

from their historic homeland

in a genocide
that occurred in 1915.

The waters of the Euphrates
were clogged with bodies.

A nation bled to death.
The water turned red.

I knew that I had to make
a journey of discovery.

I would seek
the lost memory of my youth.

I would search for a missing part of my heritage.

So decades ago I started
to look for footprints

of witnesses who had walked
along the Euphrates,

searching for the faces
of those who survived.

I traveled to five continents
to discover Armenians

who would tell me
about the death marches

in the deserts through which
the Euphrates flows.

I knocked on many doors,

climbed many hills,

walked across hot desert sands.

This is the story
of the survivors I found.

It is the story of eyewitnesses

whose nightmares
have become my own.

It is the unvarnished,
horrendous,

incomprehensible story
of the Armenian Genocide

perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish Government

in 1915.

The Euphrates,

a legendary river
from the mists of history

flows past the supposed sites
of the Garden of Eden.

Civilizations and empires
have sought to dominate

this region from antiquity.

Many nations have struggled
for mastery

of these
Middle Eastern highlands.

Millenniums ago the Armenians
established kingdoms

around the source
of the Euphrates River.

They accepted Christianity
a thousand years

before the Turks
conquered their land.

At the start
of the First World War,

two million Christian Armenians lived in the area

that is now known
as the Republic of Turkey.

By the end of the war
only half a million remained.

The rest were swept down
this mighty river.

Michael Hagopian was determined to find Armenians

who had survived.

His odyssey led him down
the Euphrates

to the Syrian Desert,

the final graveyard
of the Armenian people.

The voices of the tortured,
their songs, beckoned him

all the way
to the Deir Zor desert

where the largest massacres
took place.

And then the next morning they started to take us

to the desert to Deir Zor,

where it was the point
of no return.

We knew that we would
never come back.

So when people got to Deir Zor with no clothing on,

they even fried
in the hot sun.

Far from these
burning deserts,

the world was engaged

in a gigantic struggle.

For political, economic
and religious reasons,

the Ottoman Turkish Government used the cover

of the First World War
to eliminate

its Armenian minority.

"A Turkish policeman said, 'In this land of Islam,

we don't need another religion.

That is why there is
a holy war against you.

You are the agents
of European powers

and need to be exterminated.'"

In the Middle East, the fault line

between cultural societies

ran through
the Armenian plateau.

The clash of civilization had
been simmering for centuries.

The final blow
was struck in April 1915.

Wartime Turkey was ruled
by a triumvirate

of powerful men,
including Enver Pasha,

Talaat Pasha and Djemal Bey.

The orders to eject the Armenians from their homes

were given by Talaat Pasha,
Minister of Interior.

He dispatched his orders
by telegraph

to all parts of the Empire.

"The Turks did not use loudspeakers

"or newspapers
to make announcements.

"They would beat drums in the neighborhoods and yell,

"'Tonight we will gather
all the Armenians

"and exile them.

"And if any Greek hides
an Armenian

he will be shot on the spot.'"

"All our family
was saved by a Turk,

"Mehmet Effendi,
who was a factory owner.

"That man saved thousands
of Armenians besides us.

"He gathered refugees
as workers. Saved them all.

He was a very good man.He was a Turk, yet a good man."

The Armenians were
very industrious people,

sure that they would be robbed
on the way-- deportation--

so they brought a lot of
their jewelry and gold

and so forth, to my father
to keep for them.

And he didn't dare keep it
in the house,

because he was afraid the Turks would come in and search.

So one day he took us
into the chicken yard

and took a brick out of
the mud brick wall,

and opened a hole behind it
and put a lot of jewelry

and gold coins
and so forth back in there,

and put the brick back in
and cemented it up with mud.

And I got a big thrill
out of being the watch dog,

because I was to keep
an eye out and make sure

that the Turkish gendarme
did not come around the corner

and catch my father doing this.

In Mezreh where we were living,
the Turkish town crier came

and said that, "Be ready,
in about couple of weeks--

couple of days we're going
to take you to another city."

And nobody hardly believed them,
but two days later,

some of those gendarmes came
and with their rifle butts,

hit the doors. "Get out over
there and get into the bunch

and we're going to take you
to another city.

