RECOGNIZING LOCAL AGBU CHAPTERS AND COORDINATING THE AGBU'S WORK WITH THAT OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL UNION
From the outset, the AGBU’s head office was of the opinion that no attempt could be made to conduct large-scale relief operations in the areas to which Armenians had been deported before the Union’s local branches had been rebuilt, especially in Aleppo, Jerusalem, Beirut, Baghdad, and Damascus. Consequently, beginning in 1918, the head office contacted those who had held positions of responsibility in the AGBU’s local chapters before the War to recommend that they come together and try to reorganize them.
The War and the genocide had, however, worked profound changes in the Armenian communities of these big Arab cities. Many of their members had fallen victim to the deprivations of the war years; at the same time, deportees from Asia Minor had settled in the Arab urban centers. The first local chapters to be rebuilt after the war reflected these transformations. For example, the Damascus chapter, reorganized on 11 February 1919, was now made up of Bedros Sarajian (the former prelate of Hajin and one of the new chapter’s honorary presidents), Monsignor Krikor Bahaban (the former Armenian Catholic prelate of Ankara and another honorary president), Khachadur Krikorian (former president of the Damascus chapter), Hrant Sulahian (former president of the Aintab Chapter),... Read all
AGBU in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq in the Post-War Period
Courtyard of the Aleppo Ottoman barracks, converted into a reception center for genocide survivors returning from their places of deportation. Aleppo, probably late 1918 (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).