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The Turkish genocides (part 3)

We cried bitterly, when we closed her beautiful eyes, and stroke her over the hair. Then my sister Ahavne spoke: “Do not cry, mother”, she said, “we all are going to die”. But for some reason these words were unable to heal our pain and sorrow. The soldiers did not permit us to stay long enough to bury Rebekka. Mother asked a woman standing nearby to help us. We managed to carry her onto a field, and there we were forced to leave her uncovered, alone. There was not even time to pray a single prayer. The Turks were driving us on and on! But I am certain that our beloved Father in the Heavens were looking down from the Heavens and noticed her last resting place. She never rejected him by word or by gesture. If I am faithful, I shall meet her again on the morning of resurrection, when Jesus comes to gather his people.

Another morning broke. How could we walk? We were about to die, our shoes were worn out and gone. But we had to walk! No escape, no rest was possible. No more transportation of the ill. That stopped suddenly. Still Ahavne was forced to walk. She was so ill that she could not lift her head. We helped our sister on her legs, and she would lean on me while walking. Slowly we followed the flow of desperate, tormented people: My sister forced herself to walk several kilometres in this fashion and with her own pitiful force. But eventually she collapsed at the edge of the road, unable to march any further.

Mother begged the soldiers for permission to stay with her the few hours she would have left to live. But they responded in Turkish: “Continue! Continue!!” All the while they pointed at us with their guns and whipped us with their leather straps. Why did they not kill us on the spot? That might have been TOO merciful.

The despair and fear of my sister when she found that she was to be left behind to die was heartbreaking. Terrified she begged us not to leave her. Mother tried to comfort her by telling that we would probably also die in a few days time. But that did not help much. There was no time for prayer, not even for one last embrace. Ahavne waved weakly with her hand when we looked back. It was as if it was impossible to leave her. But we were forced forwards by guns and bayonets. We waved back with tears streaming from our faces and our hearts broken from sorrow. Then the road turned at the base of a mountain, and – that was all…!

Dear Ahavne! She was so lovely, loving and so loved. I do not know what befell her later, but at that point she was possibly beyond all suffering in the last stage of starvation. But to leave her dying, alone by the roadside, left to wild animals and brutal men – how can I even write this down! But our Father in Heaven knows everything. He has set a mark on the spot where she rests now, and I am sure that her angel stood guard at her side, when her dear ones could not. One day we shall meet again. My dear sister! What joyful reunion would that be!

Now only three of us were left. More days with exhausting marches followed, without food and only tiny amounts to drink.

(Eventually they collect manure from the soldiers mounts and try to eat it, but are throwing it up. Reaching a bazaar, they hear that an Arab merchant is purchasing girls. Mother takes her last desperate chance and sells Serpouhi, her own beloved daugther, to the traders. When the man wants to take her along, she protests and resists with force).

“I embraced my mothers’ neck, cried and cried. This was too much! How could I leave my dear mother? Eventually my new lord loosened my hands and said: “Now you must come with me. One other day we will come back to pick up your mother.”

I was broken. I kissed my mother over and over. She said that I should one day return to try to find my father, and that I must not forget to pray to our Father in Heaven and keep his days sacred. The last she told me was that we would meet again in the new world. Then the Arab took my hand and led me away.

My mother and my brother stood staring at me, staring and staring. Somehow I felt that I would never meet them again. But I do not believe my brother understood what had happened – even so close he was, to die from starvation. I am sure that none of them lived longer than a few days, even for the little food they were now able to purchase for the money, the Arab gave mother for me. Another two lonely, unknown graves! I do not know where these graves are, but God knows.

(Serpouhi was brought to Syria with the Arab caravan. Here she was dressed as an Arab girl and left to the care of the wives of the Arab; himself leaving shortly thereafter. Serpouhi now describes the terrible jealousy these women are suffering from. They beat her and starve her, whip her with leather straps and eventually tosses her into the desert to die, in order that they may get rid of their rival. “Die, you pig!” are the last words they leave her with. When the Arab returns, she is saved in the last minute. She gets a tattoo in the forehead like the Arab girls from that region. The wives receive a round of beatings.)

My family did all they could to convert me to Islam. They even taught me a prayer to Allah. Sometimes I would repeat the words after them, but it was never a prayer from me. In my heart I always prayed to the true God in Heaven. He was my only consolation.

