08.08.2015


This photo was published in London, in “The Times. History and Encyclopedia of the War” weekly, where Armenians of Musa Ler are gathered in the tent-city of Port Said raising the salvation flag of Red Cross. This flag attracted the attention of French sailors, who came to rescue the Armenians, blocked on the mountain.



In 1915 and subsequent years the international and Armenian press repeatedly referred to the heroic defence and salvation stories of Musa Ler Armenians. Numerous photos presenting scenes of Musa Ler Armenians being rescued and their settlement in Port Said were published in French and British press. Among them the Red Cross flags and the ones calling for help and thus attracting the attention of French sailors, are notable. One of the flags read: “Christians are in danger, save them”.

Noticing the flags, the French warships reached out for help and rescued over four thousand Armenians from the fatal death. This episode of heroic defence became a base for the famous novel of Austrian writer Franz Werfel “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh”.

“According to the data obtained in the United States (there is a big Armenian community here), 450.000 Armenians were slaughtered, 500.000 of them were subjected to extreme brutality, prosecuted, exposed to a danger, starvation, as was the case with the poor people overcrowded in the Syrian coast, who were rescued by our ships”.

“I’llustration, October 9, 1915

The source of the photo “The Times, History and Encyclopaedia of the War”, July, 25, 1916
From the book “100 Photo Stories About the Armenian Genocide”