Quotes about the Armenian General Dro

Source: Admiral Bristol

"I know from reports of my own officers who served with General Dro that defenseless villages were bombarded and then occupied, and any inhabitants that had not run away were brutally killed, the village pillaged, and all the livestock confiscated, and then the village burned. This was carried out as a regular systematic getting-rid of the Moslems." 

Source: Arye Gut, Jewish Journal, April 25, 2015:

"One should mention the remarks of acclaimed scholar Moses Bekker, who said that it was Rimma Varzhapetyan (the so-called head of the Jewish community in Armenia) who saw no wrong-doing with the textbook and mass media glorification of antisemetic activists, such as Dramastamat Kanaya --  the fascist general  “Dro.” During World War II, general Dro personally took part in the annihilation of thousands of Jews. In her works, Ms. Varzhapetyan states that the current leadership of Armenia needs this “fighter” for the freedom of Armenia, thus employing the image of an ardent anti-Semite and fascist as a symbol for justifying Armenian expansionism and cultivating hatred amongst the younger generation. One must ask if, despite being Jewish herself, Ms. Varzhapetyan is ready to justify the murderous acts of Nazi criminals only because they are Armenians?

History seems to have forgotten the cruelty of the 20,000-strong Armenian legion that participated in the Wehrmacht in the WW II. Nationalist Commander Dro led the Armenian legion to fulfill its mission: to persecute and annihilate Jews via death marches. In his book “Death Tango,” the late Azerbaijani historian Rovshan Mustafayev presented evidence of Armenian involvement in the genocide of Jews, particularly a report from Sonderkommando “Dromedar” about operations in Western Crimea. “From November 16 to December 15, 1941, some 17,645 Jews, 2,504 Karaims, 824 Gypsies and 212 partisans were executed. Simferopol, Eupatorium, Alushta, Karasubazar, Kerch, Feodosia and other regions of Western Crimea were cleaned of Jews,” Rovshan Mustafayev notes in his book. Austrian historian Erich Feigl wrote that in December, 1942, Dro visited Himmler. “Dro had a practice of killing without any compassion, and this strongly impressed Himmler.”

What causes great concern today are the many media and the cultural spaces of Russia and by extention Armenian that provide a channel to present fascists as national heroes, including Dro, as well as Garegin Nzhdeh, an Armenian hero and Nazi collaborationist. Said the Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia (published December 17, 2014), the “Outstanding hero of our people Garegin Nzhdeh believed that ‘the main law of life is a struggle as a method of self-perfection of personality, society and state. This struggle is manifested in the striving for progress of the country and nation.’”

Sadly, there are successors to General Dro and Garegin Nzhdeh: incumbent Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan and Minister Seyran Ohanyan. These men led a bloody massacre of civilians in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly in the late 20th century."

Source: "World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York (1952)

p. 354.

"At morning tea, Dro and his officers spread out a map of this whole high region called the Karabakh. Deep in tactics, they spoke Russian, but I got their contempt for Allied 'neutral' zones and their distrust of promises made by tribal chiefs. A campaign shaped; more raids on Moslem villages."

p. 358.

"It will be three hours to take," Dro told me. We'd close in on three sides.
"The men on foot will not shoot, but use only the bayonets," Merrimanov said, jabbing a rifle in dumbshow.
"That is for morale," Dro put in. "We must keep the Moslems in terror that our cruelty beats theirs."
"Soldiers or civilians?" I asked.
"There is no difference," said Dro. "All are armed, in uniform or not."
"But the women and children?"
"Will fly with the others as best they may."

pp. 360-361.

"The ridges circled a wide expanse, its floors still. Hundreds of feet down, the fog held, solid as cotton flock. 'Djul lies under that,' said Dro, pointing. 'Our men also attack from the other sides.'

Then, 'Whee-ee!' - his whistle lined up all at the rock edge. Bayonets clicked upon carbines. Over plunged Archo, his black haunches rippling; then followed the staff, the horde - nose to tail, bellies taking the spur. Armenia in action seemed more like a pageant than war, even though I heard our Utica brass roar.

As I watched from the height, it took ages for Djul to show clear. A tsing of machine-gun fire took over from the thumping batteries; cattle lowed, dogs barked, invisible, while I ate a hunk of cheese and drank from a snow puddle. Mist at last folded upward as men shouted, at first heard faintly. Then came a shrill wailing.

Now among the cloud-streaks rose darker wisps - smoke. Red glimmered about house walls of stone or wattle, into dry weeds on roofs. A mosque stood in clump of trees, thick and green. Through crooked alleys on fire, horsemen were galloping after figures both mounted and on foot.

