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Personal violence
While the pogromists were not instructed to kill their targets, sections of the mob went much further than scaring or intimidating local Greeks. Between 13 and 16 Greeks and one Armenian (including two clerics) died as a result of the pogrom. 32 Greeks were severely wounded. Men and women were raped, and according to the account of the Turkish writer Aziz Nesin, men, mainly priests, were subjected to forced circumcision by frenzied members of the mob and an Armenian priest died after the procedure. Nesin wrote [citation needed]:
A man who was fearful of being beaten, lynched or cut into pieces would imply and try to prove that he was both a Turk and a Muslim. "Pull it out and let us see," they would reply. The poor man would peel off his trousers and show his "Muslimness" and "Turkishness": And what was the proof? That he had been circumcised. If the man was circumcised, he was saved. If not, he was doomed. Indeed, having lied, he could not be saved from a beating. For one of those aggressive young men would draw his knife and circumcise him in the middle of the street and amid the chaos. A difference of two or three centimetres does not justify such a commotion. That night, many men shouting and screaming were Islamized forcefully by the cruel knife. Among those circumcised there was also a priest.
[edit]Material damage
The physical and material damage was considerable and over 4,348 Greek-owned businesses, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, 23 schools, 21 factories, and 73 churches and over 1,000 Greek-owned homes were badly attacked or destroyed.
"I was in the street that day and I remember very clearly," said Mehmet Ali Zeren, 70. "In a jewelry store, one guy had a hammer and he was breaking pearls one by one.". "Good people, good friends (the Greeks) but the army wanted to evaporate non-Turks"
[edit]Church property
Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in the ruins of the church of Saint Constantine
In addition to commercial targets, the mob clearly targeted property owned or administered by the Greek Orthodox Church. 73 churches and 23 schools were vandalized, burned or destroyed, as were 8 asperses and 3 monasteries. This represented about 90 percent of the church property portfolio in the city. The ancient Byzantine church of Panagia in Veligradiou was vandalised and burned down. The church at Yedikule was badly vandalised, as was the church of St. Constantine of Psammathos. At Zoodochos Pege church in Bal?kl?, the tombs of a number of ecumenical patriarchs were smashed open and desecrated. The abbot of the monastery, Bishop Gerasimos of Pamphilos, was severely beaten during the pogrom and died from his wounds some days later in Bal?kl? Hospital. In one church arson attack, Father Chrysanthos Mandas was burned alive. The Metropolitan of Liloupolis, Gennadios, was badly beaten and went mad. Elsewhere in the city, Greek cemeteries came under attack and were desecrated. Some reports also testified that relics of saints were burned or thrown to dogs.
[edit]Witnesses
An eyewitness account was provided by journalist Noel Barber of the London Daily Mail on 14 September 1955:
“ The church of Yedikule was utterly smashed, and one priest was dragged from bed, the hair torn from his head and the beard literally torn from his chin. Another old Greek priest [Fr Mantas] in a house belonging to the church and who was too ill to be moved was left in bed, and the house was set on fire and he was burned alive. At the church of Yeniköy, a lovely spot on the edge of the Bosporus, a priest of 75 was taken out into the street, stripped of every stitch of clothing, tied behind a car and dragged through the streets. They tried to tear the hair of another priest, but failing that, they scalped him, as they did many others. ”
One significant eyewitness was Ian Fleming, the James Bond author, who was in Istanbul covering the International Police Conference as a special representative for the London Sunday Times. His account, entitled "The Great Riot of Istanbul", appeared in that paper on 11 September 1955.
[edit]Secondary action
While the pogrom was predominantly an Istanbul affair, there were some outrages in other Turkish cities. On the morning of 7 September 1955 In ?zmir (Smyrna), a mob overran the ?zmir National Park, where an international exhibition was taking place, and burned the Greek pavilion. Moving next to the Church of Saint Fotini, built two years earlier to serve the needs of the Greek officers (serving at NATO Regional Headquarters), the mob destroyed it completely. The homes of the few Greek families and officers were then looted.