All we're doing
is transporting you."

Evidently, it is very difficult

for the American people
or others

to understand the mentality of

the Turkish government
over there.

You don't-- There is no question
about it.

"You are-- Come out!

We are taking you down
to the government building"

or some such thing.

They're not giving any reason.

Any democratic country
where you know

about the personal rights
and freedoms and so on

did not exist over there.

They bang the door,
they're armed, you're not.

And, that's it. "Out!"

The Turks said that they are
taking us away from our homes

for our safety sake.

Then why didn't they take
their families?

Why didn't they take
their kids?

The break-up of their community

was a time of sorrow
for the Armenians.

For the Turks
it was a time of rejoicing.

The upheaval
left many children homeless.

They scattered
in the countryside.

Some fled to the forests.

"In the morning, I walked and walked.

"I saw a boy.

"Together we found a girl
and we hid in the forest.

"We saw the Turks looking
for Armenians in the forest.

"At night they would massacre
the men; during the day,

"the women and the boys.

"We were lying down
in the blood.

We woke up among the dead."

"How many dead did you see?"

"I can confirm
10,000-20,000.

We were walking
through the dead."

"Did you see the massacres
with your eyes?"

"Yes, I saw it with my eyes.

"They were massacring.

"They were yelling,
men were weeping,

"and we were crying too.

"We could see them with axes
and knives and clubs.

"I fled to the forest.

"There was a haystack there.

"During the night
I slept there.

"I was an orphan.

"The dogs-- the wolf dogs
in the forest.

I would cry. I would dig in
and bury myself."

The government started
rounding up Armenian children

to dispose of them
in mass drownings.

Terrified orphans
were everywhere.

"The Turks turned
to the city's greatest Hoca,

"'Shall we slaughter
the small children too?

"Does the Koran give
give us permission?'

'Yes,' he answered, 'Slaughter them too. The Koran permits.'"

Abraham Hartunian.

"When the Turks entered,

"the two fearful children
ran away.

"The other one saw that
I was being beaten,

"and started to yell,
'Auntie, Auntie!'

"'Get lost!', they said.

"They grabbed him
and sliced off his head,

"because the child loved me
a great deal, and didn't want

"the Turks to beat me up.

"So they cut off his head,
and cast it aside.

"We took his head and tried
to stick it back to his body.

"But it was impossible.

"I didn't know if I could
glue it on to save him.

"My sister was crying,
all my relatives were crying.

"The child was in the center,
like a chicken,

"his head fluttering
from side to side,

"his body jumping
to the other side.

We didn't know what to do."

"The lone voice
of one Moslem priest

"was heard pleading,

"'Moslems, it is a sin
to kill innocent Armenians.

It is against the law of Allah.'" Ephraim Jernazian.

"The evening before being deported,

"a crier from the minaret
called, saying,

"'All those who want
to change their religion,

"can stay and register
at city hall tomorrow.'

"Quite a few stayed back--
rich people who didn't want

"to leave behind
their land and wealth.

"The next day they changed
their religion.

They became Moslems."

The Armenians were considered

a troublesome
national minority,

with a different religion,
language and ethnicity.

For the Ottoman Turks,
religion was a key factor

in the Armenian Genocide.

The choice was clear--

Conversion or death
in the desert.

Some estimates
claim over 200,000--

10 to 15 percent
of the Christian population--

converted.

We changed our names.

We disguised ourselves as Turks,
and we went to Konya

and we lived in a Turkish town,
Turkish neighborhood as Turks.

And my father used to go
to mosque, and so forth.

That's how we survived.

Turkish people put me
into Turkish orphanage

and since they put me there,

they give all about
300 orphans with us

test of who can call Turks

to the prayer.

They picked me out because
I could sing better,

I-- they told me.

Naturally, I had to accept it
because that was a force,

and I did that while I was
in Turkish orphanage.

I show you what I mean.

They had circumcised me.

Because they knew that
my father

was quite religious man,
Armenian.

And they made me dig up
some of the famous celebrities

who were buried
in the church yard--

dig them up and made me
urinate on them.

Made me urinate on them.

Horrible stories
kept coming to my office.

Unspeakable, unbelievable.

The eyewitness testimonies
of survivors overwhelmed me.

