[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 9, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1706]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          IN HONOR OF THE VICTIMS OF THE DESTRUCTION OF SMYRNA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, September 9, 1997

  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate 
the 75th anniversary of the burning of Smyrna and to honor its victims.
  The destruction of Smyrna in 1922, was the culmination of a Turkish 
campaign to eradicate the Greek population in Asia Minor, known today 
as Turkey. During this genocide, thousands were killed in forced labor 
camps, hundreds of Greek towns and villages were destroyed, and 450,000 
civilians were massacred by Turkish forces in areas where they composed 
a majority as on the Black Sea coast, in Pontus, and the Smyrna region.
  In 1922, Smyrna was the largest city in Asia Minor and a cosmopolitan 
hub populated by a highly educated Greek community and flourishing 
middle classes. In September of that year, Turkish troops sacked, 
burned to the ground, and slaughtered Smyrna's Greek and Armenian 
inhabitants along with refugees from the countryside.
  Metropolitan Chrysostomos, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox 
Christians in Smyrna who refused to abandon the city, was seized from 
religious services in the cathedral by the Turkish police and horribly 
murdered by a street mob. Other Greek metropolitans were brutally 
tortured to death as were dozens of Armenian clerics.
  As George Santayana said, ``Those who cannot remember the past are 
condemned to repeat it.'' That is why today I introduced, along with 
Mr. Bilirakis of Florida and Mr. Sherman of California, a bill to 
commemorate this anniversary and honor the victims of the burning of 
Smyrna.
  I urge my colleagues to join in commemorating this horrible tragedy 
by becoming a cosponsor of this resolution. It is important that these 
crimes against humanity are never forgotten and never repeated.

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