Skulls and bones of Armenians burnt alive by Turkish soldiers can be seen in the photo above. This photo was taken on the ruins of a house in the village of Akhjan, Mush Province, Western Armenia, where hundreds of villagers – men and women, elderly and children – were gathered and burnt alive.
Some of the photographs taken by Frank Danielian in Western Armenia were published in the contemporary American press. This particular photograph was first printed on June 28, 1917, in the “Leslie’s Illustrated” magazine.
In the years of the Armenian Genocide, Turkish rioters employed various methods for the most rapid and effective killing of people. For instance, the Turks would shut all the windows and doors of a house and throw their victims in through the chimney until the building was filled with people. Then, they would pour oil on them and light it up. Thousands of Armenians have been killed this way.
The author of this photo is an American Armenian Frank Danielian. In 1915-1917, he served in the 4th Armenian Volunteer Regiment and had the opportunity to visit areas of Western Armenia occupied by Russian troops.
The photographs taken by him are visual evidence of the monstrous brutality of Turkish and Kurdish criminals against the Armenian population.
“Whoever drives through devastated Armenia now cannot but shudder. In such an unusual fashion do these endless distances of ruins and death speak to them.
There is not a single tree, not a single cliff, not a single piece of moss that wouldn’t be a witness to the beating of a human or wouldn’t be defiled by streams of spilled blood.
There is not a single channel, river, or stream that wouldn’t be a carrier of hundreds, thousands of dead bodies to eternal oblivion.
There is not a single abyss, not a single gorge that would not be an open-air grave with depths filled with piles of whitening skeletons. Almost nowhere did the killers dedicate either time or labor to bury their victims.”
Henri Barbie, French journalist
Photo source: Leslie’s Illustrated, June 28, 1917