And made me urinate on them.

"Dig them up and made me--"

For 40 years
I've been filming survivors

of the Armenian Genocide.

As a survivor myself
I often wondered,

"Why did it happen?"

"How come it happened
to the Armenians?"

I have finally come
to the conclusion

that it was a clash
of civilizations,

a clash of nationalities
defined by religion.

The Turks conquered Armenia
some 700 years ago,

yet the Armenians
continued to occupy

a strategic geographical part
of the Ottoman Empire.

In the 19th Century,
the Armenians were influenced

by European ideas,
Westernization, equality,

freedom, justice and democracy.

The Turkish ruling class feared

the Armenians would break up
their empire.

So they inflamed
religious fanaticism

to slaughter, deport,
exterminate

and wipe the Armenians
off the face of the map.

From the capital
in Constantinople,

telegraphs were being
sent to all the provinces

to coordinate
the deportation plan.

Local lists were prepared
and posted in public places

and on doors of Armenian homes.

One group from Yozgat passed
through the town of Sivas

where there was
a Christian mission

and a brave American woman.

My Aunt Polly,

Mary Louise Graffam,

was quite noted because she went
out with these people

on the trek when they were
walking-- deported.

She said to the Governor,"I'm going with these people."

And he said, "You can't go
with them. I forbid you."

She said, "Well, I'm going
anyhow," and she did.

It took the Turks three days
to figure out

how to force her to turn back.

They were afraid of America.

They didn't dare threaten her
or do anything to her.

But they finally put a pistol
to the head of her driver

who was also a personal friend,
and told her they would shoot

this man if she didn't
turn back.

Well, she realized that she got
as far as she could.

She turned back.

While on
the deportation caravan,

Polly Graffam reported
from Malatya ,

a town of eastern Turkey,
125 miles southeast of Sivas.

Later she sent a dispatch
to the U.S. State Department,

saying, "I have tried to write only what I have seen and know

to be true, the valley was
full of corpses."

It was a common sight,
everywhere we were passing by,

there were bodies.

"A woman was seven months pregnant.

"Two policemen bet
about the sex of her child.

"If it was a girl, the winner
would get two coins.

"If a boy,
he would get five coins.

"They slit her belly.

"The policeman who won the bet got five coins.

"After three hours
on the road,

"the woman and child died.

I saw this
with my own eyes."

I saw it with my own eyes,

a woman didn't have no milk
in her breast,

so her baby was crying.

One of these Turkish soldiers
grabbed the baby with--

by the arm, tossed
the little thing up into the air

and another Turkish soldier
caught it with his bayonet

on his rifle.

She made a little squeak,
and she was gone.

I suppose I should hate
the Turks, but as a Christian

I must learn to forgive them,
but I will never forget

the horrible tragedy that
the government and some Turks

imposed on the 1 and 1/2 million
Armenians who perished.

First of all, as we
came down the hills, into--

they came around a lot
of Turkish men and women

and they were grabbing
Armenian children.

A Turkish sergeant
in the Turkish army grabbed me

by the arm, by the hand,
and pulled it away

from my mother and took me away.

And weeks later, evidently
the Turkish government

had changed their mind
and a proclamation came around

that they must-- they should not
save the Armenian children.

So they came and the policemen,
the Turkish police,

knocked the door
and took me away.

They took me away
to a vacant Armenian home.

There were a lot of
empty houses

that were made into a prison.

So there I met my sister,
and there were a lot of,

at least about,
close to about 100 children.

The very next day
they lined us up.

They were going to take us
toward the Euphrates River.

Now, I found out later
what they had done.

What happened was
a Turkish woman that had got--

had come to like me very much
had realized what was going

to happen to the children,
had come there

and he bribed
one of the gendarmes,

Turkish soldiers,
with two pieces of silver,

and grabbed my arm and took me away from the group.

Later we learned
from the stories,

these soldiers came and told
the people how they took them

to Kemakh Boghazi, a spot
near the Euphrates River

which is very treacherous
and dumped them there,

because they weren't going
to waste their bullets.

Well, the Turkish government
had evidently realized that

these children were going
to grow up and remember

all the things that had
happened to their parents,

and their families,
and so they decided to kill,

not save the children.

