Armenian majorities in the Ottoman Empire are shown in teal in the center of the map. From Wikimedia Commons.
24 April 2015 marks the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, where an estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were killed under Ottoman rule. I don’t claim to be an expert in this field, so I’ll leave the details up to the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
This tragic period of history has it connection to the Lusitania disaster through a colony of Persian Americans living in Chicago traveling aboard Lusitania to return to Armenia to inquire about the fate of family who lived there. During this time, Armenia was not an independent country, and its territory was divided among the Ottoman, Persian, and Russian empires. Also during this time, the Caucasus were embroiled in a three-way war with the British, Armenians, Azeris, and Russians fighting against the Germans and Ottomans in the Persian Campaign that was encroaching into neutral Persia’s territory.
The news of the genocide in addition to the ongoing war must have compounded worries of people with family living in the Caucasus, spurring action among Chicago’s Persian community, for between the beginning of the genocide on 24 April and the departure of the Lusitania from New York on 1 May, only one week had elapsed.
The third class passengers traveling to Armenia were Thomas Ohan Stephen, Alvaretz Yohanan (reported in the New York Times as Ala Vard Yohan), Envia Yohama (reported as Envin Yohnan), Aziz Ohannia (spelled Ohanis in new reports), Nikola Waperalia (reported as Kaperalia), Pera Sargis (Saejis in news reports), and John Jacob, George, Frank and Abraham Baba. Considering the location of Armenia, the travelers still had a long road ahead of them–through or around war-torn Central Europe no less!–after the Lusitania docked in Liverpool, England.
Of this party of ten (or twelve, as stated in the New York Times article, but only ten are named), four survived after the German submarine U-20 torpedoed and sank the Lusitania in 18 minutes on 7 May 1915: Thomas Stephen, Alvaretz Yohanan, John Jacob Baba, and Frank Baba.
Stephen telegraphed his father in Chicago to tell his family that he was safe, but the majority of the party was lost in the Lusitania sinking. As the Stephen family friend Malik Hatma put it, “[the Lusitania sinking] is a terrible blow to the Persians in Chicago, . . . for on those who may be lost we depended for news of the wives, mothers and sweethearts imperiled at home’.
As for what happened to Stephen, Yohanan, the Babas after this, whether they made it back to Armenia and found their families, for me, the trail runs cold. I personally have not found more information about these Persian-Armenian-American passengers and whether they returned home or pressed on to find out the fates of their loved ones. If you, reading this, might know what happened to this remaining party, my fellow researchers and I would like to hear from you.
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