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UCLA Launches Landmark Archive of Stolen Armenian Properties, Now Worth Hundreds of Billions, Seized by Turkey During & After the Genocide 🇦🇲
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In a historic move for Armenian historical justice and legal restitution, UCLA’s Promise Armenian Institute has unveiled a public digital archive documenting properties confiscated from Armenians during and after the Armenian Genocide. The new initiative, developed by the Armenian Genocide Research Program (AGRP), is based on decades-old Turkish government auction records gathered by independent researcher Sait Çetinoğlu. These records — spanning 34 cities and towns — detail the widespread, state-orchestrated seizure and resale of Armenian homes, churches, land, and businesses, all falsely labeled as “abandoned properties” (Emval-i Metruke) by the Turkish state. For the first time, these documents have been collected in one place, translated into modern Turkish and English, and made available online.
Experts say this unprecedented effort lays the groundwork for future legal action against the Republic of Turkey to pursue long-overdue compensation for stolen Armenian wealth.
It is estimated that the total value of these confiscated Armenian properties — including over a million acres of land, thousands of churches, schools, homes, farms, and businesses — reaches into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
If you or your family possess historical records, auction notices, or related materials concerning confiscated Armenian properties, the UCLA team welcomes contributions to expand the archive. Contact: armenian-info@international.ucla.edu
Each public auction notice is categorized by city, translated into English and Turkish, and searchable through the UCLA website — bringing a forgotten history into public view: international.ucla.edu/armenia/stolen….
This article was written by Harut Sassounian of The California Courier:
The Armenian Genocide Research Program (AGRP) within The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA launched last week a groundbreaking project enabling Armenians to seek restitution of their properties confiscated by the Turkish government during and after the Genocide.
In addition to the mass killing of 1.5 million Armenians, the Turkish government occupied their homeland of Western Armenia and seized their properties. Thanks to the UCLA initiative, for the first time all the missing information is gathered in a single depository.
During a June 16 webinar, Prof. Taner Akçam, AGRP Director, shed light on the systematic expropriation and redistribution of Armenian wealth during and after the Genocide, described by the Turkish government as “Abandoned Properties” (Emval-i Metruke).
Independent Turkish researcher Sait Çetinoğlu spent years collecting the government’s auction notices for these properties, which had appeared in local newspapers across 34 Turkish cities and towns in the 1920s and 1930s. Çetinoğlu has turned over these notices to UCLA, which has digitized and translated them from Ottoman Turkish into modern Turkish and English.
In a comprehensive 31-page report posted on the UCLA website, Çetinoğlu detailed the Turkish government’s contradictory and deceptive orders for disposing of the confiscated Armenian properties: “An official order was issued on May 27, 1915, and the widespread seizure of Armenian property followed shortly thereafter. On May 31, 1915, the Ottoman Council of Ministers issued a decree formally regulating the ‘confiscation’ of Armenian assets, followed by a more detailed 34-article decree on June 10. Throughout the summer, special circulars were sent to various provinces, culminating in a formal law on September 26, 1915, and an implementation decree on November 8 of the same year. These laws and decrees stipulated that all movable and immovable Armenian assets must be recorded in official registries and their values be allocated to Armenians in their new settlements…. [However], a 1918 report by a joint commission of the Ottoman Ministries of Justice, Finance, and Internal Affairs explicitly stated that not a single Armenian had been compensated for their confiscated properties. In effect, the Ottoman state became the principal beneficiary of the plunder, using these assets and the proceeds from their sales to fund various state institutions.”
Çetinoğlu explained that after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the newly established Turkish Republic “assumed control over much of the remaining Armenian property. However, the fledgling state faced significant financial challenges. As a result, beginning in 1923, various state institutions began auctioning off these looted Armenian properties. Official notices of these sales were regularly published in local Turkish newspapers.”
For example, a notice in the Diyarbakir (Dickranagerd) newspaper on Sept. 14, 1931, announced that an auction would be held on Sept. 17, 1931, for a house registered in the name of Hatun (Khatun), daughter of Ohan, in Ali Pinar village, sold to Sheymus (son of Ahmet) of the Kara Kilise refugees, for 20 Liras.
It is estimated that the total confiscated Armenian properties — including hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings, factories, mines, over a million acres of land, vineyards, olive groves, mulberry gardens, around 2,500 churches, and 1,000 schools — are now worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The confiscated Armenian properties were distributed to various Turkish entities. According to Çetinoğlu, “just as in the period of the Committee of Union and Progress,” the Republic of Turkey transferred some of these properties “to companies in order to develop a national industry and a Muslim bourgeoisie, and some of them were allocated to the Republican People’s Party — the only party of the period…. Many real estate properties were distributed, according to need, to various institutions such as associations, state institutions, municipalities, chambers of commerce, industry, and agriculture, the Red Crescent, and banks. In short, it could be said that every segment of [Turkish] society benefited from Armenian properties.”
During the Kemalist period, the confiscated Armenian properties were distributed as follows:
Sale and land distribution to Muslims;
Allocation and sale to immigrants (muhacir);
Transfer and allocation to state institutions;
Allocation to the military;
Allocation and leasing to banks, the Chamber of Commerce, and the commodities exchange;
Sale to companies;
Allocation, leasing, and sale to institutions linked to the regime, such as the Turkish Hearth, the Red Crescent, the Teachers Union, and the Trabzon Sports Club;
Allocation to the families of Unionist leaders who were murdered by Armenians — such as Talat and Cemal Pashas, Cemal Azmi, and Bahaeddin Shakir — according to a law adopted by the Turkish Parliament on May 31, 1926.
This project was made possible through the collective work of researcher Sait Çetinoğlu, AGRP Director Taner Akçam, translators Attila Tuygan and Nanor Hartounian, and student volunteers Aimee Frounjian and Anahit Gevorgyants, with support from the UCLA International Institute’s IT team. Their combined efforts made this archive accessible, searchable, and freely available to the public.
“It is now up to the Armenian community to take this valuable information compiled by UCLA and file lawsuits against Turkey in U.S. federal courts demanding just compensation for the confiscated Armenian properties,” said Sassounian.
He added, “Armenian-Americans should urge the U.S. Congress to pass a law — to be signed by the President of the United States — enabling lawsuits against the Republic of Turkey to receive compensation for the confiscated properties.”
This proposed legislation would allow Armenians to pursue legal action even after the Statute of Limitations has expired — a key legal barrier that has blocked many restitution efforts to date.
U.S. courts could issue binding judgments against Turkey to pay restitution to Armenians for their losses. If Turkey refuses to comply, the courts could then order the confiscation of all Turkish government-owned assets in the United States, such as buildings, bank accounts, and planes belonging to Turkish Airlines.
“UCLA, as an academic institution, has done its part in compiling this valuable list of the Armenian confiscated properties. It is now the Armenian community’s turn to initiate legal actions to seek full restitution from Turkey,” added Sassounian.
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