British Indian Troops Evacuation from Aintab, March 6, 1919

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Cesar Jacques Chekijian On June 3, 2016 at 9:35am

After the end of WW-I and the fall of the Ottomans, the photo below is of the British troops pulling out of Aintab on November 6, 1919. Most of the British soldiers were Indians, which was a Commonwealth of the British Empire. The British had over 600,000 Indian soldiers fighting for them in WW-I. Most of whom were in the Middle East, fighting against the Ottomans. Within days of the "British" abandoning Aintab, the French military replacement them on behalf the Allies, who had taken over Turkey since 1918. BY end of 1922, all the Allies pulled out of Turkey, and the last French military left Aintab with all the Armenians late in November 1922.

British Indian Troops Evacuation from Aintab, March 6, 1919

Marash Girl's maternal grandparents were from Aintab, but luckily they got out way before the genocide began . . . perhaps as early as 1900.  She remembers them telling her about leaving on a ship, and all of the Turks begging them not to leave, telling her grandparents how much they liked them and how much they wanted her grandparents to stay.  But her grandparents (Yester and Garabed Vartanian) were wiser, and left, to settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, invest in a three-decker house (47 Vassal Lane) in which they lived (on the third floor) and rented out the other floors. Her grandfather set up shop in Harvard Square, on Mt Auburn Street, near St. Paul's Catholic Church. An immigrant success story . . .