(One day she learns that they discuss her future. She learns that she is to be married away. She decides to escape one day when the gate has not been locked properly, but to her fear crashes into a soldier with a gun. The girl shivers from fear and expects that she is to die now. But to her wonder she discovers that he speaks Armenian, is himself Armenian, and knows her father, Aarob Tavoukdijan in Ovajik. He tells her that the 1st world war is over, that Turkey has been defeated and is to lose much land. The allied powers have decided that no Armenian is to be annihilated in Turkish areas. He and other have been assigned the task of travelling in the remains of the The route through the mountains taken by the deportations. (from the collection of eyewitness Armin Wegners) Osmannic Empire and trace girls and women sold into slavery, forced into Turkish or Arab harems and set them free.

Also the girls sold to Arabs were to be taken back and given their freedom. They were to be returned to their families if they were still alive. Otherwise they would stay in a series of Armenian orphanages under the protection of the allied powers and the League of Nations. The Armenians in Turkish uniforms had been sent on a special mission throughout the Arab areas to search for girls in particular. Serphouhi was terrified of following a person in a Turkish uniform. Even after long time of searching he only managed to trace two Armenian girls. They were assigned an entire battalion of soldiers to protect them against Turkish attacks on the return journey. It was a very long journey through the once so vast Turkish empire to a French orphanage not far from Constantinople. Red Cross accompanies her on a travel to her home town.

Once again I walked through the well known streets, and we approached our old home. I was chocked over its state. Completely destroyed – a mere ruin. Windows were broken, the yard grown over and filled with garbage. It did not remind me of my own home at all. And where the large business rooms of my father had been was but a tiny shop. My father at first could not believe that I had come home. He had not thought that any of his daughters might be alive. He was certain that we were all dead. I ran to him, embraced his neck, cried and cried from joy.

“Which of my daughters are you, and what have you done to your face?” he asked, holding me out and watching me closely. It was like a dream for me.

(Serpouhi moves in with her father. The year is now 1919, but one day she sees a terribly beaten man walk down the street, black and blue all over the body, almost without clothes and blood running from wounds. She gets scared, until the man lets himself be known. It is her father. The Turks had assaulted him and robbed almost everything from the store. They kneel down and thanked God for him still being alive, and as they still had some wares left, they decided for their safety to move to a larger city, Ismid.

Their new business went well. But in 1922 war broke out again, this time between Turkey and Greece, who had achieved independence after 500 years of Islamic occupation. All advised us to flee, as the Turkish soldiers led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were approaching. Greek soldiers came carrying the wounded on stretchers, and masses of Greeks as well as smaller number of Armenians surviving the previous genocide were fleeing towards the coast in panic.

Thousands were waiting for ships. The crowd resembled a herd in panic. From the coast the refugees could watch their homes and businesses being set on fire. Columns of smoke rose towards the sky. The Greek, who had inhabited the coasts of Asia Minor for millenniums, were now forced to leave everything behind, their home, property, culture, all. Millions of Greeks had to leave everything to save their lives.

In Pireaus the father of Serpouhi recognizes that it will never be possible for her daughter to return to their beloved country, Armenia, which is now plundered and robbed from them. Even the orphanages of Constantinople, which had been under allied protection, are forced to close down, and the inhabitants as well as their leaders escape the country. Serpouhi’s father decides to spend their last means to bring the last of his beloved children into safety. In Pireaus she boards a ship to America.)

My father followed me to the ship, when I left Thessaloniki in order to travel to Pireaus. This was the last time I saw him, and I shall never forget his last words to me: “Serpouhi”, he said, “we may not meet again in this world, now that you will be travelling far from your ancestral land Armenia, but remember that we have another home, a better place than this, where there shall never be tears or sorrow, and were we will never need to part. Shall we not set ourselves to meet in Heaven in the New Jerusalem?” He wept, and I also felt very unhappy for having to leave my dear father.

(In USA Serpouhi is educated to be a nurse and has surgery to remove her tattoos. After ten years Serpouhi gains American citizenship in 1932. At the same time, the Turkish foreign minister Talat, who ordered the final genocide against the Armenians, has taken residence in Berlin, where he lives for many years until murdered by an Armenian. Serpouhi ends her tale with these words):

You, my dear reader, may wonder why I have told this painful tale of the sorrow and suffering that has stricken my people. I have told this because I wish to give witness that the faith in Jesus Christ our Saviour and friend is an anchor, which is safe and firm even in the worst of storms. The hope for an eternal life, which he has promised his children, is in truth a blissful hope, which I have never forgotten during my great trials. He helped me bear them all. And not only this, but I know that it is due to the protection of my heavenly Father that my life has been spared. He has preserved me, because he had an task for me. My only wish is to serve him faithfully and execute exactly the task he has for me.

