Tomorrow, 19th of May, is Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day.

I highly recommend you read this exceptional post by Stavros at My Greek Odyssey. Here are some extracts, but do read the whole thing:

May 19 has been recognized by the Greek parliament as the day of remembrance of the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Turks. There are various estimates of the toll. Records kept mainly by priests show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops and Kurdish irregulars. Other estimates, including those of foreign missionaries, spoke of 500,000 deaths, most through deportation and forced marches into the Anatolian desert interior. Thriving Greek cities like Bafra, Samsous, Kerasous, and Trapezous, at the heart of Pontian Hellenism on the coast of the Black Sea, endured recurring massacres and deportations that eventually destroyed their Greek population. The genocide started with the order in 1914 for all Pontian men between the ages of 18 and 50 to report for military duty. Those who “refused” or “failed” to appear, the order provided, were to be summarily shot. The immediate result of this decree was the murder of thousands of the more prominent Pontians, whose names appeared on lists of “undesirables” already prepared by the Young Turk regime.

[..]

U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau accused the “Turkish government” of a campaign of “outrageous terrorizing, cruel torturing, driving of women into harems, debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at 80 cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands, and the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities,” all part of “the willful execution” of a “scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey.” US Consul-General George Horton reported that “one of the cleverest statements circulated by the Turkish propagandists is to the effect that the massacred Christians were as bad as their executioners, that it was “50-50.”” On this issue he clarifies that “had the Greeks, after the massacres in the Pon­tus and at Smyrna, massacred all the Turks in Greece, the record would have been 50-50—almost.” As an eye-witness, he also praises Greeks for their “conduct toward the thousands of Turks residing in Greece, while the ferocious massacres were going on.”, which, according to his opinion, was “one of the most inspiring and beautiful chapters in all that country’s history.”

Stavros also includes in his post a graphic eyewitness account of the destruction of a Greek village, one of hundreds that met the same horrific fate:

The mothers, stood pale and disheveled in the bitter cold, trembling with fear while holding their clinging infants in close embrace. The young girls, some with their old parents and others with old women or holding up the sick, were herded like sheep, ready for slaughter, into the middle of a pandemonium punctuated by heart-breaking cries and lamentations. Then they ordered their victims to enter two pre-selected houses in the vicinity of the square where they could complete their crime. They herded this unwilling flock into the houses with kicks and shouts. There was no doubt now about the fate that awaited them. The Tsets crammed over three hundred into those houses, anxious to finish their macabre enterprise. When they were sure that no one remained outside, they locked the doors oblivious to the cacophony of cries and supplications for mercy that reverberated in the surrounding mountains and forests.

The final phase of this tragic event needed only a few handfuls of dry grass set alight to create a firestorm that engulfed the two houses in bloodcurdling screams through the pungent black smoke. What followed during the next hour cannot be adequately described…

Crazed mothers clutched tightly, with the all the force of their souls, their crying babies to their bosom. Children cried for their mothers. The girls and the other women with the elderly, the children and the sick, screamed and seized each other as if they wanted to take and give the other courage and help until their hair, clothes and bodies were engulfed by the flames. Piercing cries, maniacal screams and thunderous, wild howls of people, overcome by terror and pain. They beat and flayed the air and the walls to no avail. Hell on earth!

Some women and girls, in their despair and pain, threw themselves out of windows, preferring death from the bullets to the blazing inferno. Osman’s men who looked on smiling, enjoying the spectacle before them, were more than happy to accommodate these poor women by shooting them dead. The screaming began to dwindle, replaced by the noise of the crackling timbers and the crumbling walls falling on the smoldering bodies. Nothing remained but the ash and ruins of what used to be two homes in the town of Beyialan.

I’ve quoted quite a lot there, but please go and read the whole post, “Bitter Homage”.

You can also read another excellent article/post on the subject here, written by a young Pontian Greek girl called Olga, born in Russia and now living in South Africa. She also has a version of it in Russian.

Ted Laskaris comments on the current situation between Greece and Turkey on his blog Augean Central.

The Remembrance Day is currently recognised only by Greece and Cyprus and a half a dozen US states. Armenia also recognizes that the genocide occurred. Last year Jenny Mikakos raised the issue in the Victorian Parliament, seeking acknowledgement from the Turkish Government that the genocide took place. A minor scandal followed, with Jenny Mikakos being called racist and being accused of “inter-ethnic hate speech”. Here are extracts from her speech, from an article in The Age:

[..] On May 19 the Pontian community in Victoria and around the world will commemorate the 87th anniversary of the Pontian genocide that occurred in present-day Turkey.

“Between 1916 and 1923, over 353,000 Pontic Greeks living in Asia Minor and in Pontus, which is near the Black Sea, died as a result of the 20th century’s first but less-known genocide. Over a million Pontic Greeks were forced into exile. In the preceding years, 1.5 million Armenians and 750,000 Assyrians in various parts of Turkey also perished.

[..] The Turkish Government must begin the reconciliation process by acknowledging these crimes against humanity. The suffering of the victims of the Pontian genocide cannot and will not be forgotten.

[..] The Pontic people lived in Asia Minor and in Pontus from ancient times. When the Turkish nationalists took power after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a deliberate policy of creating ‘Turkey for the Turks’ was adopted, essentially to rid Turkey of its Pontian, Armenian and Assyrian Christians.

The process began with Christian businesses being boycotted, leading to bankruptcies and property being confiscated. Eventually, intellectuals and community leaders were rounded up and executed; women were raped and enslaved. Most victims died from exhaustion or dehydration on forced marches or work in the so-called labour battalions.

[..] Unlike Germany, which has taken responsibility for the Jewish holocaust, Turkey has never apologised to its victims.

Turkey of course won’t be apologizing anytime soon, but I wonder if a way forward may be to ask the Government of Kurdistan to apologize for the involvement of the Kurds. That would certainly put pressure on Turkey, to put it mildly. Although realistically it is unlikely, the Kurds may find reason to agree, given the recent war of words between them and Turkey over the PKK and the upcoming Kirkuk referendum.