[edit]Documentation
Considerable contemporary documentation showing the extent of the destruction is provided by the photographs taken by Demetrios Kaloumenos, then official photographer of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Setting off just hours after the pogrom began, Kaloumenos set out with his camera to capture the damage and smuggled the film to Greece.
[edit]Reactions
Although the Menderes government attempted to blame Turkish Communists for the pogrom, most foreign observers were aware of who was to blame. In a letter of 15 November 1955 to prime minister Menderes, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras graphically described the crimes inflicted on his flock. “The very foundation of a civilisation which is the heritage of centuries, the property of all mankind, has been gravely attacked”, he wrote, adding: “All of us, without any defence, spent moments of agony, and in vain sought and waited for protection from those responsible for order and tranquillity”.
The chargé d’affaires at the British Embassy in Ankara, Michael Stewart, directly implicated Menderes’ Demokrat Parti in the execution of the attack. “There is fairly reliable evidence that local Demokrat Parti representatives were among the leaders of the rioting in various parts of Istanbul, notably in the Marmara islands, and it has been argued that only the Demokrat Parti had the political organisation in the country capable of demonstrations on the scale that occurred,” he reported, refusing to assign blame to the party as a whole or Menderes personally, however.
Although British Ambassador to Ankara Bowker advised British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan that the United Kingdom should “court a sharp rebuff by admonishing Turkey”, only a note of distinctly mild disapproval was dispatched to Menderes. The context of the Cold War led Britain and the U.S. to absolve the Menderes government of the direct political blame that it was due. The efforts of Greece to internationalize the human rights violations through international organizations such as the UN and NATO found little sympathy. British NATO representative Cheetham deemed it “undesirable” to probe the pogrom. US representative Edwin Martin thought the effect on the alliance was exaggerated, and the French, Belgians and Norwegians urged the Greeks to “let bygones be bygones”. Indeed, the North Atlantic Council issued a statement that the Turkish government had done everything that could be expected.
More outspoken was the World Council of Churches, given the damage wrought on 90 percent of Istanbul’s Greek Orthodox churches, and a delegation was sent to Istanbul to inspect the havoc.
[edit]Aftermath
As private insurance did not exist in Turkey at the time, the only hope the pogrom's victims had for compensation was from the Turkish state. Although Turkish President Mahmut Celal Bayar announced that “the victims of the destruction shall be compensated”, there was little political will or financial means to carry out such a promise. In the end, Greeks ended up receiving about 20 percent of their claims due to the fact that the assessed values of their properties had already been vastly reduced.
Tensions continued and in 1958–1959, Turkish nationalist students embarked on a campaign encouraging the boycott of all Greek businesses. The task was completed eight years later in 1964 when the Ankara government reneged on the 1930 Greco-Turkish Ankara Convention, which established the right of Greek etablis (Greeks who were born and lived in Istanbul but held Greek citizenship) to live and work in Turkey. Deported with two day’s notice, the Greek community of Istanbul shrunk from 80,000 (or 100,000 by some accounts) persons in 1955 to only 48,000 in 1965. Today, the Greek community numbers about 5,000, mostly older, Greeks.
After the military coup of 1960, Menderes and Zorlu were charged with violating the constitution at the Yassiada Trial in 1960–61. The trial also made reference to the pogrom, for which they were blamed. While the accused were denied fundamental rights regarding their defence, they were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.
Oktay Engin, the agent who attempted the arson in Salonica, had continued to work at M?T for years until 1992 when he was promoted to the office of governor for Nev?ehir Province.
In August 1995, the US Senate passed a special resolution marking the September 1955 pogrom, calling on the President of the United States Bill Clinton to proclaim 6 September as a Day of Memory for the victims of the pogrom.
[edit]Notes
^ Dilek Güven, “6–7 Eylül Olaylar? (1)”, Radikal, 6 September 2005
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks.com 2005, ISBN 978-0-9747660-3-4
^ Turkish currency exchange rates 1923-1990
^ According to figures presented by Prof. Vyron Kotzamanis to a conference of unions and federations representing the ethnic Greeks of Istanbul."Ethnic Greeks of Istanbul convene", Athens News Agency, 2 July 2006.
