Pogroms to the Jews at the time of “Secular and Democratic” Turkey – Part III

The Jews were expelled from the Cities of Dardanelles and Silivri, on June 25, 1934. On June 28 the expulsion continued. They were being expelled from cities in the European part of Turkey,

having high Jewish population, the cities Edirne, Keşan, Uzunköprü, Babaeski, Lüleburgaz and Kiriklareli (they are Turkish names for towns that used to be ancient in the past).

They had to leave some cities within 24 hours, somewhere within two days, and, exceptionally, in the case of Uzunkprü, they had three days available… They were leaving with personal belongings only and they left behind everything that many generations had built up, hoping that their lives, their existence would be tolerated in exchange for the superhuman devoted work…

 The pogrom was described by Hayim Begar in his book of memories like this:

„Every time I walked home from school I was attacked and beaten up so much that I was bleeding. They greeted me, ‘Salam al, Jew!’ I greeted them in their manner, but they continued beating me and ’a box with nails’ used to be added…”

 June 2, 1934

The hysterical crowd in the city of Edirne where the Jews used to live for centuries, attacked the Jewish shops, workshops, doctors’ offices and they beat up everyone they met. The ones who were rich and owned cars set for a journey immediately, in the direction to Istanbul, those who were less well-off walked towards the Greek or Bulgarian borders… And what about the ones who were not strong or courageous enough to leave the city? The bakeries stopped selling bread to them, they could not buy food even if they had money,  they could not get water,  and some of them tried to contact the authorities after all, but they were driven away and got a frightful advice to leave the city like the other had done…

The story of Rabi Kiriklareli is one of the scary, monstrous events that came down to our times.

The crowd, goaded by the state, motivated by robbing “wealthy Jews”, attacked all of the Jewish shops, including many doctors’ offices, and then even the house of the local Rabbi Moshe Finza. They stripped him naked, shaved him with a razor, tied him to a rope and walked with him around the square through the crazy crowd, whoever could beat him. In the meantime, a part of the state-controlled bandits raped his wife and daughter and stole everything the Rabbi had at home and they left him somewhere on the ground when he could not walk after all the beating. And they caught some Jewish girls in the streets and cut off their fingers to get gold rings. In the evening all of the 400 Jews that were still left there were sent to the station. They found out that there was a train with 16 carriages waiting for them since the morning to deport them to Istanbul. And the city was finally “clean”…  Let me add the information that trains for Istanbul used to have only four carriages at that time but on that day there were 16 carriages and the train was even waiting from morning till late evening at the station…!?

June 4, 1934

Those days were called La Fortuna – yes, a Spanish name, as all of the Jews were the ones whose ancestors had left Spain to flee from the Inquisition, and they used Spanish as the language to communicate in their community – either Spanish or Anavi.

On June 4, 1934 – we do not know who was behind that – out of a sudden, Atatürk received, secretly, two leading representatives of the Jews, Messrs Mishon Ventura and Gad Frank and then he ordered to make the exile less brutal after all – not so bloody! We do not know, at least I do not know yet, how much the gentlemen had paid for that.

On the same day, the British Times and Daily Telegraph published detailed news on the monstrous pogrom the innocent Jews had been subject to in the days of “secular – modern” Turkey under Atatürk’s leadership!

The information that the pogrom was ordered and executed by the state is not based just on reports published in the above newspapers or on the feelings of the survivors but also on reports by well-informed diplomats who sent reports to their governments on daily basis. It is sufficient to look at one of the numerous reports by his Excellency Percy Loraing of June 22, 1934 labeled as “secret despatch”, kept in the British archives under the code 371/10/34, in document numbers 17969 and  E 4916/4633/44.

This is just one small example of what nearly all superpowers knew exactly – how the Turkish state lead by Atatürk accomplished the Jewish pogrom and what means they used.

 What is important from the point of view of mankind, is the fact that the world knew and kept silent, as is silent now regarding antisemitism and suffering of Jews outside Izrael....

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ceska verze clanku je zde : https://uzunoglu.blog.idnes.cz/blog.aspx?c=649727