Pontian Greek Genocide
The
Pontian Greek Genocide (
Greek:
"ενοκτονία των Ελλήνων του Πόντου,
Turkish:
Pontus Rumları Soykırımı) is a term used to refer to the alleged
genocide by the
Ottoman Empire of
Pontic Greek populations in the historical region of
Pontus, the
Black Sea provinces of the Ottoman Empire. According to the sources put forth, it started in
1916 and came to the final stage in
1919 although some sources have stated that it was planned during the administration of the (non-existent)
Turkish Prime Minister "S.ker Pasha"
[ Background Paper on the Pontian Genocide by Akis Haralabopoulos]. It is claimed to have cost the lives of at least 353,000 Greeks. Survivors fled to nearby
Russia and to
Greece after the
Greco"Turkish War of 1919"1922.
It has been officially recognized as genocide by
Greece and
19 May was set as the date of commemoration of the event (in
1994). It was also recognized by the states of
South Carolina[South Carolina Recognition],
New Jersey[New Jersey Recognition],
Florida[Florida Recognition] and
Massachusetts[Massachusetts Recognition] in the
United States. (Although it should be noted that states within the
United States of America do not make nor promote their own foreign policies.)
Turkey maintains that this event was not of genocidal nature, and the selection of the date of May 19, which is a national holiday in Turkey, is considered by some Turkish politicians to be a provocation.
Pontian Greeks who remained in the afterwards
Soviet Union, also suffered under
Stalin, when they were forced to change their Greek surnames, scattered across the country, and many deported to
Siberia. Their children and grandchildern eventually could return to Greece after 1990.
One of the methods used in the systematic elimination of the Greek population was the
Labour Battalions (Turkish: Amele Taburu, Greek: Τάγματα Εργασίας
Tagmata Ergasias). In them, mostly young and stronger people were captured and forced to do exhausting slave labour by the Turkish State, in order to reconstruct areas destroyed during the
Greco-Turkish War. They were considered to be
concentration camps. Amongst the survivors was the well known writer-novellist
Elias Venezis, who later described the situation in his work the
Number 31328 (
Το Νούμερο 31328). Another method used by the Turks was to force the weaker population, including women and children, to walk for hundreds of kilometers until they died. This was known as the "Light Death".
An academic approach to Labor Battalions has been provided by
Sabancı University Associate Professor
Leyla Neyzi who, by her studies on the diary of
Yaşar Paker, who was issued from the tiny
Jewish community of early-
20th century Ankara, and who has actually been enrolled in the Labor Battalions not once but twice, the first time during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and the second time during the
Second World War in which Turkey did not take part. One of her studies, published in the
Jewish Social Studies in Fall 2005, presents an overall picture for the conditions in these battalions which were composed entirely of non-
Muslims. According to Leyla Neyzi, "one of the main reasons for the formation of these units was to ensure that local non-Muslims (...particularly local Greeks) would leave their regions of origin and not join the forces fighting the
Turks". Paker, enrolled in the Labour Battalions after their formation on
2 March 1921, was dispatched for work to
Kastamonu first, and then to
Eastern Anatolia with other non-Muslims. Despite harsh conditions (Paker mentions that they were only given four loaves of bread and a cone full of black olives at the departure from Kastamonu towards
Erzincan), the account and the study of his experience does not point nor hint at acts of a genocidal nature, in the full course of the Greco-Turkish War when "the enemy had come as close as
Haymana (a town near Ankara)".
