Martyrdom Memorial Commemorates Massacred Turks

According to Kurkcuoglu, Ortabahce villagers unearthed the skeletons of 578 of the victims in the mosque yard in 1969. Kurkcuoglu added, "Villagers had buried the skeletons of the victims in the village’s cemetery." Kurkcuoglu stated that the memorial would open on June 7.

Kurkscuoglu, explaining that details of the massacre were recorded in in the archives of the prime ministry and military history,

said that 1st Caucus Army Corps, entering the Ortabahce village on March 1, 1918, had witnessed the event. Sevket Sureyya Aydemir, then a second lieutenant in the 1st Caucus Army Corps, said: "We saw all of the villagers at the entrance of the Cinis village. But they were a convoy of dead people. They were the people who had been sent out of the village and they were nestled up to each other while being bayoneted. Since they had been made to stand there in freezing weather, they were all frozen."

The Metropolitan Area Municipality, Erzurum Water and Sewage Administration, the Province head office of housing and the Kandilli Garrison Command aided in the construction of the martyrdom memorial, which was built by the Ataturk University Turkish-Armenian Relations Research Center.