When I think of all he has done for me, I do not believe I can love my Saviour enough, and that no sacrifice he might demand from me may be too large. Let me tell you, dear reader, that he will be just as wonderful, just as true and as loving a friend for you, if you will permit him. … This world is full of disappointments and uncertainty, but I know that all will be well eventually. In the midst of my disappointment and insecurity and loneliness it is my privilege to have trust in an allwise Father. I am certain that he guides me, even when I cannot see clearly where it leads me. I bow to his will and am – ready to go, ready to stay – ready to take my place – ready for service, great or small – ready to do His bidding.

The massacre on the Greeks 1923

Already in the 4th century Constantinople was the seat of the Christian patriarchs and remained so in spite of the Muslim conquest of this metropole, which besides Rome was the cultural and religious centre of the Christian world. The fate of the patriarch of Constantinople in 1923 can be read in the report from U.S. State Department authored by Noel Barber:

The Turkish commander, Nurredin, a man with a sadist reputation, asked the Greek patriarch Monsignor Chrysostemos to give meeting. When the patriarch arrived, Nurredin spat on him, pointed to some papers, and told him that he was to be sentenced to death at a trial in Ankara.

“Now nothing is left but for the people to pass their judgement!”, he shouted. “Begone from my sight!” The old man was descending the stairs when the Turkish general appeared on the balcony above and shouted to the Turkish mob: “Treat him as he deserves!” A patrol of 20 French marines had escorted the patriarch to the headquarters of the general, but with strict orders not to intervene. Horrified they had to watch how the mob cut him to pieces, punched out both of his eyes, cut off his ears, then the nose and the hands, all while he was still alive….

The murder of the patriarch was seen as a blanket permission to murder all Christians. The wife in the American mission in Smyrna, escaping in the last minute, saw terrified how Turkish soldiers ransacked their home and destroyed everything. According to her testimony the most terrible robberies and killings were followed by rape of all non-Muslim women. The American teachers at the school were terrified watching how soldiers were murdering civilians in the streets in front of the school, how they forced themselves into the homes, killing the families and throw the bodies in the streets. In just a few hours, twenty women who had escaped into an English house had been dragged out and raped. The grave of an American was opened and the dead cut into pieces. All Christians instinctively ran towards the harbour. Thousands reach the sea, jumped in and swam to the ships of the western powers. But not to safety, as due to a command of strict neutrality towards Turkey nobody was permitted on board.

21 foreign warships were anchored outside the port of Smyrna on that day: Three American destroyers; two English warships, three cruisers and six destroyers; an Italian cruiser and a destroyer; and three French cruisers and two destroyers. They followed the order of strict neutrality, while the Turks took control of the city after the fleeing and dying Greeks.

“We were in the harbour, and they were on the [kaj], and at midnight a horrible screaming started.”, wrote Ernest Hemmingway, correspondent for the newspaper “Toronto Star”. Some drowned, others were shot or crushed to death, while the captains of the European ships were merely watching. “Non-interference” was the order of the day.

The Greeks and the Armenians were screaming all night through, and their terrible screams were heard everywhere. The next morning, almost everybody dead, a few surviving women and children were collected. Kemal Mustafa Atatürk, founder of the ‘modern’ Turkey, in his house on the hill overlooking the city, watched the burning inferno where Christians were burned to death, and said that this was a sign that Turkey had now rid themselves of their traitors, the Christians and the foreigners, and now we shall have a Turkey only for Turks.

The final elimination of the Greeks 1955

September 6th and 7th 2005 marked the 50 year anniversary of the Turkish immigrants to Asia Minor finally expelling the remains of the original Greek population of the country. The worst events took place in Constantinople, today named Istanbul by the Turks.

As reported by the German-Turkish human rights organisation Tüday:

On September 6th and 7th 1955 pogroms broke out – with backing and support from the state – against minorities in the western Turkish cities of Istanbul and Izmir (previously Smyrna). The attacks were initially directed against the Greek minorities in Istanbul. 83 churches were destroyed. Residential houses were looted and destroyed. As a consequence of the pogroms, 250,000 Greeks escaped from Turkey.

A Greek-German reports:

My mother grew up in Istanbul and continued to speak Greek with her Greek colleagues in Germany. But for a long time she did not tell anything. It took a long time for her to start talking about it. About how the Turks on the night before the 6th marked all Greek houses and hung Turkish flags on all those inhabited by Turks. Eventually she told about neighbours who sought help and desperately knocked the doors of their Turkish neighbours. And about how some put themselves protectively in front of their neighbours or let them stay hidden until the terrors were over.