[edit]References
Fahri Çoker: 6–7 Eylül Olaylar? : Foto?raflar - Belgeler. Fahri Çoker Ar?ivi. Istanbul, 2005, ISBN 978-975-333-197-5
Dilek Güven: Cumhuriyet Donemi Azinlik Politikalari Baglaminda 6 - 7 Eylul Olaylari. . Istanbul, 2005, ISBN 978-975-333-196-8
Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks.com 2005, ISBN 978-0-9747660-3-4
George Gilson, “Destroying a minority: Turkey’s attack on the Greeks”, Athens News, 24 June 2005.
Ilias K. Maglinis, “Istanbul 1955: The anatomy of a pogrom”, Kathimerini, 28 June 2005.
Robert Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954–59, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp. 75–78.
Ali Tuna Kuyucu, “Ethno-religious 'unmixing' of 'Turkey': 6–7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism”, in Nations and Nationalism, 11:3 (2005), pp. 361–380.
Indymedia Istanbul, “50. y?l?nda 6-7 Eylül Olaylar?”.
Mehmet Ali Birand, “The shame of Sept. 6–7 is always with us”, Turkish Daily News, 7 September 2005.
The Washington Post, “In Turkey, a Clash of Nationalism and History”, an article by Karl Vick referring to the events as a “pogrom”.
Do?u ERG?L “"Past as present" Turkish Daily News 12 September 2005 "16 dead and dozens of wounded citizens of Greek origin"
[edit]See also
Cyprus dispute
Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)
Armenian Genocide
Assyrian Genocide
Pontic Greek Genocide
Anti-Armenianism
Foreign relations of Turkey
Accession of Turkey to the European Union
Second-class citizen
Pogrom
[edit]External links
Athens protests latest desecration of Orthodox cemetery in Turkey
While the pogromists were not instructed to kill their targets, sections of the mob went much further than scaring or intimidating local Greeks. Between 13 and 16 Greeks and one Armenian (including two clerics) died as a result of the pogrom. 32 Greeks were severely wounded. Men and women were raped, and according to the account of the Turkish writer Aziz Nesin, men, mainly priests, were subjected to forced circumcision by frenzied members of the mob and an Armenian priest died after the procedure. Nesin wrote [citation needed]:
A man who was fearful of being beaten, lynched or cut into pieces would imply and try to prove that he was both a Turk and a Muslim. "Pull it out and let us see," they would reply. The poor man would peel off his trousers and show his "Muslimness" and "Turkishness": And what was the proof? That he had been circumcised. If the man was circumcised, he was saved. If not, he was doomed. Indeed, having lied, he could not be saved from a beating. For one of those aggressive young men would draw his knife and circumcise him in the middle of the street and amid the chaos. A difference of two or three centimetres does not justify such a commotion. That night, many men shouting and screaming were Islamized forcefully by the cruel knife. Among those circumcised there was also a priest.
[edit]Material damage
The physical and material damage was considerable and over 4,348 Greek-owned businesses, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, 23 schools, 21 factories, and 73 churches and over 1,000 Greek-owned homes were badly attacked or destroyed.
"I was in the street that day and I remember very clearly," said Mehmet Ali Zeren, 70. "In a jewelry store, one guy had a hammer and he was breaking pearls one by one.". "Good people, good friends (the Greeks) but the army wanted to evaporate non-Turks"
[edit]Church property
Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in the ruins of the church of Saint Constantine
In addition to commercial targets, the mob clearly targeted property owned or administered by the Greek Orthodox Church. 73 churches and 23 schools were vandalized, burned or destroyed, as were 8 asperses and 3 monasteries. This represented about 90 percent of the church property portfolio in the city. The ancient Byzantine church of Panagia in Veligradiou was vandalised and burned down. The church at Yedikule was badly vandalised, as was the church of St. Constantine of Psammathos. At Zoodochos Pege church in Bal?kl?, the tombs of a number of ecumenical patriarchs were smashed open and desecrated. The abbot of the monastery, Bishop Gerasimos of Pamphilos, was severely beaten during the pogrom and died from his wounds some days later in Bal?kl? Hospital. In one church arson attack, Father Chrysanthos Mandas was burned alive. The Metropolitan of Liloupolis, Gennadios, was badly beaten and went mad. Elsewhere in the city, Greek cemeteries came under attack and were desecrated. Some reports also testified that relics of saints were burned or thrown to dogs.
