page_title: Grace Knapp
section_title: Massacres in Bitlis
hierarchical_section_title: Grace Knapp / Witness of the Armenian Genocide / Massacres in Bitlis
caption_attribution_description: English: Armenian monastery near Bitlis
context_page_description: Grace H. Knapp was an American Christian missionary and teacher who served in the Ottoman Empire. During her time as a missionary, Knapp was a witness to the Armenian Genocide. During the Armenian Genocide, Knapp was stationed in Van and eventually described the events in the region in two published books describing her experiences. The first book, The Mission at Van in Turkey in War Time, describes in detail the massacres of Armenians by Turkish soldiers during the Van Resistance. Her second book, The Tragedy of Bitlis, relates the narratives of two nurses who witnessed massacres of Armenians in Bitlis. Her recounts of Bitlis are one of the few written accounts of massacres in that area.
context_section_description: Although Knapp was not in Bitlis during the time of the Armenian Genocide, she published narratives from two nurses who were present at the time. In the preface of her book, Knapp states that the accounts were word for word narratives from nurses Grisell Mclaren and Myrtle Shane. She also says that Bitlis was an important place for her since it was her birthplace and her family's residence for several generations.
  Miss Mclaren's story begins with the description of the situation in Van where she was a nurse in a hospital. During the siege, Mclaren was told at the request of Cevdet Bey to remain in the hospital during the siege. Meanwhile, she wrote, "We pictured our Armenian friends as being driven from their homes and cruelly massacred." Mclaren did not remain in Van long and was relocated to Bitlis by boat across Lake Van. On their way to Bitlis, Mclaren and the others stopped at the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross located on an island for a meal. However, upon arrival, the priests said that Turkish soldiers visited the monastery a couple of days before and murdered several priests and orphans. The soldiers then ransacked the church, for which Mclaren writes:
  In the church we found everything overturned. Vestments and other articles used in the church services were scattered about on the floor, torn, broken, and destroyed. Silver crosses had been carried away, every scrap of silver or gold had been torn off the mitres and other articles; not one thing of value was to be found anywhere.
  Mclaren and her company arrived in the village of Tatvan located on the western shore of Lake Van. While in Tatvan, she describes a scene in which about fifty survivors of a massacre appeared before them. The survivors, who were mainly women, told Mclaren that their children had been killed and that their bodies were thrown into Lake Van. They also related how their daughters were kidnapped by local Kurds. When the women decided to complain to the local government of Bitlis, Mclaren remarked that they were not aware that "the affair had been ordered by the government."
  Mclaren remained in the village as local Kurds continued to engage in massacre throughout the countryside. This was followed by the mass arrests of Armenian men aged ten years and above on June 22. On June 25, the ongoing massacres were further assisted by Cevdet Bey who arrived in Bitlis from Van accompanied with 8,000 reinforcement troops known as "human butchers." Those arrested were then escorted out of the city and killed using axes and shovels. Mclaren related that those who resisted arrest were killed and their houses were burned. According to historian Raymond Kévorkian, it took two weeks for the Armenian male population of Bitlis to be eliminated. Soon after the arrests, the deportation of women and children began on 29 June. Mclaren and other American colleagues tried to save young girls under their care from deportation by appealing to the Vali. The Vali then refused and stated that "an order had come from Constantinople that not an Armenian should remain in Bitlis." Meanwhile, as Mclaren relates, "the police seemed to have gone mad in their thirst for Armenian blood." She notes that the gendarmes were now killing the remaining women and children of Bitlis. She describes in detail:
  The screams of women and children could be heard at almost any time during the day. The cries that rang out through the darkness of the night were even more heartrending.
  After occupying Van, the Russian army approached Bitlis in mid July. With the arrival of the Russian army, the Muslim inhabitants of Bitlis fled, effectively ending the massacres. However, by July 15 and prior to the arrival of the Russian army, the elimination of the Armenian population of Bitlis was already "virtually complete". After a short stay, the Russian army retreated on July 24 and Turkish forces reestablished their presence in Bitlis. Mclaren and Shane remained in Bitlis until 30 November 1915, when they were escorted out of Bitlis. Along the way, they both witnessed mutilated bodies and corpses as a 
caption: The Armenian monastery of Bitlis in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide with severed heads and corpses in the foreground.[55]
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1875", "Image ImageLength": "1735", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:08:16 13:49:47", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "390", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7399", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "420", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "302"}