Russian soldiers standing over the remains of Armenians burned by Ottoman forces in the Anatolian village of Sheikhalan, 1915.

December 9, 2024

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Colourised by @color_by_klimbim.

The following is excerpts of Danish-German soldier Heinrich Jessen’s diary entry from June 1916, who served in a machine-gun battalion in the Middle East. Translated by myself

Note: This is a purely historical post on a Danish-German soldier’s eyewitness account. Please do not report, even if you disagree with the eyewitness account 🙏

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“There are many prisoners here, they’re Englishmen and Indians from Kut-al-Amara some 300 km south of Baghdad, and they’re on their way to “Konia”. Some 13,000 – 14,000 prisoners were taken down there, they sell anything they posses for some Turkish money so they can buy something to eat. Their caretaking is moderate, I sure wouldn’t wish to be a prisoner in Turkish captivity.

When one sees this cruelty, indeed it’s almost indescribable what happens down here. We sometimes meet large hoards of ‘Armenians’, tied together by handcuffs, these hungry, tormented people, ‘heretic beasts’ like the Turks call them. Since the Armenians are a Christian folk.

When one sees their tattered clothing, their desperate glances, when they approach us with outstretched arms, begging for help and alms, then it strikes you in the heart, so much that we coulda’ mown down the (Turkish) guards with machine-guns, but obviously we weren’t allowed to.

All the bread we possessed we gave them, but the guards sent us angry glances. It’s a shame some people must be tortured like this.

They invaded their lands, stole everything they owned, burned down their houses, killed the children, sold the girls, and the men first had to labour for as long they were able to, and when they collapsed they were marched out to the deserts for the jackals to prey.

Here and there some of them fled, we too had a few, the Turks didn’t dare to check our place for them. We could make use of a servant, and for that time he had peace from the Turks. In the next days we’ll meet many English and Indian prisoners.”