1915 Genocide - Eyewitnesses: Others

- Sarah Aaronsohn was a member of Nili , a group of Jewish spies working for the British during WWI. On its way from Istanbul to Haifa, Sarah personally witnessed the genocide of the Armenians. In her testimony, she describes having seen hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, sick Armenians who were loaded onto trains and a massacre of up to 5,000 Armenians, performed by binding them to a pyramid of thorn bush, which then was set on fire. Since her trip to Haifa, any allusions to Armenians got her into a fit of hysteria. According to Chaim Herzog, Sarah decided to help the British forces after he witnessed the Ottomans' genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia.

In September 1917 the Ottoman authorities caught her carrier pigeon with a message to the British and decoded the Nili code. In October, the Ottoman forces surrounded the town of Zichron Yaakov, where she was found and arrested together with several others. After ten days of torture, she managed to shoot herself with a pistol concealed on the premises to avoid further torture and to protect her colleagues.




Eyewitnesses: Others - Sarah Aaronsohn was a member of Nili , a group of Jewish spies working for the British during WWI. On its way from Istanbul to Haifa, Sarah personally witnessed the genocide of the Armenians. In her testimony, she describes having seen hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, sick Armenians who were loaded onto trains and a massacre of up to 5,000 Armenians, performed by binding them to a pyramid of thorn bush, which then was set on fire. Since her trip to Haifa, any allusions to Armenians got her into a fit of hysteria. According to Chaim Herzog, Sarah decided to help the British forces after he witnessed the Ottomans' genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia. In September 1917 the Ottoman authorities caught her carrier pigeon with a message to the British and decoded the Nili code. In October, the Ottoman forces surrounded the town of Zichron Yaakov, where she was found and arrested together with several others. After ten days of torture, she managed to shoot herself with a pistol concealed on the premises to avoid further torture and to protect her colleagues.