Five hundred years of slavery of the nation under the most desperate yoke of the Turks, has no sadder page than the one left by the bloody era of the Ottoman aga. No analogy can be made for the catastrophe with the periodic massacres which from time to time applied by the Turkish governments against the Christians. It is true that the Turks always carry out persecutions at the behest of their governments, which they implement with a system and plan. The orders of the komitat and the awful Kemal Mustafa about the total destruction of the Christians, find a huge response from the Turkish population, so that there was nothing left but to give the signal of attack by a single man to revive hell. The Turkish tribe, irritated by the general failure and calamities of the general war, on the one hand, and accustomed to the massacres of the Rayads and the plunder of their property, was ready to turn against the defenseless Greeks.
Mustafa Kemal did nothing more than unlock the fanaticism of his brothers, knowing full well their feelings, appetites and endless hatred against Christians. Neither during the period of the janissaries, nor in the conquests of fortresses and cities, nor in 1821, nor in the great massacres of the Armenians, did the Turks appear so savage and unbridled in bestiality and inhumanity. In this case no grace was given, nor a period or deadline of peace. There was only one condition, strict and unwavering: The extermination of Christians by any means, regardless of gender or age. Every Christian was preached and every faithful Turk had the right to kill him at every opportunity. In Kerasounta, the entire prominent social class, for a long time, was forced into forced labor, working manually to transport stones in order to build the privately owned buildings of the Ottoman aga, and then at noon, everyone was savagely slaughtered.
The city philharmonic, which consisted of great and philanthropic young people for a long time, was forced to lullaby the bloodthirsty tyrant in his orgy ceremonies. In the end, however, they slaughtered in the most deplorable way. Only one member managed to escape. Scientists, doctors, lawyers, priests, merchants and intellectuals from every class were sent to the massacre every day by the Ottoman aga. Christians sending to the courts of independence without reason or crime and sentencing to death. The priests were devastated. They cut off their heads and left them in public view on main streets. The medical community of Kerasounto was decimated. There was a special envy against the scientists. The Ottoman aga was illiterate and rude but he had amassed enormous political power in his face and always managed to take advantage of the weaknesses of his opponents. Under Venizelos’s government, the Ottoman aga barely managed to externalize its nationalist sentiments. However, after the overthrow of the political scene in Greece, it became terrible and threatened the honor and life of all Christianity in Turkey and exterminated most of it in just two years. It is estimated that the victims of the Ottoman aga and the Chetads throughout Pontus amount to 70,000 souls. With incredible skill he managed to take advantage of an internal dispute between a portion of Greeks whose minds had been injured and while bearing Greek names, they denounced the fellow Greeks to the Turkish commander that they were supposedly Venizelos. They forgot that they were Greeks and they had to be united with each other, especially when they had a beast in front of them … the Ottoman aga. The issue has spread enormously and the Ecumenical Patriarchate is also involved, under pressure from a number of dignitaries who demanded the removal of Metropolitan Lavrentios. The Ecumenical Patriarchate sent as exarch the honest and active Saint Apolloniados Mr. Joachim, whose presence, however, brought the opposite result by adding oil to the fire. The Ottoman was collecting signed complaints from Greeks against the metropolitan in question. Initially and methodically, he “cleaned” the nobles who turned against the metropolitan at noon in the city market, with great ferocity. He threatened the Patriarchal Exarch Mr. Joachim with humiliation and abuse, but also the most useful citizen of Kerasountos, the late Spyros Sourmelis, on the accusation that he was hosting the Patriarchal Exarch, who sent him to the courts of sentenced to death by hanging. The same fate befell his brother Jordanis Sourmelis. Unfortunately, to this day there is a portion in Greece that continues this heinous act of support for Venizelos, which had caused so much destruction and doom to the Greek Christian people of Kerasounto. Suffice it to note that during the memorial service of the awful Hatzi Theodoros Panidis in Kerasounta, because some children overturned the discs of the huts, obeying the order of some interested parties, Osman Aga intervened and killed three children at the same time. In the Balkan war of 1912 against Turkey, Osman Aga volunteered and went to the Bulgarian front where he was wounded in the leg. He has been lame since then. Although he collaborated with Greek Christians in fishing and especially with Christos Kerhanidis, he nevertheless harbored a deadly hatred for the Greeks. At the beginning of the general war he organized a small group and they went to fight on the Russian front. Although his action there was not worth mentioning, he returned to Kerasounta with elevated prestige. When the Turks evacuated Erzurum and Trabzon and formed the Turkish front on the Harsiotis River near Tripoli in March 1915, Osman Aga reorganized his forces, summoning his Chets and joining the Turkish troops. Then for the first time Osman Ferretin Zate was titled Aga and began the real stage of the tyrant without any pretext. He snatched cloth, leather and other useful items from Christian shops to use as dependencies on his warlike lads. He taxed the wealthy Kerasundis very harshly and abused those who refused to pay taxes and levies submitted by Mutafai Millie.
