Photo: June 23, 1919, “Auction of Souls.” Credit: Los Angeles Times
Note: This is an encore post from 2011.
Los Angeles has long been a haven for refugees and artists, particularly those fleeing political and militaristic struggles. As early as 1915, Armenians began arriving in Southern California after fleeing from the massacres and pogroms inflicted on them by Kurds and Turks. By December of that year, 1,500 Armenians lived here without knowing the whereabouts of many members of their families back home.
Many continued to come, as the papers warned of massacres, imprisonment, torture, and murder of innocent men, women, and children. Genocide. An article’s headline in the September 27, 1915, Los Angeles Times read, “Massacre of Armenians at Height of Its Fury, … Report States that Five Hundred Thousand Men, Women, and Children Have Either Been Killed by the Turks or Driven to the Desert to Perish of Starvation – Extermination of Non-Moslems is Programme Decided Upon.” 850,000 were reported killed by late October, nearly three quarters of the population of the entire country.
I thought I’d start with a little history as to production numbers and still codes and explain why Larry has to hide them in the movie star mystery photo postings. Studios and production companies shot production and publicity photographs from early on as both reference for that and future productions and to help promote the films.
ladailymirror.com 