2 Ağustos 2019 Cuma

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

//Ed. Note: Edremit pharmacist Muzaffer Süreyya was,
according to both his friends and the Greeks, the ringleader
of the anti-occupation movement in Edremit.  His  10-page
report (other POW reports were 2-3 pages, at most) is a
very well-written and passionate denunciation of the 
Greeks and the occupation.

edremit haritası ile ilgili görsel sonucu

Here is a brief biography of Muzaffer bey (the surname
Akpınar was adopted in 1935):

Muzaffer Akpınar (Rhodes 1891–Edremit 1955), a 
graduate of 1913, and was one of the most active 
pharmacists in the history of Edremit. 

During World War I he was Health Officer for the 
Control of Infectious Diseases in Damascus and Antioch, 
and pharmacist of the Nablus (Palestine) Surgical Hospital. 
He volunteered for the National Army (Kuva-yı Milliye), 
and organized the Committee for the Defense of the Rights 
of Anatolia and Rumelia in the struggle for liberation, for 
which he was decorated with the red-ribbon Turkish 
Independence Medal. M. Akpınar founded the Edremit 
Idman Yurdu sports club, and served as Member of 
Parliament for Balıkesir for four terms.//




The memories of captivity of a pharmacist from Edremit:

It is impossible to either enumerate or describe the unbearable tyranny 
and torture inflicted without exception on men, women and children 
during the Greek occupation.  The pages of history will be blackend by 
the vicious atrocities that are unique to the Greeks.

How the Greeks İmplemented Torture:    
                
Included among the types of brutality that the Greeks saw fit to use 
were burning people in fire, impaling children with stakes, having 
women and children get bloody by running through an area of grain 
sprinked with thorns, subjecting poor villagers to death by herding 
them through a gauntlet of bats, rifle butts, boot and spur kicks at the 
brutal whim of an officer or a sergeant or even just a soldier.  

Any matter – no matter how insignificant – would be punished by 
hanging someone by his feet and beating him until he vomited blood, 
pouring hot olive oil on one’s stomach, nailing needles between flesh 
and fingernail, pulling out fingernails, pressing a red-hot bar or other 
metal part to various parts of one’s body, putting boiling hot eggs 
under one’s armpits – these were the main duties that kept the Greeks 
busy at the military occupation offices and the Gendarmerie outposts.  
Even a villager from the most remote place witnessed the 
implementation of this policy of destruction the Greeks inflicted in 
Anatolia.

In the event that a complaint was filed in their offices and facilities 
about the crimes the Greeks committed they would say “if a soldier 
did it we won’t interfere.  We can’t tell them what to do.”  If a 
complaint was filed at a Greek military facility the response would be 
“who taught you such slander and who incited you this way?”  and 
the complainant would be subjected to one of the collection of 
tortures I enumerated above. 

Again, whether the punishment was severe or light would depend on 
the whim of the concerned officer or sergeant.  Every young person 
waited each day for a calamity to befall him.  Anyone the Greeks saw 
as being sturdy and free were beaten down by the vile initiatives of 
their despicable administrations.    Or if they determined that the youth 
was no longer a threat, they would simply crush and kill him.  If 
personal threats did not bear fruit, then measures would be taken 
against even the youngest of one’s family.  For days on end their lives 
would be made miserable in the occupation offices and the 
Gendarmerie outposts.  Force and pressure would be applied with no 
let up.  People would be banished, homes destroyed.  In short,the 
Greeks would do anything and everything. 

greek occupation of anatolia ile ilgili görsel sonucu 
  
Youths Were the Greeks' Greatest Enemy:

“You will not name your newborn children after any Turkish heroes.”   
So after they saw that a number of children had been named Mustafa 
Kemâl they arrested the families on one pretext or another.  As they 
explained the arrests with fabrications and lies, they made know their 
dislike for the name Mustafa Kemâl and shamelessly proposed that the 
child’s name be changed.

Having money and being rich constituted a serious fault.  Every day 
the Greek Gendarmerie and military would visit markets, factories, 
shops and any other kind of commercial place to see what they could 
get.  They had themselves invited in and talked about their need for 
clothes and boots.  These dogs, who were used to frequenting the cafés 
in an apron and sandals to work as waiters, would make the merchants 
outfit them in pants made of English fabric, the most elegant suits and 
boots polished with varnish. 

In order to take care of any other needs, they would hit up another rich 
person the next day.  So no one would let on about having money, 
wouldn’t wear anything chic or nice and avoid riding a valuable animal.  
In fact, people were careful to not even carry a set of beads or a nice 
cigarette holder.  Otherwise they would fall victim to the preying touch 
of those voracious, insensitive hands.  Nothing could be said about it.

The martial law command decreed that no one could be on the street 
after 10 o’clock, European time.  But those who come out of the mosque 
after prayers before 8 were stopped and beaten in basements for a few 
days.  The situation came to the point where you would be taking your 
life in your hands to go visit a neighbor at night.  The biggest pretext the 
Greeks had for entering and violating the sanctity of the home was to 
search for weapons.

In short, the word “Greek” carries with it the meaning of the most blood-
thirsty, violent, vilest actions ever witnessed by mankind that resulted in 
stripping, robbing, beating, striking, killing and the breaking arms and 
legs. 

//END of PART XXVIII-A//


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