ABSTRACT
The Armenians in Urfa resigned themselves to the increased harassment brought on by martial law, conscription, and the appropriation of property. From the spring of 1915 to the end of September, over a period of about five months, the Armenians gradually were forced to realize that cooperation and appeasement had brought them to the point of complete annihilation, worse than any of the previous massacres. On April 5, the whole Armenian quarter was suddenly blockaded, and Turkish police and gendarmes began searching Armenian homes one by one. At one end of the hall were rows of cloth and leather bags filled with manuscripts, notebooks, and books brought from Armenian homes. In 1915 Mgrdich and his followers sensed that the Turkish government was not to be trusted and that if massacres should begin as in the past, no help could come from outside sources.
