pharmacist Muzaffer Akpınar writes about other POW
camps, his role in Athens on the committee that organized
the Greek-Turkish POW exchange in 1923 and he delivers
a searing condemnation of Greece and the Greeks, as
perhaps might be expected based on his experiences.//
Since we did not have any contact
with other prison camps we didn’t
get any information about them. At the end, when the Red Crescent
representative Muzaffer Bey came to run the prisoner exchage he put
myself and
Dr. Abidin Bey, another prisoner, on his staff as secretaries.
So we had passes to move about freely and
learn what we could. We
contacted many
prisoners and toured the other camps and went to
some prisons. We were assigned
to accumulate information about the
Greek terror that went on and we found that
the treatment meted out
at other camps was the same as that inflicted on us at
our camp.
Wherever we went there were
examples of this terror.
Of the approximately 2,000 people
they arrested from eastern Thrace,
about 700 had been thrown into the sea by
the time they reached Crete.
The remaining
individuals were taken in wretched condition to Izzeddin
Fortress and they saw
that each ensuing day their numbers on the island
dwindled.
Izzeddin Fortress at Souda Bay, Crete
Seven prisoners from Sivrihisar
escaped but were captured. After
these
poor fellows were tortured in prisons on Sakız and Midilli islands,
they were
taken to Sisam island. The Greeks hoped
that any trace of
them would be lost, but our representative Muzaffer Bey made
numerous inquiries and investigations and discovered where they were,
saving
them.
The Turkish girls who Greek
officers forceably took from Anatolia were
made to convert to Christianity and
then abandoned. We witnessed the
wretched state of these poor girls, who knew nothing of inauspicious
Greek
customs nor the shameful Greek language.
Our representive took
the initiative to have a number of them return
with us to the homeland.
These girls had
borne many children, who were being housed in a Greek
house for orphans and in
churches, where they were converted to
Christianity.
The fate of the prisoners at
Nastasmos, Makovenisa and on Milos Island
was known only to themselves and to
God because since these places
were remote we had no information about
them. Nevertheless, we heard
from Greek
soldiers that because of the filthy conditions they lived in
they developed
illnesses like diarrhea. Consequently,
each day many
died a horrible death because of the lack of any sort of humane
care.
All of these abominable deeds and
terror were covered up by the
prisoner exchange conditions that were accepted
at the peace conference
that resulted from the blow inflicted on the traitorous
enemy by the heroic
Turkish Army. The
prisoner exchange began and we we loaded onto
ships. But because of some political tensions that
arose, the ships were
diverted to Crete, where we were off-loaded at
Kandia. We remained
there for 21 days,
after which we arrived at Klazomen (Urla quarantine
island) on 2 April 1923,
planting our wet feet on the sacred soil of our
beloved motherland with
unbridled joy.
Pharmacist Muzaffer Süreyya
Summary: It would be appropriate to look more closely
at this nation,
the government of Snake-istan, which is a focal point for
hypocrisy and
intrigue. If it were necessary to identify
a word that would carry the
meaning of lying, swindling, hypocrisy and
intrigue, falsity, dishonor,
terror and vileness, then the word ‘Greek’ would
immediately come to
mind to capture the essense of this ill-omened
definition.
Edremit – 19 June 1923 Pharmacist M.S.
//END of PART XXVIII-H//
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