Kathryn Cook

Memory of Trees

An old, unused train wagon is seen through a foggy window from the Toros Express train that runs from Istanbul to Gaziantep, Turkey. A German company won concessions to build part of the railway back in the early 1900s, then called the Baghdad Railway, and in 1915 the Turkish government began to use it to deport thousands of Armenians to Syria. According to eyewitness accounts, concentration camps sprung up along the sides of the train track, particularly between the cities of Konya and Gaziantep. Defending themselves from bandits and starvation, thousands perished in the camps or in route to Syria.
An old, unused train wagon is seen through a foggy window from the Toros Express train that runs from Istanbul to Gaziantep, Turkey. A German company won concessions to build part of the railway back in the early 1900s, then called the Baghdad Railway, and in 1915 the Turkish government began to use it to deport thousands of Armenians to Syria. According to eyewitness accounts, concentration camps sprung up along the sides of the train track, particularly between the cities of Konya and Gaziantep. Defending themselves from bandits and starvation, thousands perished in the camps or in route to Syria.