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RECOGNIZE THE GREEKPONTIANS GENOCIDE
From 1916 to 1923at Black sea, about 350.000 Pontians disappeared through massacres, persecution and death -marches. The population which could survive was driven to exodus. Thousands went away as refugees to a number of countries, such as France and United States of A merica. Some 190.000 of the survivors arrived in Greece before 1923. The agreement signed in 1923 by Greece and Turkey, along with the Lausanne Treaty, for the mass exchange of refugees between the two countries, did not include the Pontians still alive in the region, most of whom had been converted to Islam.As a whole, about 200.000 fled from 1916 to 1923 to the Caucasus, mostky to Georgia and to Russia.
PONTOS...RIGHT TO MEMORY
Interests
TESTIMONIALS
Maria Katsidou-Symeonidou
I was born in Mourasoul village, Sevasteia/Sivas district, on
August 15 1914. I remember the deportations well. In 1918, I was
about four years old, when one day I saw my father in the village
square. I ran to him and asked him for the pie he brought me
every day from the family-owned mill. He replied: O my child. The
Turks are going to kill me and you will not see me again. He told
me to tell my mother to prepare his clothes and some food for
him. That was the last time we saw him. They killed him along
with another ten men.
I remember another time when a Turk warned our village,
saying that all the young men should leave. This because the
next day, Topal Osman would be coming. Indeed, those that left,
were saved. They still killed fifteen men, including the teacher, the
village president and the priest. Topal Osman had caught three
hundred and fifty men from neighbouring villages. He had them
bound, murdered and thrown into the river that ran through our
village. I still remember the echo of the shots. They were hauling
the bodies by ox-cart for nine days to bury them. Most of them
were unrecognizable, as their heads had been cut off.
In 1920, around Easter, the Turkish Army came and told us to
take with us everything
we could. We loaded up the animals, but the saddle-bags tore
open and most of us were left without food. On the deportation
march, the Turkish guards would rape the women; one of whom
fell pregnant. In the Teloukta area, about half our group was lost
in a snow storm. From there, they took us to a place without
water, Sous-Yiazousou; many died of thirst. Soon afterwards, as
we passed a river, all of us threw ourselves at the water; people
fell over each other in the rush; many drowned. We reached
Phiratrima, which was a Kurdish area and they left us at a village
near a bridge. It was here that the pregnant girl gave birth, to
twins. The Turks cut the newborns in two and tossed them in the
river. On the riverbank, they killed many more of the group.
The killings ended only with the agreement for the Exchange of
Populations (1923). This is how we were saved. I came to Hellas
in 1923. As I was an orphan, I arrived with the American Mission,
at Volos (Thessaly). From there, we went to Aedipsos, to Larissa
and finally to Aetorrahi village, Elassona district, where I settled. I
migrated to Australia
in 1968, to be with my sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.
{Mrs Katsidou-Symeonidou passed away in November 1997.}
