From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: The Greek army slaughtered thousands of Jews and Muslims.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 15:58:29 GMT


In article <4626.3248.uupcb@factory.com> michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos) writes:

>CONFIDENTIAL
>Subject ARGIC (Advanced Racist Garbage Information Creator)

Hmmmm.

Source: Professor Stanford J. Shaw, 'The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the
        Turkish Republic,' New York University Press, New York (1991).

 pages 239-240:

   <<While the Greek and Armenian community leaders in Istanbul and Paris
   pressured the Allies to drive the Turks out of Istanbul and much of
   Anatolia, the Empire's Jewish leaders, remembering very well the
   persecution their people had suffered as Ottoman territories had come
   under the rule of independent Christian states, not only refused to
   join their delegations but actively pressured the Allies to allow the
   Turks to remain in areas where they consisted a majority of the
   population, thus incurring further the wrath of the Christian leaders.

   In Thrace and Southwestern Anatolia also the invading Greek army, which
   was attempting to provide the Paris Peace Conference with a fait accompli
   in the territories it wished to retain, armed the Christian minorities
   and encouraged them to attack Muslims, with the Jews suffering as well
   because of their support for the Turks during the war [89], and with
   the once-flourishing Jewish community of Salonica in particular being
   permanently displaced by Greek refugees from Anatolia settled there after
   the Greek army evacuated Anatolia.

   The Greek army that occupied much of Southwestern Anatolia starting
   in May 1919 slaughtered thousands of Jews and Muslims in the course
   of its attack, not only during its initial landings at Izmir, but also
   in the interior during the subsequent two years, and particularly
   during its final retreat to Izmir, when it ravaged and burned Bursa
   and other towns and villages along the way. Albert Nabon, Principal
   of the AIU [Alliance Israelite Universelle] Boy's School in Izmir,
   reported to the Alliance on 6 July 1919:

        'The city was put on fire and sacked, the people dispoiled
        of all they possessed. There is no food, putting the entire
        population on general, and our co-religionists in particular,
        in danger of suffering greatly from these privations'

   going on to describe how most Jews, not only from Izmir but also from
   Greek attacks at Aydin, Bergama and Manisa, took refuge in his school,
   where they were suffering from overcrowding, lack of food, and
   medicine. [90]

   The Jews of Tire, led by Rabbi Ismail ha-Cohen, established close ties
   with the local Turkish resistance as well as with the Turkish national
   forces operating against the Greeks in the vicinity despite considerable
   pressure from local Greek commanders [91]. In Odemis, Rabbi Isaac Franco
   refused the demands of the Greek military authorities for him to greet
   their army as it occupied the city [92]. In Aydin, Jews hid Turks in their
   homes as the Greeks ransacked the city following its occupation, and
   refused to join local Greeks and Armenians in welcoming the occupying
   Greek army and flying Greek flags from their buildings [93]. As a result,
   the long-standing Greek religious prejudice against Jews as well as Muslims
   was manifested in numerous incidents that took place until ..the Turkish
   national army finally recaptured Southwestern Anatolia in 1922 [94].
   Jewish notables, like the Muslims, were beaten and executed, many
   Jewish homes and shops were ravaged and burned, and hundreds of Jews
   were deported to almost certain death in the countryside. As the Greek
   army retreated in panic late in the war, moreover, it burned the Jewish
   and Muslim quarters of Izmit, Manisa and Bergama, destroying synagogues,
   yeshivas and hospitals as well as homes and businesses while killing
   hundreds and forcing the remainder of the non-Christian population to
   flee in panic,..[95]. Though many Jews returned to Izmir following the
   restoration of Turkish rule and its inclusion in the Turkish Republic,
   the Jewish population of Izmir following the war reached no more than
   half its former size.>>

[89] Edgar Morin, Vidal et les siens (Paris, Seuil, 1989), 67-93.
    A dossier of reports on Greek atrocities against people and officials
    in the Izmir area is in BA [Basbakanlik Arsivi=Prime Minister's
    Archives], Adliye Tezkere 246/2740, 18 September 1920; see also
    Ottoman Council of Ministers Minutes/MVM vol.213 no.457, 24 November
    1334/1918; vol. 215, no. 249, 28 May 1335/1919; vol.216 no.263, 1 June
    1335/1919, describing Greek soldiers driving the settled population
    out of Bergama and Izmir; vol.216, no.269, 1 June 1335/1919, describing
    the displacement of Jews and Muslims at the Dardanalles/Canakkale by
    Greek settlers from the Aegean islands; vol. 216, no.288, 9 June 1919,
    regarding Ayvalik; vol.216 no.380, 21 June 1919, describing Greek and
    Allied attacks on the local populations in Thrace and at Izmir,
    Diyarbekir and Bayezid; vol.216 no.323, 26 June 1919; vol. 216 no.337,
    15 July 1919; vol. 216 no.339, 15 July 1919; and particularly vol.216
    no.343, 16 July 1919, regarding Greek atrocities in Aydin province;
    vol.217 no.573, 29 November 1919, and vol.221 no.127, 30 April 1921,
    and no.239, 4 August 1921, on Greek atrocities in Thrace; vol.218 no.9,
    11 January 1920 on resettlement of Greeks from America in Anatolia;
    also BEO, 343329; Greek atrocities in Southwestern Anatolia and Thrace
    were condemned by an international investigation commission headed by
    American High Commissioner in Istanbul, Admiral Mark Bristol, leading
    the Allies to abondon further support for the Greek invasion. See
    Ottoman Council of Ministers Minutes, vol.217 no.481, 16 October 1919.
    Also  Hayyim Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 18.

[90] Similar reports came from Nabon to the AIU on 2 July 1919 (no.23/915),
     9 July 1919 (no.26/927), 12 July 1919 (no.27/932) and 14 July 1919
     (no. 28/933). In Nabon's report of 17 July 1919 (no.30/935), he stated
     that the Greeks at Aydin had burned 200 Jewish houses and 13 shops,
     had dispoiled all the local Jews of their money and property, and had
     strangled two Jews as well as driving the remainder to seek refuge
     in the local AIU school: 'At Aydin, Manisa, Tire and everywhere else,
     our Jews live in an atmosphere of suspician by the Greek inhabitants'
     who suspect that they favor the Turks. On 23 July 1920 Nabon reported
     that all the Jews had left Izmir, the synagogue had not been burned, but
     the Greeks had taken all its valuables as well as the property of local
     Jews, and the streets were full of bodies.

[91] Guleryuz, ibid.; Galante, Turcs et Juifs (1932), 54.
[92] Galante, Anatolie (1939) II, 41.
[93] Guleryuz, ibid.; Galante, Anatolie II, 101-2.
[94] See Guleryuz, 'Kurtulus Savasinda Egede ve Bursada Yahudiler', Salom,
     30 October 1985; Galante, Turcs et Juifs, in Histoire des Juifs de
     de Turquie, 26-28, and El Tiempo, 22 October 1922.

[95] Univers Israelite, 2 September 1921, p.467-48, quoted in Guleryuz;
     see also Galante, Anatolie II (1939), 70-100; and 'Manissa', EJ XI,
     878-79.

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)

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