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nians, professionals and common folk alike, were being slaughtered.
Sami, who protected the lives of these rulers, was Armenian. But no
Turk official knew that. Yet.
As a teenager, the ambitious Sami had wanted to be a doctor. He
was fascinated by medicine and the medical doctor s healing power as
many boys his age were fascinated by guns and steam engines. But as
an Armenian Christian he would then stand out in a Turkish land, and
this frightened him when his father told him about the slaughter of over
a hundred thousand Armenians between 1894 and 1896. Even had he
not heard this, he would have been concerned about his future when his
family s Armenian doctor warned him that in Turkey s hospitals and
among Turk doctors, Armenian doctors were considered second class.
Fortunately, Sami looked like a Turk and spoke perfect Turkish. He
had grown up in a Turk neighborhood in Konya, and had only Turk chil-
dren his age as friends. Since he looked, spoke, and acted like a Moslem
Turk, even before he went to medical school, he adopted a Turkish name
and false ancestry to the disgust of his mother. But his father under-
stood that he did so to avoid the prejudice and danger Armenians faced,
and supported him through medical school and afterwards.
He received his medical degree in England from the University of
Birmingham Medical School and did his residence at the Corbett Hos-
pital, Stourbridge. He would have stayed in England but for his parents,
who refused to leave Turkey.
He started off with a good position. Turkish authorities thought
highly of Turk doctors trained in England or Germany, and he was
Genocide Never Again 25
readily hired as part of the medical staff responsible for treating Otto-
man officials and their families. Over the next decade, he maneuvered
himself into a position of high favor, first as one of many doctors to
Abdul Hamid II s royal staff, and then to the up and coming Young
Turk s CUP. He was well trusted, and had operated on and saved the
lives of several high officials and members of the CUP and their wives
and children.
As a doctor he not only heard secrets, but was also told things to
which only a doctor would be privy. Even after they finally seized
power, the Young Turks operated in a favorable environment that made
them loose-lipped. They were also part of a macho culture and often
bragged about their accomplishments and their involvement in great
events. So, at first he thought he was hearing exaggerated bragging or
wishful thinking. He probed and found out more. Then he exploited his
unique position to get more information, and finally, with the right in-
ducements, to get actual documents.
At the same time, he was beginning to hear rumors from Turkey s
easternmost provinces about the massacre or lethal deportation of Ar-
menians. He wasted not a second more. He prepared to leave Turkey,
never to return.
His parents were dead, and he had no close relatives. He was un-
married, with no children. He did occasionally have relationships with
women, but preferred men. All his assignations had been discreet, usu-
ally with other doctors or nurses. He told his nurses and staff that his
father had died suddenly in Konya, and that he had to take a week to
settle family affairs.
He frequently traveled abroad to medical conventions, or to learn
the latest medical techniques at one European hospital or another. For
these prestigious trips, he had a special pass signed by Talaat Pasha, the
Minister of the Interior and Secretary General of CUP himself
without question, Sami could travel anywhere inside or outside of Tur-
key, all paid for by the government. He needed that pass now.
Sami made his way through the confusion of hawkers outside Istan-
bul s Hayderpasha Station, skirted the crowded spice bazaar, and entered
the huge station. He knew his way around it and headed for train No. 76,
which would take him to Ankara. From there he would transfer to train
31 headed toward Kars, with stops at Sivas, Erzincan, and Erzurum.
No train crossed the Armenian border. He would walk the remain-
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