Greek genocide

The Pontian Greek Genocide started in 1916 and came to the final stage in 1919. It cost the lives of at least 353,000 Greeks living in the Black Sea province of Pontus. Survivors fled to nearby Russia and eventually to Greece after the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe.

Background

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 exhausting slave labour by the Turkish State, in order to reconstruct various of destroyed areas during the Greco-Turkish War. They were held to concentration camps and amongst the survivors was the well known writer 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.

Pontian Greeks who remained in the afterwards Soviet Union, also suffered under Stalin, when they were force to change their Greek surnames, scattered across the vast country, and many deported to Siberia. Their children and grandchildern eventually could freely return to Greece after 1990.

Arguments against

While the loss of the Pontic Greek presence in the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey around 1919 is not disputed, it should be noted that these 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 at the expense of Ottoman territories with significant Greek and other Christian population. When the Greek invasion started, the Ottoman capital of Constantinople 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 vilaet of Smyrna and eastern Thrace as a prize for entering the World War I on the Allied side. The Greek intervention sparked a resistance movement by the nationalist Turkish movement led by Kemal Ataturj 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. The exception to this exchage was the 180,000 strong Greek population of Istanbul and the 25,000 strong Turkish population of western Thrace. After numerous anti-Greek riots and pogroms, Greek presence in Istanbul is reduced today to a mere 2,000 while Turkish presence in western Thrace has increased to 120,000. 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 but modern estimates place the number to over 300,000 for Pontus alone. 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.

Official recognition and general interest

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 ), 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 so far it has not been granted. The incidents are also recognized as genocide in some states of the USA, namely New Jersey and South Carolina.

References to the issue have been made at different times by several Greek politicians of various levels. Taken as a tool for providing insights into general interest, Google Trends for several possible keyword combinations indicate that, Turkey on country basis, and Turkish among languages occupy prominent places for the term Pontus. The word is generally used in a context of tourism in Turkey and Pontus or Pontos are also common male names in some countries. Trends also indicate an interest in North America for Pontic. The terms Pontian Genocide or Pontian Greek Genocide did not generate significant search volumes since 2004 anywhere, nor is Greece or the Greek language seen in the lead for any of the possible terms. (For comparison purposes, the term "Armenian Genocide" generates notable search volumes strictly restricted to the period March-April-May each year since 2004 with the lead talen by Armenia, Lebanon and Turkey respectively, for understable reasons, and these are followed by a number of Californian communities centered around Glendale, Irvine, Los Angeles etc.)

Turkey's stance

As in the case of the Armenian genocide, 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 Salonica in May 2006, social-democrat mayor of İzmir, Aziz Kocaoğlu, announced on 12 May 2006 that they were suspending the processus for the signature (due to take in June 2006) of a sister city agreement between İzmir and Salonica.

Sources

• 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.

This publication talks about the common fate of the Christian minorities in the late Ottoman Empire. The aim of the authors is to speak with one voice, i.e. to ask for recognition of the persecution and planned extermination of Armenians, Assyrians, Pontian Greeks, ... by the Young Turks. The page numbers indicated refer to the Pontian Genocide.

External links

• 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