September 6 - Mayflower set sails - History Forum ~ All Empires

Well to be fair we must note that there were some brave Turkish citizens that refused to take part in the goverment organized pogrom against their neighbors and friends.

From the same author as before, Spiros Vryonis and his book titled "The mechanism of Catastrophe", I'd like to share a couple of abstracts.

(just to show that my posts aren't all about 'mud slinging' as some suggest, but about recording documented facts)

"Above this store was the clinic of Dr Alexis Meliopoulos. Here, they [the locals] did not allow the demonstrators in, as they loved him especially and also needed him... He had saved many and helped others by giving them free medicine"

"One of the Turkish ladies who rented from us told us: "the same is going to happen here. Try to save yourselves"
The husband hurriedly took his sick mother-in-law from her bed and carried her to a room on the other side of the house. No sooner had he removed her from her bedroom than a huge rock was thrown through the window, landing exactly on top of her bed. Eventually, the other members of the family made theyr way through the basement to the apartment of the Turkish woman on the second floor"

"Our neighbor had survived without damage, thanks to a neighboorhood friend, Ali Riza, the assistant director of the civil police. Ali Riza was a Turk from Crete and he... stood at the crossroads of our neighboorhood's central street and refused to allow the demonstrators to pass. Thus, thanks to the Turko-Cretan, the Greek homes of our neighboorhood were saved from disaster...
Meanwhile a boat from Istanbul full of demonstrators arrived at Kuzguncuk toward midnight. The village's [area's] muhtar and an officer threatened to shoot the ship's captain if he dared to land. Finally, the ship left and unloaded at Cengelkoy, where the demonstrators were reinforced by the cadets from the military school of Kuleli and did great damage..."

"My father, after countless struggles, managed to open a small tavern that attracted many Turks. One of these latter was an old friend of my father. He came then, at five in the afternoon, to my father's shop, and told him: "take whatever money you have and run to your home so as to be close to your wife and children". My father asked him why but he would not tell him, but simply repeated to hurry....

During the course of the looting, a Turko-Cretan family came from accross the street and gathered us in their house to protect us....

One soldier remained outside the house, while the second said to the third: "You rape the mother and I'll rape the child". I was a child of 8 years that September. I did not know or understand the meaning of what they had said. I thought they had arranged to kill us, and I began to shout, "not my mother. She has an infant to raise".
Then like a Deus Ex Machina, the Turkish friend of my father, who had tried the previous evening to return to our house but found the roads blocked, appeared. He ran into the yard and shouted at the soldiers: "what else do you want? You've burned down their livelihood [the shop], you've blackened their souls. Leave their honor alone..." He was so furious that he grabbed both of them and threw them out of the house. Thus we were saved..."

"It had been saved [the business] because a Turkish neighbor, a bookkeeper, who, immediately upon learning what was happening, contacted a hamal [porter], Hasan, and told him to run and save our business. He, with another Kurd, stood in front of the store and did not allow the demonstrators to destroy it. Thus, it survived with minor damage. We asked Hasan who had wished to destroy the store. He replied, "do not ask me for you are acquainted with most of them, but I cannot tell you their names". What is interesting in this incident is that the man responsible for saving the Vafeiades business was a Turkish bookkeeper who obviously knew the owners personally, doubtlessly through business contacts, while the two men who actually saved the shop were a crypto-Armenian and a Kurd"
(1) Note: Vafeiades gives a brief aside about Hasan: "everyone believed that Hasan was a Kurd. In reality, he was of Armenian descent. In 1916, during the massacres, he was then a little boy and he had been taken in by a Turkish family. The fates of his parents remained unknown. When he grew up, he managed to locate relatives in France and he corresponded with them"

"At that moment our doorman, Sadik, came and asked us if we had a Turkish flag. Inasmuch as we are [sic] Greek citizens, we did not have one.
Meanwhile , they [the rioters] smashed the outside door. Sadik, however, placed his body in front of the door, and while holding on to both doorjambs, shouted that everyone was absent and that only his family was present and that presently he would be displaying a Turkish flag. The demonstrators stated that they would return. And so they departed... in a hurry, so that they could smash, destroy, rape and plunder as many Greeks as possible. Sadik went out, he detached a Turkish flag, that is, stole it from another apartment building, and hung it outside our partment building, and thus we were saved.
Of course, our doorman was a Kurd and the next day the owner of the building rewarded him"

"Kostantinos Katsaros's family lived in Cihangir but had been summering on Heybeliada; when they returned to their house in Cihangir the next day, they learned that it "had been saved because our doorman, Omer, probably of Kurdish descent, prevented the barbarians from entering""

"Peter Tsoukatos was 9 years old at the time and staying with his aunt; when he returned to his family's house, "I learned that our apartment building had been saved because our doorman - a Kurd from Van - Mehmet... a pallekari [a brave and stalwart youth], stood before our apartment building keeping guard and would not allow the mob to destroy it." Mehmet insisted that no Greeks lived in the building and had taken care to hang a Turkish flag in front of it."

"In Pasabahce on the Bosphorus, the good police komiseris who saved the church and people from pillaging and burning appeared; a komiseris with only a pistol in his hand saved the church of Ferikoy. A third saved the island of Antigone [Burgazada]. Imagine what would have happened if the entire police force had acted thus.. In the Pasaj Agnavor [a shopping area in New Istanbul], the Turkish guard and his wife struggled with the mob... And they did not let them enter. Thus were the stores saved. The shopowners raised 8,000 liras as a reward to guard and his wife for saving them. The other pasajes were given over to the flames."

"A little higher up from Yiayia's house in a corner of the garden of her building, it was as though a bomb had exploded inside. THe building had been trasnformed into a pile of rubble.
Short, rotund, and though advanced in age, the red of her plump cheeks had not paled... She shed tears.. as she contemplated the ruins. At her side was her daughter, Athena... who now tore her hair and head: "I don't have anything, no passport,[she lived in Greece], no identity card, for they tore them to pieces. Now how can I return to my house", and she continued to weep.
Yiayia's hunting dog, Rex, had been savagely beaten with a club by the demonstrators. The poor animal's glance was turned towards Yiayia as though thanking her for saving its life from the hands of the mob.
The half-demented child, Osanna, lamented on her knees. Their heads crowded together, a voice came out from them but it was incomprehensible as to who said what. It was difficult to separate them but finally I was able to touch.. Yiayia's shoulder. For awhile she stared at my face and then she came to and cried out: "look at what has befallen us.." and she fell at my feet.
I took her by the shoulder, raised her, and said to her, "come now, let's get a grip on ourselves. THere's no sense in our remaining here." And taking all theree, I brought them to my house. They washed their faces and I gave them sedatives, and then forced them to eat a bowl of soup. They lay down for a while until Yiayia's oldest son came and took them"

"Hasan was in Galata taking his coffee on a street, when the riots began and a group of Greek owners of large-ship supply stores approached him. Hasan told them: "if you give me TL 10,000, I'll take 2 or 3 men from the streets and defend your stores until the riots end". The storeowners paid him the money willingly. Accordingly, Hasan was able to save their stores on this street from the attackers."