[Strong as Steel, Fragile as a Rose: A Turkish Jewish Witness to the Twentieth Century Leyla Neyzi paper on the basis of Yaşar Paker's diary published in the Jewish Social Studies in Fall 2005 ]While the loss of the Pontic Greek presence in the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey is not disputed, for the sake of use of
Elias Venezis, who was enrolled in the Labor Battalions "after the Turkish return to
Asia Minor", as a reference, it should be noted that his events corresponded to a period when the
Ottoman Empire had disintegrated and the government of
Greece decided to take this opportunity to make territorial gains in Ottoman territories with significant Greek and other Christian populations. When the Greek invasion started, the Ottoman capital of
İstanbul was invaded by
the Allies and the Ottoman Sultan was about to sign the
Treaty of Sèvres which relinquished control of much of the ethnically Turkish territory of the Ottoman Empire to the Allied Powers of
Britain,
France and
Italy to colonize. Greece was allowed to invade the vilayet of
Smyrna and eastern
Thrace as a prize for entering the
World War I on the Allied side. The Greek intervention sparked the nationalist Turkish movement led by
Kemal Ataturk which eventually led to the establishment of the
Republic of Turkey. The ensuing
Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) resulted in the loss of many lives,
Greek (350,000) and
Turkish (15,000) and in the aftermath, a
population exchange between Greece and Turkey resulted in a near-complete elimination of the Greek presence in
Anatolia and a similar elimination of Turkish ethnic presence in much of Greece. It is impossible to know how many Greek inhabitants of Pontus and Smyrna died during the conflict and how many of them were deported to Greece and
Russia. The fact that the events took place at a time when a well-organized Greek Army was invading a geographically contiguous land, not populated by a majority of Greeks except for two pockets (
Smyrna and
Pontus), complicates the picture.
The incidents which occurred during that period have been officially recognized as
genocide by the
Greek Parliament in
1994, through an iniative centered largely around former
PASOK Central Committee member,
Michalis Charalambidis (described by one Greek source as
the ringleader of recognition of genocide of Greeks of Pontos [Web portal of Hellenic Pontians]), and the date of
19 May has been instituted as the official date of commemoration.
A letter was submitted to The
United Nations Commission on Human Rights by the "International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples" to request such recognition in
1998 but was not granted. The incidents are also recognized as genocide in some states of the USA, namely
New Jersey[New Jersey Recognition],
South Carolina[South Carolina Recognition],
Florida[Florida Recognition] and
Massachusetts.
[Massachusetts Recognition] A ceremonial non-binding resolution on this issue was also placed by a state representative and a senator in
Florida during the 2005 legislative session.
[ http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=17788& ] In Germany, organizations as
"Verein der Völkermordgegner e.V" (i.e. "Union against Genocide") or the initiative
"Mit einer Stimme sprechen" (i.e. "Speaking with One Voice") aim at the official recognition of the genocide of Christian minorities, such as
Armenians,
Pontic Greeks, and
Assyrian people, in the late
Ottoman Empire.
Turkey's stance
Turkey maintains that the incidents referred to cannot be considered to be of a
genocidal nature. The choice by
Greece of
19 May as the date of commemoration, a national holiday in Turkey for being the anniversary of
19 May 1919 when
Mustafa Kemal Pasha set foot in
Samsun to initiate the
Turkish War of Independence is viewed in Turkey as futile provocation by some
Greek politicans. With the opening of two commemorative monuments in
Thessaloniki in May
2006,
social-democrat mayor of
İzmir,
Aziz Kocaoğlu, announced on
12 May 2006 that they were suspending the signing (expected in June
2006) of a
sister city agreement between
İzmir and
Thessaloniki:
İzmir ve Selanik niye kardeş olmadı?(Why couldn't Smyrna and Thessaloniki become sister cities?) in Turkish.
*Hofmann, Tessa, ed.
Verfolgung, Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Christen im Osmanischen Reich 1912-1922. Münster: LIT, 2004. ISBN 3-8258-7823-6. (pp. 177-221 on Pontian Greeks)
*
United Nations document acknowledging receipt of a letter by the "International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples" titled "A people in continued exodus" (i.e. Pontian Greeks) and putting the letter into internal circulation (Dated 1998-02-24) (PDF file)
*
Search United Nations documents, by typing "Pontian Genocide" (if above link doesn't work)*
German and Austrian Ambassadors reports of that time starting from 1909 *
State of New Jersey proclamation on 19th of May*
State of South Carolina proclamations of recognition*
Information about the genocide on The Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies*
Hellenic Genocide*
The Pontian Greek Genocide*
Video: Demonstration for the recognition of the Pontian Genocide, 26 May 2006 in Stuttgart, Germany. One of the speakers is Tessa Hofmann
