List of Deportations

List of Deportations

One of the primary methods used to bring about the destruction of Greek (Rum) communities in the Ottoman Empire during the Greek Genocide (1913-1923) was deportation. The list below documents 356 deportations conducted during this period in the region we know today as Turkey.

Deportations were an effective means to dispense with densely populated Greek communities both in Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor and were conducted before, during and after the First World War.  The death rates resulting from these deportations were often high, as measures were taken to maximize suffering. Deportees were deported without adequate provision for food and water and sometimes to places inhabited entirely by Muslims and forced to assimilate. Deportees were often maltreated and those who were unable to sustain the long distances died by the roadside. 

Deportations between 1913 and 1918 were authorized by the Ottoman Government under the direction of the Committee of Union and Progress party. During the period 1919-1922, deportations were conducted under the instruction of the Nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). 

For the purpose of this study, a deportation is considered a mass movement of a community or settlement by way of force. Communities that fled of their own free will are generally not included in the list. Communities that were deported to unknown locations (usually to the interior of Asia Minor) are also not included in the list since their destinations remain unknown. For deportations to Greece or Bulgaria where the exact destination was not mentioned, the closest destination point in those two countries was chosen. Those deported from western Asia Minor to Greece were usually deported to the closest island therefore the closest island was chosen as the destination.

A - Ecumenical Patriarchate, Constantinople. Persecution of the Greeks in Turkey 1914-1918. The Hesperia Press, London 1919.
B - Mark H. Ward, The Deportations in Asia Minor, 1921-1922. London: Anglo-Hellenic League, 1922.
C - Ecumenical Patriarchate, Constantinople. The Black Book of the Sufferings of the Greek People in Turkey from the Armistice to the end of 1920. Constantinople: Press of the Patriarchate, 1920.
D - The Exodus: Testimonies from the Regions of the Western Shoreline of Asia Minor. Volume A. Center of Asia Minor Studies, Athens 1980. In Greek.
E - The Exodus: Testimonies from the Regions of Central and Southern Asia Minor. Volume B. Center of Asia Minor Studies, Athens 2004. In Greek.
F - The Exodus: Testimonies from the Central Regions of Pontus. Volume C. Center of Asia Minor Studies, Athens 2013. In Greek
G - Carroll N. Brown Ph.D and Theodore P. Ion D.C.L. Persecution of the Greeks in Turkey since the beginning of the European War. Oxford University Press, 1918.
H - U.S Department of State. 867.4016/123
I - Central Council of Pontus. Black Book: The Tragedy of Pontus. Athens 1922.
J - The New Near East, Feb 1923. Near East Relief, New York 1923.

http://www.greek-genocide.net/index.php/overview/documentation/333-list-of-deportations