6 Temmuz 2019 Cumartesi

TNT POW Reports: Turks in Greek Hands (1920-1923)/Part XVII

//Ed. Note: In this report a lawyer from Afyonkarahisar
recounts his arrest by the Greeks and imprisonment in 
Izmir, Athens and on Crete.//

afyon izmir haritası 1920 ile ilgili görsel sonucu
In 1920, Afyon was "officially" in the Italian sector of a 
carved-up Turkey, thanks to the Mondros Agreement of
1918 that ended World War I for the Ottomans. In fact,
the Greek army moved into Anatolia a bit beyond 
Afyonkarahisar until pushed back to Izmir from there in
1922.


The Statement of a Lawyer

Herewith the statement of lawyer Ahmed Efendi, son of Hasan Efendi, 
resident in Hacı Eyüb quarter of (Afyon)Karahisar, who was banished 
to Greece from Karahisar by the Greeks although he was guiltless:  

Date 7 June 1923

Question: What kinds of mistreatment and torture did you experience 
while in captivity in Greece?  What was the reason for your banishment? 
Where did you stay in Greece? What kind of treatment did other 
prisoners experience and what sort of cruelties did you witness and do ?

Answer: Without uttering a word, the Greeks took me from my home in 
Karahisar and transported me to Izmir.  There they read some documents 
that asserted that I was in Karahisar to spy for the Kemal Government 
and that I had arranged the order for the execution of lawyer Hulusi, 
the governor, by informing on him to the Turkish Government that came 
after the first occupation.  Despite the fact that I asserted that this was all 
fiction and the wild imaginings of the governor and the mayor, supported 
with statements made by their men,I was ignored and my assertions 
dismissed.  

They sent me to the police station at Maltiz Çarşı, where I was put into a 
room for a week without food or water, spending my time in a chair 
because there was no bed.  After a week, I was sent to Piraeus and from 
there to the Lucia prison camp in Athens.  I was put in one of the tents 
that housed other of our brother prisoners, with no blanket or bed.  

izmir athens girit haritası ile ilgili görsel sonucu

During the year I spent there they gave us no clothes or underwear.  We 
had only our per diem money to buy bread and beans but to get these we 
had to wait on a meals line where a Greek soldier constantly harassed us 
and even beat us.  Since what they gave us couldn’t be considered food, 
we became weaker each day.  In fact, some of our fellows who were 
beaten by this soldier died from the blows.  

We registered a complaint with the ambassador of Holland, which 
watched over Turkish affairs in Athens.  A superficial investigation was 
used to pass over the incident.  We lay in our tents filled with rain water.  
Subsequently, when money began to come to us from our hometowns we
 were better able to manage.    But the Greek soldiers and officers took 
every pretext to steal our money.  One time when we asked for leave to 
go into Athens we had to give the sergeant 25 drachmas.  And we had to 
give each of the soldiers who accompanied us 5 francs or drachmas, a 
package of cigarettes and treat them to a meal at a restaurant.  So 
prisoners who didn’t have any money were unable to take leave.  

türk üsera yunanistan ile ilgili görsel sonucu

We saw that the military prisoners we subjected to all kinds of torture and 
forced labor to break them down.  Although we appealed to those in a 
position to stop this horrific treatment this effort  boar no fruit.  In the end, 
we were shipped to Kandia on Crete, where the harsh treatment and 
injustices inflicted on Moslems were too many to count.  Some Moslems, 
who were rescued from villages around Kandia where no Moslems 
remained because of the cruelties and massacres committed by the Greeks 
and the Greek migrants, were transported to Kandia and stuffed willy-nilly 
into the homes in the Moslem community there.  The bread we got in 
Kandia was filled with stones and inedible.  In fact, I took a couple to 
Izmir and showed them to the Red Crescent delegation there.  

In short, because the cruelties the Greek government saw fit to inflict on 
Moslem prisoners were so numerous, I must be satisfied with what I have 
said.    
Date: 1 June 1923

Lawyer Ahmed, son of Hashuli

//END of PART XVII//

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