On the front of Harsiotis, he had a friendly relationship with Trabzon, colonel-commander of the coastal army, Hatzi Hamdi Wein, a religious and fanatical Turk. The Ottoman aga constantly sent him expensive gifts and gratuities which he snatched from the fortunes of the Christians of Kerasounto. His grateful friend suggested to the commander of the Caucasian army – the promotion of the Ottomans to the rank of captain, although in fact hierarchically he did not even bring his shoulders to the rank of non-commissioned officer. Osman returned to Kerasunda very early because his cunning had dictated to him that the greatest victories were not won on the front, but in the cities against civilians and unarmed populations. Since then, he set up his barracks in the city of Kerasounto. After a while and while he gathered next to him the whole syndicate of his comrades-in-arms (naughty hoplites), he was declared a regular gang leader and began to impose himself on the government. He openly abused the wealthy people of Kerasounti with the tolerance of the deputy commander of Kerasountos, Arif Vei, and in fact, he maintained a gasoline-powered ship with a pirate crew with which he captured the unsuspecting Christian ships that were sailing in the sea area of K. In the second year of the war, together with other like-minded people, he brutally attacked during the night against the house of the merchant banker I. I. Sourmelis, whom he sent in blood and handcuffs to the military court of the front in consultation with the awful friend of Hatzis Hamdis. After a while, he arrested another rich and noble expatriate, Mr. Ioannis Deligiorgis, who was the son-in-law of the famous Pontian Konstantinos Konstantinidis who lived in Marseilles. So he arrested him and sent him to Hatzis Hamdis with the non-existent accusation that he was conspiring with the Russians. From the terror but also from this heavy slander, the unfortunate man died in prison before he even passed through the military court. Almost simultaneously with the arrest of I. Sourmelis, the Ottoman – besieged the house of the rich Mr. Pantelis Ermedis, whom he sent as a guard to the military court of the front. Both expatriates, after many months of detention at the front, were sent to Ordou (Kotyora) and after the invasion of the Russian army, they were sent to Trabzon. The Ottoman, during the general war, did not stop for a moment from thinking fraudulently against the Christians and committing all the atrocities. His advisers and collaborators were: his brother Hatzis Effendi, Imam Hassan Effendi, Imam Aikyur and finally the most treacherous Larcin Hate Haki Vei. causing irreparable calamities.
First on the dirty list of the Ottomans were always the priests whom he tortured, abused, beat and in the end slaughtered them. It was the turn of the prominent and the rich. He handed them over to the Chets, who stripped them naked and killed them. Within a day, in the province of Kourouki, which was 6-7 hours away from the town of Kerasounta, he killed three priests, two women and fourteen poor villagers. The villagers knew his rage and when they learned that the Ottoman was coming, they grabbed their wives and children and fled to the forests and mountains to be saved. They lived there for days and weeks like wild animals without food, home and security. After the armistice, the Ottoman aga exterminated all the Christian inhabitants of the 80 villages of the province of Chaldea. He surrounded the villages with a large army of Chets. He locked all the people, men, women and children in their homes and burned them alive. Even Nero, who had a perverted imagination, had not thought with so much evil, more terrible and total annihilation of populations. He even went so far as to boast after all that he had managed to clean up the whole countryside from the filthy giants to one. After the armistice, those Greeks who had taken refuge in Russia began to return by steamboats ordered by the Greek government. From Sohumi and other ports, Pontian Hellenism began to return to its cradles. This Hellenism that was expelled with the persecutions from the villages and cities where it was born and lived. However, the Turkish government became alarmed and worried as it watched the European movement of the Greek Pontians for the liberation of Pontus on the one hand, and the return of refugees to their homeland in waves on the other. repatriation of the Greeks of Pontus. It was said that for political reasons Russia was sending a population to Turkey and that this population had allegedly migrated from Pontus to Russia at least 50 years ago. Every day, in the ports, many diversions took place by the Turks who did not hesitate to snatch Greek returnees from their hair. During the second half of the armistice, a petrol station full of Greek Christians started in Sochumi, bound for Kerasounta. Among them was Hatsikas with his brother from Kulak – Kaya along with several of their fellow villagers. Turkish. Nevertheless, this fact became known in time to the Turks. Hatsikas and his comrades noticed the movement of the Turks against them and hid in a hazelnut orchard belonging to the S. Mavridis brothers, ten minutes away from the city. Their intention was to stay there until nightfall so that they could escape at night to their villages. To this day, it remains unknown which demon betrayed their hideout. Why ;;;; Because they dared to return to their homeland.