'Tartarski!' shouted the gunner by me. Others pantomimed them in escape over the rocks, while one twisted a bronze shell-nose, loaded, and yanked breech-cord, firing again and again. Shots wasted, I thought, when by afternoon I looked in vain for fallen branch or body. But these shots and the white bursts of shrapnel in the gullies drowned the women's cries.

At length all shooting petered out. I got on my horse and rode down toward Djul. It burned still but little flame showed now. The way was steep and tough, through dense scrub. Finally on flatter ground I came out suddenly, through alders, on smoldering houses. Across trampled wheat my brothers-in-arms were leading off animals, several calves and a lamb."

"Corpses came next, the first a pretty child with straight black hair, large eyes. She looked about twelve years old. She lay in some stubble where meal lay scattered from the sack she'd been toting. The bayonet had gone through her back, I judged, for blood around was scant. Between the breasts one clot, too small for a bullet wound, crusted her homespun dress.

The next was a boy of ten or less, in rawhide jacket and knee-pants. He lay face down in the path by several huts. One arm reached out to the pewter bowl he'd carried, now upset upon its dough. Steel had jabbed just below his neck, into the spine.

There were grownups, too, I saw as I led the sorrel around... Djul was empty of the living till I looked up to see beside me Dro's German-speaking colonel. He said all Tartars who had not escaped were dead."


p. 361 (seventh paragraph) and p. 362 (first paragraph).

'The most are inside houses. Come you and look.'

'No, dammit! My stomach isn't-'
'One is a Turkish officer in uniform. Him you must see.'
"We were under those trees by the mosque, in an open space....
'I don't believe you," I said, but followed to a nail-studded door. The man pushed it ajar, then spurred away, leaving me to check on the corpse. I thought I should, this charge was so constant, so gritted my teeth and went inside.

The place was cool but reeked of sodden ashes, and was dark at first, for its stone walls had only window slits. Rags strewed the mud floor around an iron tripod over embers that vented their smoke through roof beams black with soot. All looked bare and empty, but in an inner room flies buzzed. As the door swung shut behind me I saw they came from a man's body lying face up, naked but for its grimy turban. He was about fifty years old by what was left of his face - a rifle butt had bashed an eye. The one left slanted, as with Tartars rather than with Turks. Any uniform once on him was gone, so I'd no proof which he was, and quickly went out, gagging at the mess of his slashed genitals."

p. 363 (first paragraph).

'How many people lived there?'
'Oh, about eight hundred.' He yawned.
'Did you see any Turk officers?'
'No, sir. I was in at dawn. All were Tartar civilians in mufti.'

"The lieutenant dozed off, then I, but in the small hours a voice woke me - Dro's. He stood in the starlight bawling out an officer. Anyone keelhauled so long and furiously I'd never heard. Then abruptly Dro broke into laughter, quick and simple as child's. Both were a cover for his sense of guilt, I thought, or hoped. For somehow, despite my boast of irreligion, Christian massacring 'infidels' was more horrible than the reverse would have been.

From daybreak on, Armenian villagers poured in from miles around..... The women plundered happily, chattering like ravens as they picked over the carcass of Djul. They hauled out every hovel's chattels, the last scrap of food or cloth, and staggered away, packing pots, saddlebags, looms, even spinning-wheels.

'Thank you for a lot, Dro,' I said to him back in camp. 'But now I must leave.' ... We shook hands, the captain said 'A bientot, mon camarade.' And for hours the old Molokan scout and I plodded north across parching plains. Like Lot's wife I looked back once to see smoke bathing all, doubtless in a sack of other Moslem villages up to the line of snow that was Iran.'"

Source: "From Sardarapat to Sevres and Lausanne" by Avetis Aharonian. The Armenian Review, Vol. 16, No. 3-63, Autumn, Sep. 1963, pp. 47-57.

p. 52 (second paragraph).

"Your three chiefs, Dro, Hamazasp and Kulkhandanian are the ringleaders of the bands which have destroyed Tartar villages and have staged massacres in Zangezour, Surmali, Etchmiadzin, and Zangibasar. This is intolerable. Look - and here he pointed to a file of official documents on the table - look at this, here in December are the reports of the last few months concerning ruined Tartar villages which my representative Wardrop has sent me. The official Tartar communique speaks of the destruction of 300 villages."

p. 54 (fifth paragraph).

"Yes, of course. I repeat, until this massacre of the Tartars is stopped and the three chiefs are not removed from your military leadership I hardly think we can supply you arms and ammunition."

"...it is the armed bands led by Dro, Hamazasp and Kulkhandanian who during the past months have raided and destroyed many Tartar villages in the regions of Surmali, Etchmiadzin, Zangezour, and Zangibasar. There are official charges of massacres."