From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.jewish,talk.politics.misc
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: What Greeks did to Sephardic Jews in Salonica, 1912.
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 17:30:18 EST
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <10716.3248.uupcb@factory.com> michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos)  writes:

>  So much for the claim by some that pseudo-"Macedonia" has no
>territorial claims against Greece. All this talk of 'occupation' of

In the face of your attacks on Macedonia, I cannot fail but to compare
such an attitude with that of Greece when it occupied the town of
Salonica in 1912 and started to persecute the Sephardic Jewish 
population which accounted for over 2/3 of the inhabitants.

 <<The conquest of Ottoman Thrace and Macedonia by Greek and Bulgarian
   forces during the Balkan Wars (1912-13), including Salonica, Corlu,
   and Edirne, was followed by general attacks on Jews, their synagogues,
   homes and shops, in both countries [27], resulting in a renewed exodus
   toward Istanbul and beyond. Two reports from Salonica graphically
   described the situation caused by the invading armies:

      'All the self-interested justifications of the newspapers of Europe,
      all the lies which they have used to cover up the truth, can never
      destroy the impression of the terrible anguish which has marked the
      entry of the Greeks in Salonica. A week of terror and horror one can
      never easily forget. The Hellenes now cruelly feel today all the
      damage that the explosion of hatred by the (Greek) population has done
      to their cause. The mob has shown itself odious and the government
      weak...The incompetence of the Greek administration and the horrors
      inflicted by the soldiers has put them in a terrible situation. The
      consuls guaranteed the absolute safety of the Muslims, but sixty of
      them were massacred in a single night....'[28]

     'It wasn't only irregulars (Comitacis) who massacred, pillaged and
      burned. The soldiers of the Army, the Chief of Police, and the high
      civil officials took an active part in the events at Serres. Out of
      6,000 houses, 4,000 were burned. Almost 1,200 shops were consumed by
      flames and destructive bombs. The (Jewish) population lost all, and
      without even anything to wear is in despair. Everyone wants to
      emigrate...'[29]

   As a result of these assaults, massacres, and forced deportations from
   the independent countries of Southeastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire
   received literally thousands of Jewish refugees who joined the Muslims
   who survived the persecution, flooding into the Empire...>>

[27] Leon Sciaky, Farewell to Salonica: Portrait of an Era (New York, 1946);
    Edgar Morin, Vidal et les Siens (Paris, Seuil, 1989), 55-67; Paul Dumont,
    'The Social Structure of the Jewish Community of Salonica at the end of
    the nineteenth century', Southeastern Europe V (1979), 33-72; Galante,
    Turcs VIII, 18-21; Rodrigue, pp.178-80.

[28] A. Cohen, Ecole Secondaire Moise Allatini, Salonica, to AIU, Paris,
    no.7745/7, 4 December 1912, in AIU Archives I C 49.

[29] Mizrahi, President of AIU at Salonica, to AIU (Paris), no.2704/3,
   25 July 1913. In AIU Archives (Paris) I C 51.

( AIU = Alliance Israelite Universelle, Paris. )

Serdar Argic

                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)