00:10 on September 6th a bomb exploded in the garden of the Turkish consulate in the Greek town of Thessaloniki. Greek police arrived quickly and noted that an additional two bombs were in place but had not detonated. Only a Turkish guard was present in the building. An ensuing examination determined that the bombs had been placed and detonated by this Turkish guard and a Turkish student, who had brought the bombs from Turkey. Even before the bomb exploded, Turkish media reported that the birthplace of Kemal Atatürk had been demolished. That triggered great anger in Turkey. The Turkish authorities had transported great amounts of people by train and military vehicles from Anatolia to Constantinople.

Early in the morning at 5:50 these hordes attacked the Greek inhabitants. The violence continued until September 7th 02:00, while Turkish police assisted and guided the raging mobs. Then the attacks stopped as suddenly as they had started. Under the slogans: “Today your property – tomorrow you life” the mobs executed terrible atrocities. Their leaders knew that terror would cause the Greeks to flee from their homeland; and by destroying Greek churches etc. they would erase the memory of the Greek past.

Many Greeks lost their lives, among them a monk who was burned alive, and women were raped. Ancient Greek monuments were destroyed. 250,000 Greeks fled their lands never to return. In 1923 300,000 Greeks were living in Constantinople.

Before the catastrophe the following had happened:

In 1955 Cyprus was one of the most significant national issues in Turkey. A the end of August there was a conference in London with the participation of Greece and Great Britain with the purpose of settling the status of Cyprus. Cyprus had from the beginning been Greek, inhabited by Greeks, but was invaded in 1571 by the Osmannic Empire as part as the Islamic expansion. But the Muslim colonists had remained a minority, and were still so at the liberation of Cyprus and later at the collapse of the Osmannic Empire.

The newspaper ISTANBUL EXPRESS wrote on September 6th about the explosion in the memorial house of Kemal Atatürk in Thessaloniki – in Greece. On the same day demonstrations broke out in Turkey led by students. Within two days practically the entire Greek population had been driven from their areas. The police openly supported the attacks on the Greeks. Later it became known that the riots had been instigated by the Turkish secret police (Turkish National Intelligence Agency, MIT), and that the explosion in the house in Thessaloniki was planned by Kotay Engin, an MIT agent, who in 1992 was appointed governor of the Turkish province (OZGUR GUNDEM September 6th-7th 1992).

The disaster that struck the Greek population was of incomprehensible magnitude. Constantinople had always been Greek and capital of the East Roman Empire, but was conquered by Muslims in 1453 and suffered huge massacres. More than 500,000 Greeks were still living in Constantinople in 1920. The assault caused almost all Greeks to lose their houses, businesses, companies and trades. Almost all churches were destroyed, as well as Christian institutions, general stores, schools, newspapers, and even the cemeteries were systematically destroyed to erase every trace that the city had originally been Greek and inhabitated by Greeks. Today only between 1000 and 3000 are left, mostly elderly people. The final solution, the complete annihilation of the original population, is almost accomplished.

The material losses were:
Destroyed private homes: 2600
Destroyed shops: 4348
Destroyed hotels: 110
Destroyed pharmacies: 27
Destroyed factories: 21
Burned churches: 38
Destroyed churches: 35
Destroyed Christian schools: 35
Destroyed newspapers: 3

Conclusion

This did not mark the end of the terror. In spite of the almost complete annihilation of all the original Christian people who inhabited Asia Minor before the Islamic conquest, the same course has been pursued in modern times. The Greek-orthodox priest seminary in Halki was forced closed in 1971. Demolishing of churches that the Christian minorities sought to build, and driving out small Christian minorities in the south eastern corner of Turkey. Among these were ancient oriental church communities, some speaking Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus when he walked on earth.

That the Kurds resist the destruction of their villages is understandable. But it is not comprehensible how the European countries have remained silent, and still remain silent, about the genocides perpetrated by the Osmannic empire, and the genocides in ‘modern’ Turkey, and that they did not act against the Turkish army occupying the northern part of Cyprus in 1974.

That Turkey probably did not learn any lessons from this is evident in article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which stipulates up to 10 years of prison for “Insulting Turkishness”, exemplified by authors mentioning the genocides, as well as their attempts to colonize new areas in Europe. That the Turkish prime minister Erdogan, head of the Islamist party, can state about the Turkish mosques in Europe: “Our mosques are our barracks, the domes our steel helmets, the minarets our bayonets”, is a scandal, but completely in line with the fact that one of the most favoured names for new Turkish mosques in Germany, and the west in general, is “Fati Cemiie” = Mosque of Conquest, named after Sultan Mehmet II, who conquered Constantinople and promised to conquer the remaining parts of Europe.

