Confiscation and Colonization: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property

By Ugur Ungor
The Armenian Weekly
April 2011 Magazine

“Leave all your belongings—your furniture, your beddings, your artifacts. Close your shops and businesses with everything inside. Your doors will be sealed with special stamps. On your return, you will get everything you left behind. Do not sell property or any expensive item. Buyers and sellers alike will be liable for legal action. Put your money in a bank in the name of a relative who is out of the country. Make a list of everything you own, including livestock, and give it to the specified official so that all your things can be returned to you later. You have ten days to comply with this ultimatum.”[1]

—Government promulgation hanged in public places in Kayseri,
June 15, 1915.

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