Sounds of Silence III, The
Ankara's Armenians Speak

On the eve of WorLd War I, half of the Armenian population of 28.858 in the Ankara sanjak, lived in the city of Ankara, the administrative centre of the province. The distinguishing feature of the Ankara community was the high percentage of Catholics; according to the 1914 census, 70% of an Armenian population of n.246 in the city was Catholic. Another characteristic of the community was that they spoke Turkish, and aLso wrote Turkish albeit usingthe Armenian alphabet.
The city's educational infrastructure was also considerably developed: Six Catholic schooLs (1,200 students); three Apostolic schools and colleges (400 students), two vocational schools, two children's nurseries; and two Protestant schools. The total number of students attending these schools was more than 2,000. Despite this, a considerable part of the popuLation still spoke Turkish; and the use of Armenian was spreading sLowly. (...)
In early September 1915, both Apostolic and Catholic women, children and elderly Armenians, were evacuated from their homes, which were sealed by the police. A mass of people, numbering in the thousands, was assembLed at the train station outside the city; they remained here for at least 25 days, this was a period long enough for their property to be extorted, and persuade the most attractive young girls to convert and marry a Muslim. Those who accepted the offer were allowed to return to the city, while the others were eventually sent to Eskisehir and Konya, where they joined the line of deportation to Syria.
During the early years of the Turkish Republic, a number of refugees from the interior provinces, sometimes displaced by insecure conditions in certain provinces, settled in Ankara: Some had converted to Islam during the War, others, particularly young women, had married Turkish residents of the city on the basis of a permit their future husbands obtained from the administration. There were also some who were able to obtain the administrative document allowing them to settle in Ankara, however this was onLy possible on one strict condition, and that was conversion to Islam.
It is highly probable that a great majority of the testimonies you will read in the coming pages belong to the members of these families who all underwent their unique experence.