This gentleman--
he was a lawyer, by the way,

Turkish lawyer-- he gave me
a present to the local Turks.

He'd become to be friend
with them.

And he gave me
a present to them.

You were given as a present?

As a present.
He said, "You like this boy?

Okay, you can have him."

And they took. In those days
Armenian children had no value.

I mean,
you could give them away.

You could kill them, you could
do anything you want.

If you would ask me
who I am, I couldn't tell you

because I don't know
what's my real name.

I don't know when I was born.

I don't know when I was born.

I don't know
who my parents they were.

When I was little,
about four years maybe,

I remember I was living
in a Turkish family.

There were a lot of people
over there-- kids too.

But I was not allowed
to mix with them.

I was eating separately.

I was not allowed to go
in the garden or outside,

so I was watching
from the window in the garden.

Eventually I was adopted
from an orphanage

by an Armenian family,
and they gave me the name

of Jirair Suchiasian.

Still, I don't know
what's my name,

where I was born,
who was my parents.

Now here I am. I am somebody,
but I am nobody.

Father Guerguerian,retired priest

of the Roman Catholic Church,

also has pondered long
over the issue

of his lost family,
his lost heritage.

Thirty-eight years after his
parents had been massacred,

he returned to the land
of his birth

and made
an outstanding discovery.

1953,

I went to the town Gurun

where I am born in 1911.

Mehmet Zeidan,

who spoke Armenian and Turkish,

came to see me with other Turks

in my hotel room.

And he asked me many,
many questions.

And this gentleman came

and put before my feet

a basket of fruit,
and in Turkish language

he told me,
"This is from your garden."

And I told him
in Turkish language,

"Thank you,
thank you very much."

The man

lifted up his arms,

and he asked me forgiveness.

And I told him, "God bless you,
God forgive you,

but I don't know who you are."

He told me that he killed
father, three brothers;

and he confiscated
our home and our garden.

As
Father Guerguerian before me,

I also wanted to know the truth of what happened

during those dark days of 1915.

I would go
to the Syrian Desert,

to the banks
of the Euphrates River,

all the way to Deir Zor,

to the final graveyard
of the Armenian people.

My journey passed through
Aleppo in northern Syria,

once a part of the former
Turkish Ottoman Empire.

During the genocide,
refugees had tried to escape

the death marches
by hiding in Aleppo

where they had found
friendly Arabs.

U.S. Consul
Jesse B. Jackson,

in a special report
to the Secretary of State

on March 4, 1918, wrote:

"One of the most terrible sights ever seen

"in Aleppo was the arrival
in August of 1915

"from the province of Sivas
some 5,000 emaciated,

"dirty, ragged women
and children

"traveling perhaps
a thousand miles

and reaching Aleppo about four months afterwards."

A portion of Polly Graffam's group

of deportees from Sivas
had survived.

In Aleppo, Michael Hagopian
interviewed many Arabs

who remembered the arrival
of these Armenians from Sivas

and elsewhere fleeing
from Turkish atrocities.

I wanted only eyewitness testimonies--

what people had seen
with their own eyes--

not hearsay.

Arab chieftains told me
how Armenians had been

on forced marches
to the desert.

And how they had been driven to Deir Zor to be finished off.

"Do you know why
the Armenians came here?"

"They came from Turkey,
because they were massacred

by the Turkish people."

"And when did they come?"

"I don't know exactly,
but we used to say that

this child was born during
the Armenian massacre year."

"And how did they come?"

"They came walking, barefoot,

"their clothes were torn;

"and their physical condition
was very poor.

They settled in towns
like Aleppo."

From ancient times
the city of Aleppo

has been situated
on a major trade route

between East and West.

Aleppo has thrived
as a commercial center

for centuries.

Hotel Baron in Aleppo, owned
and operated by Armenians,

has been the legendary
gathering place

for such notables
as Prince Hussein of Iraq

and Lawrence of Arabia.

For all intents and purposes,
it was the headquarters

of the Turkish army,
although it was run

on the lines of
an ordinary hotel

with the staff mostly Armenian.

Djemal Pasha,
the third member

of the ruling triumvirate

used this hotel
as his headquarters

during the war.

Seven decades later
Michael Hagopian occupied

the same second floor room
in his search for survivors.

