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Film looks at attack on Greeks in Istanbul
by Scott Gilbreath ~ February 21st, 2009
A controversial new film entitled The Pain of Autumn explores what Istanbul Greeks call their “Kristallnacht”, 6 September 1955. Greeks and others were attacked in Istanbul, and more than 5000 houses and businesses destroyed in mob violence orchestrated by the Turkish government.. Greek-owned properties suffered most of the damage, but Armenians and Jews were also targeted.
On the night in question, thousands of protesters converged on central Istanbul, incited by news reports that Greeks in Thessaloniki had bombed the childhood home of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. It emerged later that the reports were false.
Tension between Turkey and its historical rival Greece was high at the time over Cyprus.
Police and soldiers stood by when the protest turned violent. Cemeteries were desecrated, churches were looted and about a dozen people died, said Dilek Guven, a historian and author of a 2005 book on the subject, “The September 6-7 Events”. Hundreds of women were raped, she said.
Following a military coup in 1960, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and two cabinet members were executed for violating the constitution. Testimony at trial exposed their role in planning and instigating the violence. (According to Wikipedia, Menderes was “a Turkish liberal statesman and the first democratically elected leader in Turkish history”.)
As with the 1915 slaughter of Armenians, public discussion of the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom has been suppressed for decades.
As recently as 2005, demonstrators stormed an Istanbul gallery and vandalised photographs on exhibit from a prosecutor’s investigation into the 1955 events.
“Until now, we’ve either used silence or shouted to block out the past,” said Murat Belge, literature professor at Bilgi University and a political columnist, who was prosecuted in 2006 for criticising Turkey’s treatment of minorities. “It’s a major shift that we’re now using art to examine it.”
Over 500,000 people have seen The Pain of Autumn since its release last month.
h/t: EuropeNews
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February 23rd, 2009 at 02:01 PM
[...] REMEMBERING THE JIHAD– Film looks at attack on Greeks in Istanbul. Finishing up 1453 in 1955 …. [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 11:44 AM
[...] there’s the jealous Kristallnacht against the remaining Greek community in Istanbul in the 1950s, and the growing Turkish Islamic monoculture in some of the nation. The obligatory ‘of [...]