3 Ağustos 2019 Cumartesi

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

//Ed. Note: Pharmacist Muzaffer (Akpınar) of Edremit 
continues with his detailed report about Greek atrocities,
up to the point where he himself is detained and tortured,
the gruesome details of which will appear in Part-C of this
series.//

muzaffer akpınar kütüphanesi fotoğrafı ile ilgili görsel sonucu
               Muzaffer Akpınar Library in Edremit today.


I feel it is my national duty to relate a number of incidents that I 
personally witnessed in our vicinity:

Bloody posts in cellars:

A young friend from the neighborhood was returning to his home one 
night at 8.30 o’clock when he was stopped by a Greek patrol.  They said 
to him “Don’t you recognize the law of the Greek government?  What 
are you doing on the street at this hour?”  The poor fellow wanted to say
 in reply that the hour was still early, but instead he was hit with rifle 
butts and dragged screaming and moaning to the outpost, where he was 
stripped naked and, of course, his money, watch, ring and other valuables 
were taken from him.  The threw him in the cellar and beat him violently. 

The poor fellow thought that perhaps an officer might intervene and have
him released and he persuaded one of the soldiers to summon the officer, 
with the promise of giving the soldier 10 lira the next day.  Two hours 
later the officer arrived.  But with unbridled rashness, the officer said 
threateningly “the Turks in this village still haven’t come to their senses?”  
He then proceeded to beat the young man with a whip and his boots to the 
point where the the blows administered by the soldiers and gendarmes 
were surpassed.  The young man passed out and they left.  The next day t
hey did the same thing all over again.  This went on for three day until he 
was released with a broken arm.  Three months later his situation 
improved with continuous treatment.

mustafa kemal edremit ile ilgili görsel sonucu
Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in Ergama village en route to Edremit.
8 February 1923.


An official named Nazım Bey named his child “Mustafa Kemâl”.  He 
was picked up at the coffeehouse before prayers that night and brought 
to the outpost, where they said to him “Don’t you know that Greece is 
the master of not only Anatolia but the entire world?!  When will you 
forget the name M.K.?!”  Then the atrocities began.  He was tied to a 
post in the basement and beaten.  It got to the point that he was ready to 
disown his child but they would not relent.  Every part of his body 
swelled and he became unrecognizable.  They held him for a couple of 
days and then brought him to his home at night.  A month later he was 
seen at the market with a much-changed visage, his head and eyes 
bandaged, as he quivered while leaning on a cane.

Should an Animal Made to Dance at the Market?

Another one of our youths was riding on a lovely animal through the 
market area when it got spooked by the sound of the carts there. 
Greek officer who saw this apprehended the youth and brought him 
to the outpost, saying “Don’t you know that a Turk cannot act haughtily 
in a place where Greeks are?!  Why are you having your animal dance 
in the market?!”  The poor youth intended no such thing, exerting all his 
might to prevent the animal from falling and causing an accident. 

Despite saying this, though, he was ignored and thrown in the cellar, 
being beaten there until morning.  They put hot boiled eggs in his 
armpits and he fainted immediately.  His armpits swelled and because 
of damage to either his nerves or arteries he can no longer use his arms.  

The Greeks entered homes with the fiendish pretext of searching for 
weapons and inflicted degradations on the people in the city and the 
villages, having a detachment of soldiers numerous enough to fill a 
church beat them. A few people died and a few others were crippled.  
Since there are not enough pages to chronicle the atrocities the Greeks 
committed one by one, and because it would take a committee days, 
weeks and even months to record all these Greek depredations, it must 
suffice for me to write just a few examples of Greek incidents of torture.

Türkmenoğlu Ahmed Ağa was killed on some pretext.  Four people in 
Hamdi Bey town, whose names I do not know, were murdered, four in 
Küçük Agunaya, and 5 in İnönü.  An arm and a leg of Cebeci Ahmed Bey 
were broken by the filthy boot of a Greek officer.  Köreli Ali Bey was 
hung by his feet for 6 hours from a plane tree in the market and beaten 
with bats all the while.  The local Christians served as guides for the 
Greeks in regard to all these incidents and engaged in a despicable 
competition to join in the inflicting of these tortures.  

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After touring all the villages one by one over the course of a few months, 
I was able to compile incidents such as 20 little girls disappearing just 
about every day, women’s honor being attacked in the presence of their 
family members, hot iron pressed on the faces of brides because of greed 
for their money.  The men in the vicinity of the towns and villages were 
killed for any kind of reason or pretext. 

With the idea of establishing a government in Anatolia where the 
populace would be obedient to them, the Greeks implemented a daily 
litany of horrors but realized that this would not suffice to make the 
people succumb to Greekness.  So the policy of destruction became 
all the more apparent and comprehensive, resulting in the arrest of any 
youths, intellectuals and influentials they encountered.  Three days 
before this new policy was implemented, the Greeks emptied the boys 
school, on the pretext that it would house their soldiers, but instead 
turned it into a prison. 

The arrests began on Wednesday, 13 April 1922, and within 8 days 
40 people were arrested from Edremit and about 300 people were 
rounded up from the villages.  I was one of the 40.  The populace, 
already terrorized, was frightened further by the arrests and closed 
their shops, reluctant even to come out of their homes to go to the 
market or walk the streets.  Only those wearing hats and caps (non-
Moslems), and a few wearing the fez, were out and about.  

Considering this quietude and sparcity to be evidence of their success, 
the Greeks neglected the other aspects of their program and 
concentrated on interrogations of notables by a random officer they 
appointed.  In these initial interrogations, I was brought before this 
despicable officer, whom this fiendish and horrific hearth had created.   

//END of PART XXVIII-B//    

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