In the basement of the hotel
was a secret chamber.

During the massacres
and deportations

of the Armenians,
a young intellectual

from Constantinople
was hiding there.

His name was Aram Andonian.

He had become a friend
of an Armenian chambermaid

who took care of
Djemal Pasha's room.

In this way he monitored
the activities

and communications
of the Turkish Government.

Andonian's revelation
of Turkish orders

for deportation and massacre
were confirmed

by Western consular agents.

In a letter dated June 5,
1915, United States Consul

Jessie Jackson
of Aleppo reported

to U.S. Ambassador
Henry Morgenthau:

"There is a living stream of Armenians

"pouring into Aleppo,

"they all come
under heavy armed escort,

"usually from 300 to 500
at a time,

"and consist of old men,
women, and children.

"They are being scattered
over the desert

"to starve or die of disease
in the burning heat.

"It is without doubt
a carefully planned scheme

to thoroughly extinguish
the Armenian race."

Far below in the
rugged mountains of Anatolia

a family was on a death march
to the desert.

Their son was desperately
trying to save them,

if he could only get them
to hide out in Aleppo.

Dr. Navasart Deirmendjian
was a major

in the Turkish medical corps.

As a medical student
in Constantinople,

he had played backgammon
with Talaat Pasha.

Now he rushed to Constantinople

and with the help
of a German officer,

received an audience
with Talaat Pasha

who was in charge
of the deportation.

"He came to me and said,

"'Do you know
how to play backgammon?'

"'Yes, I know a little.

I know enough to beat you!'"

Dr. Deirmendjian approached
his old friend, Talaat.

He reminded Talaat of when they had played backgammon together.

"He grabbed me
and shook my hand.

"And he said,
'I am very thankful.

"I've missed you a lot.
Now, what do you want?'

"My family. I don't want
them to be driven further.

"Could they come back
to Aleppo or to Konya?'

"He sent a telegram
to the governor of Aleppo.

"The telegram read,

"'These people have to be found within 24 hours,

"and sent to Aleppo,
and to stay in Aleppo

"to the end of the war.'

"These people in 24 hours
they have to be in Aleppo.

They found them.
They came back."

Talaat's control and knowledge of the caravans'

exact whereabouts
was astonishing.

He could pick a single family
out of thousands

on the deportation routes.

The next year
Dr. Deirmendjian's parents

were deported again.

This time
they were slaughtered.

Armin Wegner, a German,
photographed the devastation

in the Aleppo region.

I came in Turkey
in April 1915.

I came as a member
of the Red Cross,

of the German Red Cross.

I was always willing to speak
of this terrible thing.

Wegner, together
with many other Germans,

condemned the Turks for their premeditated genocide

of the Armenians.

They denounced the complicity
of their own government.

Wegner's photographs cover the horrors of the deportations

to the Syrian Desert.

He moved from one concentration camp to another,

east of Aleppo.

He noticed how slowly
the caravans moved,

accompanied by decimated,
bedraggled refugees on foot.

U.S. Consul Jackson sent
Agent August Bernan

to investigate the caravans
along the Euphrates.

On September 10, 1916
he reported:

"On the right bank of the Euphrates

"between Meskene and Deir Zor,

"Armenians are penned up
in the open like cattle

"without shelter,
almost no clothing,

"fed barely by food
altogether insufficient.

"As far as the eye can reach,
mounds of 200-300 corpses

"are buried pell-mell .

Nearly 60,000 Armenians
are buried there."

On his search for witnesses, Michael Hagopian

moved southward
along the Euphrates.

He passed through
Meskene and Rakka

identifying the locations
of the concentration camps.

Recently discovered pictures in the German Military Archives

support the already
existing evidence:

Lt. Captain Hellmuth von Muücke ,of the German Imperial Navy,

photographed the death camps
along the Euphrates.

"Wherever there was no water,

"wherever it was thorny, rocky,

"they made us walk
in those areas.

Thirsty, hungry,
our money gone.

"Three months later,my mother who had no more milk

"to give to the baby,
the baby died.

"She couldn't tie her
to my back any longer,

so she gave it into my arms.

"'It's too heavy.
I can't carry it.' I said.

"She said, 'Daughter, place her under a bush. Let's go.

