Jakob Künzler
(March 8, 1871 – January 15, 1949)
Was a Swiss who resided in an oriental mission in Urfa and who witnessed the Armenian Genocide.
Born in Hundwil, Switzerland, he worked in the canton Appenzell and made a living as a carpenter. Afterwards he was trained in Basel as an evangelist deacon. In 1899 he traveled to Urfa, where he found his own place to work. He continued to study medicine until he became an independent operating surgeon, and later in 1905 he married Elizabeth Bender, daughter of a Christian missionary and granddaughter of an Ethiopian princess.
From 1915 to 1917 Künzler became an eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide, the subject of his 1921 book “In the Land of Blood and Tears”. Over the years and despite mortal danger, Künzler and his wife endangered their lives assisting the refugees wandering in the streets of Urfa. Künzler’s wife was among those who conducted many search-and-rescue missions to collect Armenian orphans and hide them under their own roofs.
He was a Swiss pharmacist who had remained in Urfa serving the sick and wounded, in a hospital in Urfa who documented accounts of massacres of various Armenian labor battalion companies.
The armistice of 1918 and the defeat of the Central Powers, of which the Ottoman Empire was a member, did not end the suffering of the Armenians. An enormous challenge was emerging: saving and protecting more than 132,000 orphans, mainly Armenians but also Assyrians, Syrians, Greeks, and Kurds, scattered throughout Asia Minor and the Near East. Upon the closing of their clinic by the Turkish government, the Künzlers organized and transported to safety an estimated 8,000 orphans to Syria and later to Lebanon where he later opened an orphanage and established a shelter for Armenian widows in Beirut and a lung sanatorium in Azounieh. In the course of this heroic undertaking, the couple was nicknamed “Papa and Mama Künzler”, terms of endearment that they cherished and carried for the rest of their lives.
Künzler wrote his memoir, reflecting back on his experiences in Urfa during World War I and his quarter-century of service, during a brief (1919-1920) retreat to his native Switzerland. He published it in 1921 despite concerns by his family for their safety and security. This major document, a riveting account of the Armenian Genocide, In the Land of Blood and Tears, translated into English
Jakob Künzler observed in August 1915:
“…two Turkish officials who appeared in Urfa. The rumor was that they hurried out in order to drive forward the extermination of the Armenian people with all their might, and they had the sanction of the highest state authority for doing so. They ordered on this basis, scarcely the moment they arrived in Urfa, the killing of all gathered prisoners. 'Why should we feed them any longer?' they said”
Jakob Künzler died on January 15, 1949, in Ghazir, Lebanon. His funeral service, worthy of a national figure, took place at the Presbyterian Anglo-American Church. Multilingual eulogies read in Arabic, Armenian, German, English,and French only speak to the greatness of Jakob Künzler and to the gratitude felt by a multi-ethnic community for a modest and yet noble life, lived to the fullest. His body was interred in the French Evangelical Cemetery in Beirut.
The photo: Jakob Künzler and his wife Elizabeth
(March 8, 1871 – January 15, 1949)
Was a Swiss who resided in an oriental mission in Urfa and who witnessed the Armenian Genocide.
Born in Hundwil, Switzerland, he worked in the canton Appenzell and made a living as a carpenter. Afterwards he was trained in Basel as an evangelist deacon. In 1899 he traveled to Urfa, where he found his own place to work. He continued to study medicine until he became an independent operating surgeon, and later in 1905 he married Elizabeth Bender, daughter of a Christian missionary and granddaughter of an Ethiopian princess.
From 1915 to 1917 Künzler became an eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide, the subject of his 1921 book “In the Land of Blood and Tears”. Over the years and despite mortal danger, Künzler and his wife endangered their lives assisting the refugees wandering in the streets of Urfa. Künzler’s wife was among those who conducted many search-and-rescue missions to collect Armenian orphans and hide them under their own roofs.
He was a Swiss pharmacist who had remained in Urfa serving the sick and wounded, in a hospital in Urfa who documented accounts of massacres of various Armenian labor battalion companies.
The armistice of 1918 and the defeat of the Central Powers, of which the Ottoman Empire was a member, did not end the suffering of the Armenians. An enormous challenge was emerging: saving and protecting more than 132,000 orphans, mainly Armenians but also Assyrians, Syrians, Greeks, and Kurds, scattered throughout Asia Minor and the Near East. Upon the closing of their clinic by the Turkish government, the Künzlers organized and transported to safety an estimated 8,000 orphans to Syria and later to Lebanon where he later opened an orphanage and established a shelter for Armenian widows in Beirut and a lung sanatorium in Azounieh. In the course of this heroic undertaking, the couple was nicknamed “Papa and Mama Künzler”, terms of endearment that they cherished and carried for the rest of their lives.
Künzler wrote his memoir, reflecting back on his experiences in Urfa during World War I and his quarter-century of service, during a brief (1919-1920) retreat to his native Switzerland. He published it in 1921 despite concerns by his family for their safety and security. This major document, a riveting account of the Armenian Genocide, In the Land of Blood and Tears, translated into English
Jakob Künzler observed in August 1915:
“…two Turkish officials who appeared in Urfa. The rumor was that they hurried out in order to drive forward the extermination of the Armenian people with all their might, and they had the sanction of the highest state authority for doing so. They ordered on this basis, scarcely the moment they arrived in Urfa, the killing of all gathered prisoners. 'Why should we feed them any longer?' they said”
Jakob Künzler died on January 15, 1949, in Ghazir, Lebanon. His funeral service, worthy of a national figure, took place at the Presbyterian Anglo-American Church. Multilingual eulogies read in Arabic, Armenian, German, English,and French only speak to the greatness of Jakob Künzler and to the gratitude felt by a multi-ethnic community for a modest and yet noble life, lived to the fullest. His body was interred in the French Evangelical Cemetery in Beirut.
The photo: Jakob Künzler and his wife Elizabeth