A Brutal Event of the Greek Genocide

The Greek Genocide

Genocide or ethnic cleansing means to wipe out or try to wipe out a whole race or religion. Genocide has only been a word since 1948. Genocide means, Geno meaning race, tribe, or religion and Cide being the Latin for killing. Everyone should know about the Holocaust caused by Adolf Hitler. But the terror group named CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) is the group that took over the government when the Ottoman empire was defeated. It was run by an ultra-national group of Young Turks. The Young Turks goal was to make the whole Asia minor Turkish. They were going to do this by eliminating all Christian minorities like Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian Greeks. The Greeks were often known as disloyal by the Turks just like how Hitler said Jews were the problem with everything. (N/A, 2018)

The Greek genocide was one of the worst 10 genocides in recorded history. Back in the 11th century, the Turks entered Asia minor. The Armenians and the Greeks were basically equal to the Turks. They wore the same clothes, ate the same food, and lived in the same houses. The only difference was the Turks had an army. Centuries after they had entered Asia minor (1913), they decided they wanted to eliminate or deport all people who followed the Christian Ottoman Greek. They started this by forcibly removed or deported to the interior of Asia. Other measures of used to persecute the Greeks in this region were: boycotting Greek businesses, killings, death marches to the interior, heavy taxations, seizure of property, and prevention of working on their land. (N/A, 2018)

The next summer there was ethnic cleansing on the western shore of Asia Minor. The Great WW1 had started and they were taking the Ottoman Greek men between the age of 21 and 45 and sending them to Labor camps. Lots of men died under the conditions that they had to work under. They got very little food and water and were being forced to work around the clock every day. Some of them escaped and hid in the mountains with other Greeks who lived there. The Turks burned eighty-eight greek refuge villages and made the people march in the winter to the camps. In 1915, they got advice from the German government to just deport communities from the Dardanelles and Gallipoli region to the interior of Turkey. They were not allowed to bring anything with them. When they were being deported the armed guard who were supposed to be protecting them raped the girls and stole lots of valuables that they had. Hundreds of thousands of Greek men, women, and children died because of this. The shops and the goods in the shops were sold by the Ottoman authorities. They were deported to the interior and Muslim villages. They had to choose to change their religion to Islam or get killed. Most times, before deportation happened, Ottoman gendarmes(police) and Cetes(armed irregulars) seized money and valuables from the communities, committed massacres, and burnt down schools and churches. (N/A, 2018)

By the end of 1917 over 700,000 Greeks had been fallen victim to the well-made plan of annihilation. By 1918 774,235 people had been deported from their homes. Lots of them were deported to the interior of turkey and were never to be seen again. After the Ottomans defeat in WW1, the CUP’s (Committee of Union and Progress) were given death sentences because of their role in organizing the massacring of the Greeks. (N/A, 2018)

Being one of the most brutal events ever, the Greek Genocide caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. The young Turks in the CUP came to power and killed many greeks in an attempt to create one whole Turkish Asia. Killing anyone who didn't agree or who got in their way. This was how the word genocide was formed. What word will be next?(N/A, 2018)

References:

1. RCen, G. G. (2018, June 6). An Overview of the Greek Genocide. Retrieved December 20, 2018, from https://www.greek-genocide.net/index.php/overview
2. A Brief History of the Ottoman Greek Genocide (1914-1923). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://saintandrewgoc.org/home/2016/5/25/a-brief-history-of-the-ottoman-greek-genocide-1914-1923 

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