Leslie Davis (diplomat)
Leslie A. Davis (April 29, 1876 – 1960) was an American
Biography
Leslie Davis was born on April 29, 1876, in
Witnessing the Armenian Genocide
While working as US consul to Harput, Leslie Davis personally witnessed how huge clusters of
Leslie Davis was among the mixed party of Americans who examined the mass graves of Armenians killed near Harput. Davis subsequently wrote a vivid account to the
The mass deportations ordered by the Turks, in which hundreds of thousands of Armenians were crammed into freight cars and shipped hundreds of miles to die in the desert or at the hands of killing squads, were far worse than a straightforward massacre, he wrote. “In a massacre many escape, but a wholesale deportation of this kind in this country means a longer and perhaps even more dreadful death for nearly everyone.”[3]
Leslie Davis aided some Armenians by allowing some 80 of them to live in his consulate and organizing an
While carrying out his rescue work, Davis kept up with his diplomatic work and periodically met with Harput governor Sabit Bey, who was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.[5]
Books
- Davis L. A., The Slaughterhouse Province. An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917, ed. by Susan X. Blair, N.Y., 1989
His reports were dramatised in a BBC Radio 4 play, 'The Light of Darkness', broadcast on 4 September 2011.[6] It was written by Louis Nowra, a playwright who has researched Davis's life and work and the history of Harput.
See also
- Henry Morgenthau Sr.
- Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian genocide
- Makhmourian G., The Theme of the Armenian Genocide in the US Historiography(1985-1994). "Historical-Philological Journal," Yerevan, 1995, No 1, p. 39-52, (in Russian) http://research.sci.am/gmakhmourian
References
- ISBN 1-57181-214-8.
- ISBN 1-884630-01-4.
- ^ a b Jeff Jacoby (The Boston Globe) (August 23, 2007). "Denying the Armenian genocide". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on August 27, 2007. Retrieved August 26, 2007.
- ISBN 0-521-82958-5.
- ^ a b "Disobedient Diplomats and Other Heroes by Patrick Allitt" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-08-26.
- ^ "BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, the Light of Darkness".