[edit]Witnesses
An eyewitness account was provided by journalist Noel Barber of the London Daily Mail on 14 September 1955:
“ The church of Yedikule was utterly smashed, and one priest was dragged from bed, the hair torn from his head and the beard literally torn from his chin. Another old Greek priest [Fr Mantas] in a house belonging to the church and who was too ill to be moved was left in bed, and the house was set on fire and he was burned alive. At the church of Yeniköy, a lovely spot on the edge of the Bosporus, a priest of 75 was taken out into the street, stripped of every stitch of clothing, tied behind a car and dragged through the streets. They tried to tear the hair of another priest, but failing that, they scalped him, as they did many others. ”
One significant eyewitness was Ian Fleming, the James Bond author, who was in Istanbul covering the International Police Conference as a special representative for the London Sunday Times. His account, entitled "The Great Riot of Istanbul", appeared in that paper on 11 September 1955.
[edit]Secondary action
While the pogrom was predominantly an Istanbul affair, there were some outrages in other Turkish cities. On the morning of 7 September 1955 In ?zmir (Smyrna), a mob overran the ?zmir National Park, where an international exhibition was taking place, and burned the Greek pavilion. Moving next to the Church of Saint Fotini, built two years earlier to serve the needs of the Greek officers (serving at NATO Regional Headquarters), the mob destroyed it completely. The homes of the few Greek families and officers were then looted.
[edit]Documentation
Considerable contemporary documentation showing the extent of the destruction is provided by the photographs taken by Demetrios Kaloumenos, then official photographer of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Setting off just hours after the pogrom began, Kaloumenos set out with his camera to capture the damage and smuggled the film to Greece.
[edit]Reactions
Although the Menderes government attempted to blame Turkish Communists for the pogrom, most foreign observers were aware of who was to blame. In a letter of 15 November 1955 to prime minister Menderes, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras graphically described the crimes inflicted on his flock. “The very foundation of a civilisation which is the heritage of centuries, the property of all mankind, has been gravely attacked”, he wrote, adding: “All of us, without any defence, spent moments of agony, and in vain sought and waited for protection from those responsible for order and tranquillity”.
The chargé d’affaires at the British Embassy in Ankara, Michael Stewart, directly implicated Menderes’ Demokrat Parti in the execution of the attack. “There is fairly reliable evidence that local Demokrat Parti representatives were among the leaders of the rioting in various parts of Istanbul, notably in the Marmara islands, and it has been argued that only the Demokrat Parti had the political organisation in the country capable of demonstrations on the scale that occurred,” he reported, refusing to assign blame to the party as a whole or Menderes personally, however.
Although British Ambassador to Ankara Bowker advised British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan that the United Kingdom should “court a sharp rebuff by admonishing Turkey”, only a note of distinctly mild disapproval was dispatched to Menderes. The context of the Cold War led Britain and the U.S. to absolve the Menderes government of the direct political blame that it was due. The efforts of Greece to internationalize the human rights violations through international organizations such as the UN and NATO found little sympathy. British NATO representative Cheetham deemed it “undesirable” to probe the pogrom. US representative Edwin Martin thought the effect on the alliance was exaggerated, and the French, Belgians and Norwegians urged the Greeks to “let bygones be bygones”. Indeed, the North Atlantic Council issued a statement that the Turkish government had done everything that could be expected.
