AHI
Commemorates the 81st Anniversary of the Destruction of Smyrna by Ataturk
and calls for compensation for the victims of Turkey’s war crimes
WASHINGTON, DC – AHI
commemorates on September 9, 2003 the 81st anniversary of the destruction
of Smyrna by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the killing of over 100,000 Greeks
and Armenians by Turkish troops and calls for compensation for the victims
and their heirs of Turkey’s war crimes.
AHI commemorated last year’s
80th anniversary on September 9, 2002 with a noon forum featuring the
leading authority on the destruction of Smyrna, author and scholar Dr.
Marjorie Housepian Dobkin. Dr. Dobkin is the author of the Smyrna 1922:
The Destruction of a City (Faber & Faber, London, 1972, previously
published in 1971 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, as The Smyrna
Affair), which provides the first in-depth investigative account of the
horrific events of September 1922 and the subsequent cover-up by Turkey
and by the Western Allies, who had defeated Turkey and Germany during
World War I. Smyrna 1922 was on the New York Times list of its "100
Notable Books" of 1971, and in 1972 was considered the "Book of
the Year" by the Sunday Times of London. Lord Kinross, the author of
Ataturk has, in a review, called the book definitive.
In her remarks at the AHI Noon
Forum, Dr. Dobkin vividly presented the atrocities committed by the
Turkish troops:
"Within hours of Ataturk’s victorious entry into the beautiful,
thriving and predominantly Greek city of Smyrna (now Izmir), Turkish
soldiers began the killing and raping of Greeks and Armenians, and the
looting and pillaging of their homes and shops. Over 100,000 Greek and
Armenian civilians were killed by the Turks.
"After breaking down the
doors and entering Armenian and Greek homes house by house (the Greek and
Armenian quarters overlapped), Ataturk’s soldiers killed and raped the
inhabitants, and emptied the furnishings into waiting trucks. This was the
finale of the Armenian Genocide of the First World War when close to two
million Armenian men, women and children had in 1915-1916 been dispatched
to their deaths by the Young Turks from all points in Turkey -- except
Smyrna.
"In the harbor of Smyrna
stood a flotilla of twenty-one warships: French cruisers and destroyers,
British destroyers and a battleship, an Italian battleship and three
American destroyers. All were on orders from their respective foreign
offices and military commanders to refrain from giving aid and comfort to
the Greeks and Armenians who were considered enemies of the Turks. The
ships were on hand to 'protect their own interests only.' Allen Dulles,
head of the near-East division at the U.S. State Department, gave the
order, which had been passed down from the Secretary of State, to the
American ships through Admiral Bristol in Constantinople.
"Days later, when the wind
turned and began blowing toward the sea in the record heat of that
September, the stench was so strong on the streets and in the victims'
homes from the remains of those massacred in that part of Smyrna, that
even the large battleships had to move back 80 yards. It was at this point
that Ataturk’s soldiers, led by their officers, set the city to the
torch.
"Thus, one of the most
magnificent cities on earth as attested to by travelers over the
millennia, the city where Homer was born and whose magnificent harbor the
Romans treasured so much that 'they treated the Smyrneans kindly so as to
preserve to themselves the finest port in Asia,' was totally destroyed,
its churches and mansions burned to the ground. The Greek and Armenians
citizens, all well-to-do, were killed and those remaining were pauperized,
and the large, immensely wealthy European population was gotten rid of by
Ataturk, the new leader of Turkey who had said 'Turkey for the Turks.' He
was aided by the very nations who had shortly before been enemies of
Turkey and were now, evidently betraying Greece in a monumental
turnaround, owing to the oil of the Mosul (now Iraq) that Ataturk had
inherited from the Ottoman Empire, 'déjà vue' all over
again."
We
call for compensation for the victims and their heirs of Turkey’s war
crimes.
