Summary
Edita G. Gzoyan
Key words – Armenian Genocide, forced transfer of children, League of Nations, Aleppo Rescue Home, Karen Jeppe, humanitarian assistance, Armenian women and genocide, eyewitness testimonies.
Forcible child transfer is one of the five genocidal acts listed in Article II of the Genocide Convention listed co-equally with acts of killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and measures to prevent births. Forcible child transfer was part of the Armenian Genocide administered by the Turkish authorities.
This article deals with the issue of forced transfer of children and women during the Armenian Genocide. It presents the humanitarian efforts of the League of Nations to save the Armenians from Muslim captivity. To this end the League of Nations established a Commission of Enquiry with its headquarters in Aleppo and Constantinople.
The Aleppo Rescue Home was administered by the League of Nation Commissioner Karen Jeppe who saved Islamized Armenians from the French zone of occupation. In the League of Nations Archives 1464 individual surveys of the rescued Armenians are kept, from which 573 were girls and women. These are eyewitness testimonies that represent the policy of forced child transfer during the Armenian Genocide. The testimonies of these female inmates also represent and affirm the organizational pattern of the Armenian Genocide.