10 Ağustos 2019 Cumartesi

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

//Ed. Note: In this final POW report, the author focuses on
prisoners taken from Izmit and incarcerated in Liosia 
Prison in Athens.  For an even more thorough and gripping
description of Liosia, see the report of pharmacist Muzaffer
Akpinar (Part XXVIII-A through H, of this series.)//

Izmit-related POW report click here for a TNT POW 
report that preceded this series but is essentially a 
part of it.

izmit haritası ile ilgili görsel sonucu


What Our Prisoners Witnessed:

1.When the Greeks occupied the area about 150 people were arrested 
and when the Greeks evacuated Izmit when the Turkish National Army 
re-took it in June 1921, some 370 Moslems from Izmit and the 
surrounding villages were thrown into the bottom of a decrepit warship, 
tortured within the hold by local Greek and Armenian committee 
members and Greek soldiers who had been sentenced to death, left 
hungry and thirsty for 8 days and nights, and then deposited at the 
Liosia (Lucia) Prison Camp in Athens.  

Since this camp was a transit point, there were 800-900 civilian 
prisoners and between 1,000 and 3,000 military prisoners.  Among 
these prisoners were men in their 80s and 90s, blind and crippled 
people and children aged 11 and 12.  Because our returning prisoners 
do not know the number of men and women held in various locations 
in Athens and in the prison called Braygman and its dungeons,  it is 
not possible to state this number.  

2.There are some of our civilian prisoners who have not returned and 
one of them is Meyitoğlu Hüseyin Ağa from Izmit’s Ahmedcik quarter.  
His address is: Kapilon Military Prison, Athens, registry number 3999, 
Meyit Oğulları son of Tahir, Hüseyin Ağa.

liosia greece map ile ilgili görsel sonucu

3.The particulars of our civilian prisoners who died in Greece are given 
below and the causes of their deaths were beatings and hunger.  On the 
night that our prisoners were off-loaded at the pier at Pireaus they were 
quickly marched to Liosia Prison Camp in Athens.  Of those who could 
not walk fast enough were retired Capt. Osman Efendi from Adapazarı 
and Adalı Tatar Ahmed Dayı,who were viciously bayonetted to death by 
Greek soldiers.   

These civilian prisoners of ours were beaten at the prison camp in Athens  
in our presence, to which we attest with our signatures below.  They died 
from beatings and illnesses derived from hunger in the stables and tents 
at theprison camp at various times.  Those who died were: 1) Arnavut 
(Albanian) Halim Kahya from Çukurbağ village  2) Civilian felt cap 
maker Osman Baba 3)Bearer Pala Mustafa Ağa from Hamza Fakıa 
village  4) Laz Mahmud Çavuş from Karabaş village  5)Vehile tender 
Salim Usta of Izmit  6) Civilian handyman Mustafa Dayı of Izmit’s Ağa 
village 7) Civilian Hüseyin Baba of Belenören village.  These were 
civilian prisoners who died from blows to the head.  

4.One prisoner who remained in Greece is Meyitoğlu Hüseyin of 
Ahmedcik village.  The now-disolved Izmit Greek General Staff 
sentenced him to 101 years in jail.  Currently, he is in a Greek military 
prison.  He had been taken prisoner at the time when the Greeks 
occupied Izmit.  Our prisoners were imprisoned for no reason.  
Unfortunately, we do not know the number of those imprisoned who 
died and who remain in captivity.   Many of our prisoners died from 
beatings and filth.  An example is Laz Mahmud Çavuş of Karabaş 
village, who was spitting up blood for days after being beaten.  
Arnavut Halim Kahya and his friend suffered the same fate.    

Sick prisoners were sometimes sent to the hospital but most of them 
died horrible deaths in the tents and stables.  One time 3 sick men, 
whose identities are unknown, died in a tent.  Some of those who 
were sent to the hospital were intentionally poisoned.  The poisoned 
liquid they were forced to drink induced 12 hours of horrific suffering, 
after which they died.  It would be nearly impossible to determine their 
names.  Last year during the month of Ramazan, the condition of 
Turkish patients in the 4th Military Hospital was quite alarming.  In 
particular, military prisoners Halil, son of Kır Haliloğlu Mustafa of 
Aziziye (Erzurum), and İsmail, son of Koca Mustafaoğlu Hüseyin of 
Denizli’s Akdere village, along with two others, were in very  dire 
straits.  They looked like skeletons, from lack of care.  We witnessed 
the heart-breaking death of İsmail but we did not witness the deaths 
of the others.

//END of PART XXIX-A//



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