The Forgotten Tragedy of Smyrna/Izmir and the Yamim Noraim
Way back at the beginning of this blog, I wrote two posts on early Hebrew printing in Izmir/Smyrna. I haven’t thought about Izmir much, but recently a new book has been published about one of those forgotten wars of the 20th c., the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922
Britain, America and France backed Greece’s charismatic leader, Eleftherios Venizelos, in his pursuit of the megali idea (“great idea”), the dream of creating a greater Greece by occupying Smyrna and swathes of Anatolia. Having licensed a war by proxy, the allies in varying degrees turned cool on it. They looked on passively as Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk, republican Turkey’s founder) and his troops routed the Greeks from Anatolia and reoccupied Smyrna, bent on revenge for Greek atrocities in the city and further east.
The port was ransacked and looted for days. Women were raped and mutilated, children were beheaded and more than 100,000 people killed. Meanwhile, 21 allied warships sat in the harbour. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were trapped on the city’s quayside, yet officers on the ships still dressed for dinner and ordered louder music to drown out the screams.
The massacres and ransacking of Smyrna occurred in mid-September of 1922. In October of that year, Louis Marshall, then the Chairman of the American Jewish Relief Committee, which later became part of the JDC, made the following statement.
The sacking of Smyrna has added to the already overbrimming cup of Jewish tragedy. Twenty thousand Jews have been rendered homeless, shelterless and are crying across the seas to their brethren in this country for aid. This cry for aid, which has been coming to us from every country in Europe, from the millions of our unfortunate brethren since 1914, has, so far, always been answered with unparalleled generosity.
I am confidant that the Jews of America, who last Fall and Winter pledged the unprecedented sum of over $14,000,000 for war relief will not relinquish their efforts on behalf of their unfortunate brethren across the seas until their tragic plight has been fully relieved. Our terribly afflicted brethren in Smyrna are suffering just as the Jews are suffering in all the war-stricken lands, through no fault of their own. They are not only the victims of war but also of that monstrous wave of religious and race prejudice which is its cruellest (sic) aftermath.
When we assemble in our synagogues on this ‘Day of Atonement’ to supplicate mercy and loving kindness, let our hearts go out to our stricken brethren in the Ukraine, in Poland, Lithuania, Austria and Rumania, and now also Smyrna and Constantinople.
NY Times, Oct. 2, 1922
I hope that people enjoy this blog post, because a few minutes ago I realized that I had something cooking on the stove for lunch tomorrow. That dish went the way of charred food. Off to buy some more noodles. Shabbat Shalom.