In Germany, Soviet, Cambodia, South Africa, people and leaders looked into themselves and condemned Nazism, Communism and Apartheid. Museums and history books in the respective countries describe the crimes of these atheist ideologies. Turkey has never condemned or even admitted the wars of conquest, atrocities and genocide that their Islamic ideology has caused on other peoples. Murderers were promoted and many are still treated as exemplary icons. One is proud of the Islamic conquests and lie consciously about the atrocities the subdued peoples were subjected to. When talking about holocaust denial, this is found extensively in Islamic countries. But not only pertaining to the Jews, also all the other peoples suffering partial or complete annihilation throughout history.

The current level of public opinion in Turkey can be difficult to gauge, but one indication came on March 29th in The Guardian, where the newspaper reports that Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a best-seller in Turkey. Already this anti-Semitic classic has considerable circulation in Arab countries and is printed in large stocks in Lebanon and the Palestinian areas, from where they are distributed to Europe and sold in large numbers in European mosques. In Germany, where the book is outlawed, the book is sold in spite of the German ban in most German mosques. The Turkish publisher of the book tells that more than 100,000 copies of the book have been sold in Turkey in a mere two months – mainly to young people. The development worries the small Jewish community in Turkey, who lately have been subject to serious bomb attacks in Istanbul. Jewish-Turkish spokesmen say, according to The Guardian, that it is not feeling assured by the word of the publisher that it has purely commercial motives, not ideological. The popularity of the book coincides with a wave of anti-Semitic articles in the Turkish press, including extensive holocaust denial.

The Norwegian holocaust centre wrote in the summer of 2005 this press release about the Islamic, and in particular the Turkish, lies about the Turkish genocides: “The Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gül has protested towards Norway due to the planned exhibition at the Holocaust museum about the genocide against the Armenians. The Turkish newspaper ‘Milliyet’ wrote about it according to Bergens Tidende on the 23th June 2005 under the headline: “Turkey rejects that a genocide has taken place” The Turkish department for foreign affairs confirms towards the newspaper that foreign minister Gül has protested towards Norway in a conversation Tuesday in Ankara with state secretary Kim Traavik. The official Turkish position is that around 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed during “inner riots” when the Armenians in Turkey took the part of the invading Russian forces during World War I. According to Armenian sources up to 1,500,000 Armenians were slaughtered merely during the years 1915 through 1917. (HLSenteret). On Bygdøy in Oslo the main exhibition about holocaust and other genocides opened in August 2006.

The Vatican envoy to Turkey at the same time condemned an “institutional enmity towards Christianity” in this mainly Muslim but supposedly secular country. “In Turkey – a country defining itself as a secular democracy – religious freedom exists only on paper”, said archbishop Edmond Farhatin, the Vatican envoy to Turkey, to the Italian news agency ANSA. “It is included in the constitution, but is not applied in practice”, Farhatin adds. The envoy of the Vatican believes that the attitude of the official Turkey is not largely different from other Muslim countries. The Vatican is working to ensure that the new EU treaty contains a clause mentioning that European values are inseparable from our Christian heritage. The idea of admitting Turkey or even other Mediterranean countries to the European Union can only exist due to a misunderstanding of the importance of our cultural roots that laid the foundation for Europe to be a free and prosperous area.

Litterature:
Benedictsen, Aage Meyer: Armenien. Et folks liv og kamp gennem to årtusinder.
Kbh. 1925
Brentjes, Burchard: Drei Jahrtausende Armenien. Leipzig, DDR, uden årgang.
Brandes, Georg: Samlede skrifter, bind XVII. København 1906.
Fregosi, Paul: Jihad in the West. Muslim conquests from the 7.th to the 21st
centuries. New York 1998.
Paret, Rudi: Der Koran. Stuttgart, Berlin, Köln, Mainz 1983.
Putzger, F.W.: Historischer Weltatlas. Berlin 1968.
Rotter, Gernot: Ibn Ishaq: Das Leben des Propheten. Tübingen, Basel 1976.
Sick, Ingeborg Maria: Pigen fra Danmark (Karen Jeppe). København 1949.
Slot-Henriksen, Rolf Christian: Korankommentaren. Kolding 2002.
Stead, W.T.: The haunting Horror in Armenia. London 1896.
Tavoukdjian, Serpouhi: Landflygtig. (Exiled – An Exciting Story from Armenia).
Odense 1982.
Zettersteen, K.V.: Koranen oversat från arabiska. Stokholm 1979.
Suggested further reading:
Alfred de Zayas on the legal implications today:

http://alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/ethnicpittsb.doc

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