AVC Multimedia e-Book Series e-Book#3: AGBU 100 Years of History (Vol. I) | Page 145

THW FIRST STAGE OF THE PLAN TO ESTABLISH ARMENIANS ON A PERMANENT BASIS IN SYRIA AND LEBANON

In Dzovinar Kévonian’s estimation, the French Mandatory authorities first gave serious consideration to the permanent settlement plan in 1925, during General Maurice Sarrail’s tenure as High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon. “The objective,” Kévonian writes, “was to resettle the refugees in the camps in farming communities on the outskirts of the big cities; creating these communities would, it was thought, also contribute to raising the general level of certain areas.”34 Yet no concrete measures were adopted until 1926, when the Swiss Georges Burnier, the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria and Lebanon, tried to revive the plan.35 At this point, the High Commission became its chief advocate, going so far as to convince the Lebanese government to provide, in 1926, a working capital of three million francs to help pay for it. Drawn from the frozen accounts of the Ottoman National Debt, the money ... Read all

The Building of Armenian Neighborhoods in Syria and Lebanon

Left: Georges Burnier, representative of the Nansen Office. Right: Henri Ponsot, High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon (“L'action de secours en faveur des réfugiés en Syrie,” Paris, 1929).

Construction of the first residential neighborhoods for Armenian refugees in Beirut at the end of the 1920s. Pictured here are the “White Homes,” located on Ashrafiye Hill (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).

The “White Homes” in Ashrafiye

(Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).

Lot 603, the name given to an urban neighborhood built in Ashrafiye in the late 1920s (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).