About 150 armed Turks formed a tight circle around the straits and streets from which the 12 hidden Christians could escape. In the end the siege became so small that Hatsikas and his lads surrendered without any resistance. They were taken to the detention center but on the way they thought it wise to kill them. So on the street and in front of the eyes of the astonished Christians, they were slaughtered. They were then taken to the command post square, where they were found dead and dismembered. This was the first total crime against Christians after the truce in the city. From 1917 to 1921, the Ottomans launched their plan to strip the Greek Christian Kerasountians of their real estate. The official taxation of the Turkish state but also the unofficial Ottoman taxation had exhausted the Greeks of Kerasounto and removed every trace of their movable property. Within two years, the very rich Kerasounta and the houses of the Greeks had been stripped of the much-needed furniture and utensils they were selling in order to be able to support their families. The girls and women took to the streets and sold their clothes, dresses and little furniture in order to buy some cornbread. Then the Ottoman implemented his dishonorable plan. He summoned the Christians to the local cadastral offices in front of two Turkish witnesses or in front of Christians (who had been forcibly dragged away) where they confessed that the owner of the estate or land had received a certain amount as a reward for the value of his property. At that time, the property was immediately transferred to the name of Osman or his lads – gang members and friends. In this way of inhuman robbery and kidnapping, all the real estate of the Greek Christians of Kerasountia, amounting to many millions of pounds, passed into the hands and property of the Ottoman and his friends. Hatzi efenti, the brother of the monster named Osman, was a merchant and suggested that they take advantage of this situation. So they bought many petrol-powered ships on which they loaded all the Greek loot and transported it to Constantinople for sale. Of course, this “machine” of theirs worked very well, so that they managed to avoid paying customs duties. All the export trade of Kerasounto, which consisted of hazelnuts, leathers and cereals, was carried out by the fraternal dictatorial couple. The Ottomans also established partnerships with other Black Sea cities, such as Batumi, from where they transported Russian products for sale to the coastal cities of Pontus. Osman’s gains from attacks – robberies and piracy against ships sailing in the Black Sea have no unit of measurement. In 1920 a group of pirates attacked the Russian ship Constantine. He then raided Christian homes overnight and picked up the weapons there, accompanied by a group of naughty soldiers. They beat, abused and flogged the men of the house to find out where their weapons were hidden. But there were no hidden weapons in Christian homes. The floggings were so fierce that they stopped only when the Turks managed to break the promise of the Greeks that tomorrow we will have the weapons ready for you to go and pick them up. The unfortunate Greek Christians were forced out of their homes the next day to seek and buy weapons from the Turks for a hefty fee to then present them again to the Turks as supposedly theirs. The Turks reached such a point of vulgarity that they presented old photographs of Greek Christians who on national anniversaries were photographed armed with borrowed weapons by well-known Turks. This arms collection operation brought huge sums of money to the Ottoman coffers. The Ottoman preached that he was an envoy of Allah with a mission to exterminate the Christians. Its objective was the complete impoverishment of the Greek Christian population of Kerasounta through a well-planned exclusion from the rest of Pontus. The Greeks did not have the right to fish in the sea nor to swim in it. There were special guards of the beaches who were shooting and shooting the Greeks who were approaching the sea. The Greeks could not grind their flour in the mills. This was allowed only to the Turks. But also in the distribution of bread, in the town hall, again, the Turks had priority while the Greeks were flogged by the police so that they would not have time to get bread for their families. The Greek family heads waited all day at the town hall for a loaf of bread, but in the end they returned to their homes empty-handed and slept fasting with their children. The incidents of ridicule of the Christians were daily and were provoked by the Turks to insult them. Outside the restaurants they threw no bones at the dogs for the hungry Christians to run to collect them. Also once near the shore a donkey had died and the hungry Christians had fallen on it and dismembered it to take pieces and cook them to satisfy the hunger of their families. The Turks looked from a distance and laughed at the disintegration of the Christians. At a time when the coastal cities of Pontus were mired in mourning and despair, Mustafa Kemal, through the Turkish National Assembly, established the infamous independence courts in Amasya, to which not only Greek Pontians but also Kurds and Syrians were referred. . From Kerasounta were referred all the scientists, community agents in power, but also merchants, who participated in institutions and fraternities such as orphanages, care committees, etc. In this way, the late Jordan I. Sourmelis, a merchant banker during the general war, was sent to Amaseia. There, along with about 3,000 Kotyorites, he was transferred by the Russian army to Trabzon. After the armistice he made the mistake of returning to Kerasounta, where he was arrested again together with his brother Spyros and sent to the independence courts in Amasia where they were both tried and hanged. Crowds from all over Pontus gathered in Amaseia to be tried. Hatzi Grigoris and Eleftherios Hotsas were sent from Erpaa. Five winners from Hatzi. From Tokati seven. Fifty-four from Kavza. From Merzifounta: Theocharidis – Pavlidis – Lamprianos, also a pediatrician and two students: Pavlidis and Nikolaidis. Sixty-nine Amines and ninety-one Paphras were tried by the president of the Aminwei courts, an Amasya MP, whom he hanged the next morning. Four were sent from Kiorele, from Kotyora Abraham Tokatlidis and the remaining Grigoriadis, the doctor Hazti Notas and Alexandros Tsiligeris treasurer of the tobacco monopoly. The first two were hanged while Tsilingeris died and the doctor was acquitted. Twelve defendants were tried by Fatsa and the eleven were hanged wildly, while the twelfth was acquitted.
