TNT History Archives: Turkish Police POW in French Guiana (1919-1929)/Part I

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Kahramanmaraş Gündem, Februrary 2019)

It was during Istanbul's days of foreign occupation, 31 August 1919.

The weather was stifling and the time was about five in the evening,

as the workers began to head straight home from their workday since

it was dangerous to be out and about in the occupation.  There were

brash and rowdy English, French, Italian, Greek and New Zealand 

soldiers everywhere and most of them were drunk.

On that day Ottoman policeman Mehmet Cemil Efendi of the 3rd

Police Bureau was posted at the Şahin Paşa Hotel.  He was only 19

and been on the job for just four and a half months.  Like every other

day, he went to Gülhane Park to patrol but that night as he went to

Police HQS for night duty he encountered three Senegalese French

soldiers who were roaring drunk and waving their swords all around.

Mehmet Cemil Efendi saw the drunken soldiers force two Turkish

women from their carriage.  The carriage driver, an Albanian shop-

keeper and a Turkish soldier who tried to intervene were stabbed by

the Senegalese French soldiers, who then fled to the park.  Mehmet

Cemil Efendi pursued them and when they failed to heed his warnings

he shot them both dead.

Mehmet Cemil Efendi went to tell his police chief Nurettin Bey, who,

in turn, called the French Occupation Force HQS and turned the young

Turkish policeman over to them.  He was thrown into the French jail

at Kumkapı and on 27 February 1920 Mehmet Cemil Efendi was 

sentenced to 10 years of hard labor, even though his explanation that

he shot in self-defense was accepted (!), and shipped off to France. 

Mehmet Cemil Efendi reached Marseilles on 9 April 1920 and was 

put into Saint Pierre prison briefly before being transferred to the 

central jail at Provasisi near Paris.  However, in March 1921 he was

sent to French Guiana in South America to serve out his sentence

of penal servitude.  467 convicts, including Mehmet Cemil Efendi,

with their feet bound were boarded onto a large ship for the 12-day 

voyage to French Guiana.

//END of PART ONE//

“kuru Giyotin” de denen Fransız Guyanası’nda şartlar o kadar zordu ki hayatta kalabilmek için mahkûmların hem beden hem de akıl sağlığının çok güçlü olması gerekiyordu Beklenen gün gelip çatmıştı. 467 mahkum büyük bir gemiye ayakları bağlı olarak bindirildiler. 12 gün süren yolculuk sonunda Fransız Guyanası’na varıldı. Bu mahkumların içinde İstanbul’un Fatih Semtinin bıçkın delikanlısı olan Tahir oğlu Polis Mehmet Cemil Efendi de vardı. O yolculuk kelimenin tam anlamıyla bir felaketti. Gemide isyan çıkarmalarından korktuklarından 12 gün boyunca hayvan muamelesi görmüşlerdi. Bu mahkumlarının içinde her türlü milletten adamlar vardı.