More outspoken was the World Council of Churches, given the damage wrought on 90 percent of Istanbul’s Greek Orthodox churches, and a delegation was sent to Istanbul to inspect the havoc.
[edit]Aftermath
As private insurance did not exist in Turkey at the time, the only hope the pogrom's victims had for compensation was from the Turkish state. Although Turkish President Mahmut Celal Bayar announced that “the victims of the destruction shall be compensated”, there was little political will or financial means to carry out such a promise. In the end, Greeks ended up receiving about 20 percent of their claims due to the fact that the assessed values of their properties had already been vastly reduced.
Tensions continued and in 1958–1959, Turkish nationalist students embarked on a campaign encouraging the boycott of all Greek businesses. The task was completed eight years later in 1964 when the Ankara government reneged on the 1930 Greco-Turkish Ankara Convention, which established the right of Greek etablis (Greeks who were born and lived in Istanbul but held Greek citizenship) to live and work in Turkey. Deported with two day’s notice, the Greek community of Istanbul shrunk from 80,000 (or 100,000 by some accounts) persons in 1955 to only 48,000 in 1965. Today, the Greek community numbers about 5,000, mostly older, Greeks.
After the military coup of 1960, Menderes and Zorlu were charged with violating the constitution at the Yassiada Trial in 1960–61. The trial also made reference to the pogrom, for which they were blamed. While the accused were denied fundamental rights regarding their defence, they were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.
Oktay Engin, the agent who attempted the arson in Salonica, had continued to work at M?T for years until 1992 when he was promoted to the office of governor for Nev?ehir Province.
In August 1995, the US Senate passed a special resolution marking the September 1955 pogrom, calling on the President of the United States Bill Clinton to proclaim 6 September as a Day of Memory for the victims of the pogrom.
[edit]Notes
^ Dilek Güven, “6–7 Eylül Olaylar? (1)”, Radikal, 6 September 2005
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks.com 2005, ISBN 978-0-9747660-3-4
^ Turkish currency exchange rates 1923-1990
^ According to figures presented by Prof. Vyron Kotzamanis to a conference of unions and federations representing the ethnic Greeks of Istanbul."Ethnic Greeks of Istanbul convene", Athens News Agency, 2 July 2006.
[edit]References
Fahri Çoker: 6–7 Eylül Olaylar? : Foto?raflar - Belgeler. Fahri Çoker Ar?ivi. Istanbul, 2005, ISBN 978-975-333-197-5
Dilek Güven: Cumhuriyet Donemi Azinlik Politikalari Baglaminda 6 - 7 Eylul Olaylari. . Istanbul, 2005, ISBN 978-975-333-196-8
Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks.com 2005, ISBN 978-0-9747660-3-4
George Gilson, “Destroying a minority: Turkey’s attack on the Greeks”, Athens News, 24 June 2005.
Ilias K. Maglinis, “Istanbul 1955: The anatomy of a pogrom”, Kathimerini, 28 June 2005.
Robert Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954–59, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp. 75–78.
Ali Tuna Kuyucu, “Ethno-religious 'unmixing' of 'Turkey': 6–7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism”, in Nations and Nationalism, 11:3 (2005), pp. 361–380.
Indymedia Istanbul, “50. y?l?nda 6-7 Eylül Olaylar?”.
Mehmet Ali Birand, “The shame of Sept. 6–7 is always with us”, Turkish Daily News, 7 September 2005.
The Washington Post, “In Turkey, a Clash of Nationalism and History”, an article by Karl Vick referring to the events as a “pogrom”.
Do?u ERG?L “"Past as present" Turkish Daily News 12 September 2005 "16 dead and dozens of wounded citizens of Greek origin"
[edit]See also
Cyprus dispute
Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)
Armenian Genocide
Assyrian Genocide
Pontic Greek Genocide
Anti-Armenianism
Foreign relations of Turkey
Accession of Turkey to the European Union
Second-class citizen
Pogrom
[edit]External links
Athens protests latest desecration of Orthodox cemetery in Turkey
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