"I replied, 'I won't place
my sister on the ground.'

"Meantime,
the Turks were pressing us,

"'Walk, keep going,
don't sit down.'

"The child was going to fall
under our feet from my arms.

"She said, 'Put her
under that bush. Let's go.'

"I won't put my sister
under a bush and leave.

"'You put her there,' I said.

"She said, 'Daughter,
you are the sister.

"You will forget,' she said.

"'Mother, I won't forget.
Don't force me to do this.'

"She made me do it.
We put her under the bush.

The soldiers
were poking us to move on.

"That night there was
a very heavy rain.

"I said, 'Mother, I want to go and bring my sister.

"I know the way. Do you think
they would let me go?'

I cried and cried,
and I fell asleep."

"One night I was awakened

"by the sound
of my father crying.

"He was sobbing
just like a child.

"I reached out to him
and wiped his tears away

"with my fingers, and curled upon my mat to sleep.

"Then I heard
someone singing, far away

"in another section
of the camp.

"I can hear, to this day,
that unrehearsed duet

"the sound of my father crying and the melancholy lamentation

"of the song, his voice
drifting with the wind

"through the gorges
of the Euphrates,

over the waters,
on to the desert beyond."

Night before Turks
were going to kill

the Armenians,

I woke up middle of the night.

I heard

all Armenians hollering

in Turkish language,

'Allah, Allah, nerdasin'

This is, in English,
I will explain.

They were asking God,
"Where are you, God?"

"Why are we being punished
so much this way?"

"Why don't you save us,
dear God?"

Another day,it was probably mid-afternoon,

a woman utterly exhausted,

looking up
into the heavens, said:

"God, we are suffering.

Let this child not suffer
any more."

And with that, she hurled

her young child down the creek,30-40 feet below.

"I could see the Euphrates River.

"I thought I saw bodies
of people I knew.

"I would get close to the bank.

"I would see hundreds of naked human bodies passing by.

In a half an hour, you would
see more hundreds pass by."

We lived close
to river, the Euphrates.

My brother and I
and some of the kids

would go swimming in the river.

And, lo and behold,
we used to see

bodies floating
down the river, you know.

And as we tried to swim to them,
but the current was so,

so fast that we couldn't
catch up with them.

Hundreds and thousands of them.

Not far from the river
a drama was unfolding.

Children buried in the sands,

little girls wandering
aimlessly in the wilderness.

"My mother said to me, 'Azad, run away.

"I'll also run after you.'

"She knew the way-- I did not
see where she ran.

"We walked-- we walked
for a month.

"We're passing through
a large wilderness.

"We are walking
through the desert,

"two children,
my brother on my back.

"Suddenly we heard a voice.

"The sky blue,
the ground sandy

"'Water, water.'

"A voice was calling.

"We ran toward the voice.
We saw that it was a girl.

"We found a girl buried.

"Only her head
was above the sand.

"'Water, water',
she's yelling.

"We ran to where
the voice was coming from.

"We started to dig down
to her shoulders

"where she was buried.

"The Turk soldier had done
all kinds of tortures.

"After torturing her,
after raping her,

"he buried her in the sand.

"'You might as well
die here like a dog.

"Hundreds, thousands
died a dog's death.

"You might
as well expire here.'

He left her, and went away."

"Suddenly we heard
many babies crying.

"We ran towards the sound,
and saw many babies buried,

"only their heads
above the ground.

"Our guards got on their horses and charged towards

"the buried children
and trampled them to death.

The crying voices stopped."
John Yervant.

As people heard of my mission, they wrote to me

from Canada, Australia,

Europe, South America,
the Middle East

and from every part
of the United States.

My files expanded.

Year after year
I continued my research.

I wondered,
'Were there any survivors

who still lived on the banks of the Euphrates,

in the wilderness of Deir Zor?'

During the summer
and autumn of 1915,

some 870,000 Armenians
arrived in Syria.

They were spread out
in three lines:

one moving toward
what now is Northern Iraq

another moving southward
from Aleppo to Damascus.

The largest group of 590,000
moved along the Euphrates

toward Deir Zor.

Along the path
between Aleppo and Deir Zor

deportees were dying
at the rate of 500-600 a day.

