Book released on Greek genocide in Turkey

PanARMENIAN.Net - A compilation of testimonies taken from Christian Greeks who survived the massacres perpetrated by Kemalist forces during the final phase of the Greek Genocide, was published in Turkey in September, Asbarez reports.

The book is titled "The Genocide of the Greeks in Turkey: Survivor Testimonies from the Nicomedia (Izmit) Massacres of 1920-1921."

Meticulously compiled by journalist Kostas Faltaits in 1921 and now available for the first time in English, readers will learn more about the methods the Kemalists used to annihilate Turkey’s Christian minorities. This edition includes a prologue by distinguished historian Tessa Hofmann who puts the atrocities into their historical context.

The Izmit Massacres of 1920-1921 were massacres perpetrated by Kemalist forces on Greek communities in the region east of Istanbul historically known as Nicomedia. According to one report, at least 32 Greek villages were looted or burned and more than 12,000 Greeks were massacred. In 1921, while following the movements of the Hellenic Army in Asia Minor (today’s Turkey), Faltaits came face to face with the survivors of these massacres and collected their eye-witness accounts. Their stories include the mass burning of civilians in their churches and homes, rape and sexual torture of women, and the burning of children alive. Upon returning to Athens, Faltaits published the testimonies in Greek (1921) and the testimonies were published in French in 1922 & 1923. The book also includes the observations of the Armenian Metropolitan of Nicomedia, Stephan Hovakimian.