ABSTRACT
Ottoman Empire during the period between 1894 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, an estimated 1.5 million people lost their lives and some 500,000 fled the country. The 3,000-year pres ence of Armenians in their homeland was reduced to a mere 50,000, residing as a more or less accepted minority in Istanbul, with thou sands of forcibly or voluntarily Islamized Armenians living discreetly and anonymously throughout Turkey. In this darkest quarter century in the history of the Armenian people, children suffered not only as members of the targeted population but also in their unique predica ment of vulnerability and helplessness. It is difficult to place an exact number of how many children lost their lives and/or were abducted and taken into Muslim households or Turkish orphanages never to be found. This number is certainly in the hundreds of thousands, possibly as high as three quarter of a million. By the destruction of the children of the Armenian population, the Young Turks obliterated the natural growth of the nation for many years to come.