The banks of the Euphrates
were clogged

with slow moving multitudes.

I was finally approaching Deir Zor

on the lower Euphrates.

In 1915 this was
an isolated desert village;

and a wilderness,
a place of extinction,

a place of no return.

To this day,
in the 21st Century,

Deir Zor is still branded
on the Armenian soul

as "hell on Earth".

The dreaded outpost of the Ottoman Empire,

Deir Zor,
has become in our day,

a thriving Syrian town.

Michael Hagopian
found a few Armenians

still remained in Deir Zor.

He had to be cautious
in seeking evidence

of the genocide of 1915.

Officials told Hagopian
that they feared the Turks

could stop the flow of water
to Syria

if the Syrians assisted him
in the search for witnesses.

"You say events took place."

"Those events that occurred they came from Turkey,

"through the wilderness.

"But the Turk soldiers did not allow the Armenians

"to reach the Euphrates.

"Because they wanted to kill
and starve them.

"Between the Euphrates
and Khabour Rivers,

"is the wilderness of Deir Zor.

"The massacre took place there,the massacre of Deir Zor.

"10 kilometers from Deir Zor
there is a small hill,

and beyond that
is all a wilderness".

In 1916, Armenians who had survived

the death marches,

were forced into this
forsaken desert prison.

This region became
the dumping ground

of unwanted Armenians.

The largest massacres
of the Armenian Genocide

took place
in the concentration camps

of this desert triangle
between the Euphrates

and Khabour rivers.

This hell hole region
is commonly referred to

as the Deir Zor Desert.

192,000 were slaughtered
out right

in the vicinity of Deir Zor.

At Sheddeh another
200,000 were killed

by sword and by fire
in burning caves.

At Ras ul Ain convicts
were let out of prison

to butcher 300,000
defenseless deportees,

old men, women and children.

German Consul Rossler reported:

"300 to 500 deportees are taken out

"of the concentration camp
each day and butchered

"at a distance often kilometers from Ras ul Ain.

The corpses are then
thrown into the river."

Nium Sukkar was an Arab boy

who witnessed the same events.

They were putting
all the sick people

that couldn't walk
or couldn't eat.

They were pouring
gasoline on them

and burning them to death.

Not only this one ditch
but I saw three, four

other ditches, all the same way.

Before hiding out in the basement of Hotel Baron,

in Aleppo, Aram Andonian
had been a runaway refugee

in the Deir Zor region.

His greatest fear
was that the Turks would deny

their crimes after the war.

Andonian's exhaustive research and field investigations

help us to understand
the final horrific events

of the genocide.

He interviewed survivors.

He sketched in great
detail the places of torture,

burning and death on the banks of the Euphrates River.

Others followed
the documentation

started by Andonian.

They searched
the deserts for bones

and surviving Armenians.

"The Armenians

"among them my father
and other friends

"took some small trucks
and went to gather the bones

in the desert."

They found the desert full of

bleached bones
as far as the eye could see

on either side,
strewn on the ground,

thousands of skeletons.

"I saw the bones
with my own eyes,

and gathered them
with the others."

"You also gathered them?"

"Yes, I also gathered them."

"How do we know
these were Armenian bones?"

"There were
no human bones there

because there are
no Arabs there."

"Maybe they were
animal bones."

"No, no, no, no,
animal bones

are different
from those of humans."

"Maybe they were
the bones of Arabs?"

"There were
no Arab bones there.

On this side of the river,
there were no Arabs."

"Maybe the Armenians
killed the Turks?"

"The Armenians
killed the Turks?"

"Yes, maybe these
were Turkish bones."

"Good question,
but the Turkish soldiers

did not come here,
nor was there a battle here,

to give the Armenians
the opportunity

to massacre the Turks.

"When the caravans arrived,
the Armenians were naked.

"Many men
without anything to wear

"and the women barely able
to conceal themselves.

People in that condition
are not able to wage war."

Michael Hagopian
was determined

to find survivors

who might still live
in the remote deserts.

His film crew explored
the region of Deir Zor

seeking evidence
of the footprints

destitute Armenians had left
in these alien Arab lands.

"Talk to us about the arrival of the Armenians

to Syria."

"They came the year
of the genocide.

Some were adopted by the Arabs and some by the Kurds."

"And how did they arrive?"

"Some were massacred
by the Turks,

and others were driven here."

"What was the number
of the arrivals?"

"More than 2000, maybe 3000."

In small villages

I searched for
eyewitness survivors

who had escaped
the Turkish atrocities

and who were still living
among the Arabs.

In the twilight I heard
a voice in the distance

a woman singing in Armenian.
It was an old woman.

Her name was Serpouhi.

She led me to
the two other survivors

who still lived on the banks
of the Euphrates.

Serpouhi had survived
the long march to the desert.

She married an Arab,
a Moslem man, a kind man,

who showered her
with many gifts.

So that she would not forget
her Armenian heritage,

Serpouhi had tattooed
on her wrist

her family name, "Papazian",
and the year "1915".

Serpouhi told me
a horrible story

of how she was rounded up
by Turkish soldiers

and driven into a cave
at a place called Sheddeh.

She was stuffed into a burning furnace in the earth.

In that terrifying place
was an Armenian boy

she had fallen in love with.

After their rescue, he was
renamed Abdulla Garabed,

and married off
to a Moslem girl.

Over the years
the pain was softened;

Abdulla Garabed had given
his daughter in marriage

to Serpouhi's son,
hoping to carry on

their shared heritage.

"Were you alone when you came

or were there many of you?"

"We came till that bridge.

"Some of the caravans
continued, but we stayed.

I was crying."

"Were you too many?"

"Oh, many, oh so many tents."

The final survivor
of the fire lived in Sheddeh,

by himself in a hut
on the horizon.

He was born in Zeitun,
on the Armenian plateau.

He, also, had been cast
into the underground cave

along with Serpouhi,
Abdulla Garabed

and the other
terrified children.

A little later Turkish women
came into the cave and began

to shout, 'Infidels, do you
have any children to sell?'

About 10 mothers, tears
flowing down their cheeks,

stood up and holding
their children's hands,

began to walk
towards the Turkish women.

The children were sobbing.

The Turkish woman
tried to buy the boy

from Zeitun.

He refused to leave
his little sisters.

The opening to the cave was
closed and a fire started.

Hundreds of helpless,
sun stroked,

starving women and children

were locked
in this dark chamber.

Only seven survived.

Three of them were still
living when Hagopian arrived.

One was Serpouhi,
one was Abdulla Garabed,

and the other was the boy
from Zeitun.

The Arabs gave him a new
religion and a new name.

They called him Mubarak.

He retains the most searing
memory of the burning cave.

"They separated the old

"from the young,

"and they separated the males
from the females.

"They placed us children
in a cave, locked the opening

"with wood and burned the wood.

"The ones that were near the door and close to the fire

"were killed immediately,

"while the rest who were
far from the fire,

"suffocated from the smoke.

"The survivors,
I was one of them,

"remained 15 days
without food or water.

"The cave was cold,and the heat from our exhaling

"and body formed moisture
on the cave wall,

"we squeezed it to drink
the water from it.

"After they left us,
we dug the cave wall,

formed some type of stairs,
and escaped."

Serpouhi had walked a 1000 miles,

all the way
from Constantinople.

She had seen a 1000 deaths
in the burning sands,

and in the waters
of the Euphrates.

In her torment she unlocked
for me the mystery

of the final survivors
of Deir Zor.

To fill the void in her soul,
she often sat on the banks

of this mighty river of death,

thinking of the old days.

The voices of her youth,the verses of the great poets,

still lingered in her heart.

"The ages pass,
no tidings come.

"Eternal sorrow is my doom.

"Tell them I die of grief
and tell how hope is dead

"within my heart.

"I am exiled
from my ruined nest,

"and roam with faltering steps.

"When shall night end this
day's last glimmering spark?

Where shall my weary feet
tonight find rest?"

For me this was a long journey.

I do not know
if my search is finished,

or if I have found
all of the footprints

of those who survived.

I interviewed and filmed
some 400 who had been

on the caravan trails
along the Euphrates River.

I found survivors
in many lands,

strangers to each other,

speaking in
13 different languages.

But they had one story
to tell the world.

"We are all survivors
of a simple truth

we saw a colossal genocide.

We witnessed it
with our own eyes."