Twenty-seven nobles from Ak Dag Maden, including the priest Pappas George, were all hanged. One hundred and fifty Greeks and Armenians were hanged in Tokat. Gallows were set up all over Turkey. The only punishment for Greek Christians … is Death.
At the beginning of October 1921, a new group of convicts was sent from Kerasounta to Amasia. Among them were the winners: Hatzi Vassilios Palasof, Nikolaos Makridis, Georgios Aslanidis, Ioannis Eleftheriadis, Savvas Tsaousis, Epamineondas Papadopoulos and Charalambos Kesisoglous. They escaped trial because in the meantime they had been abolished in the so-called courts of shame – the courts of so-called independence. Hatzi Vassilios Palasov and Nikolaos Makridis succumbed to their suffering and died. Those who had been exempted from the courts of independence precisely because of their abolition, could not save their lives from the clutches of the black demon. In one night, by order of the Ottoman aga, forty-three Kerasountians were killed, among whom the winners: Savvas Papadopoulos, Charalambos Kesisoglous, Hatzi Tsaousis, Ioannis Eleftheriadis, Panagiotis Eleftheriadis and Ioannis V. Makridis. Twelve Greek Christians, including two sons of Elias Hexacoustus, were killed on the same day by the river Ak Su on the same day. The Greek population in this terrorism lived secretly in slums and did not appear in public because they feared for their survival. The search for no food, but only bread was a daily torment. The Ottoman after clearing the whole countryside of Pontus from every Greek element to its farthest points in the most bloody and abominable way and while the Greek invasion had begun in Ankara, received an order to gather his 1500 Chets and assist the Turkish forces. to shake off the Greek force. Osman did not want to take part and ignored the order. He preferred attacks on unarmed and civilian populations, especially women and children. But a second order came and he was forced to obey.
Fighting in Polatlis, he lost two thirds of his followers. In the retreat of the Greek troops, the Ottoman attempted a foolish attack against them, at which point he completely crashed and left most of his Chets on the spot. He was so fierce against the Greek Christians that during the catastrophe in Asia Minor he followed the advancing Turkish army to exterminate the fleeing Christians wherever he found them. Absolutely nothing stopped him. In fact, members of the Turkish National Assembly were killed in the madness that had overwhelmed him. His crimes have no number or measure of comparison. In his general state and in the regime of impunity, he dared to kill the prominent leader of the opposition Soukri Vein from Trabzon. He had set up a gallows and after silencing him, took him to his house and there in horrible torture he killed him. This horrific crime upset all of Ankara and became an opportunity for all members of the National Assembly to protest against the government on whose behalf that insane person was committing his crimes. Osman was found guilty of murder after a brief interrogation and his arrest was ordered. However, he was notified in time and managed to hide in a hiding place two hours away from Ankara. A military detachment was sent to arrest him, which besieged his hiding place. He, knowing what awaited him, did not surrender but resisted with fire against the army. A three-hour battle was fought against him in which many selected members of his guard were killed while he was severely wounded in many parts of his body. Several of his cheetahs were handed over. Shortly after his arrest, this terrible criminal handed over his miserable and filthy soul to his father, the devil. At the request of the Turkish National Assembly, the body of Osman Aga was hanged mutilated for 24 hours at the door of the National Assembly for example. After a few days his body was transported to Kerasounta and buried with honors in the citadel by his friends and associates. His filthy remains still contaminate the martyred land of the slaughtered Greek Christians of Kerasounta. The assassination of Sukris Bey was carried out by the Ottomans at the behest of Mustafa Kemal, who with this move in the person of Sukris wanted to terrorize the Turkish National Assembly. In 1918, after the organized persecutions of the Greek element, in a semi-official census of the Patriarchate, we find that 440,000 Greeks remained in Pontus. So from 1914 to 1918 260,000 Greek Pontians perished. After the end of the world war and the orgy of murders that followed with the domination of the Neo-Turks, until 1923, we have the extermination of another 128,000 Greek Pontians. If we add these two numbers we have the frightening number of 388,000 Greek Pontians who succumbed to the horrible martyrdoms, premeditated and pre-planned by the Turkish Governments. So we are very lenient when we continue to say that the Greeks of Pontus who were sacrificed before the eyes of indifferent Europe, are only 350,000. And here is our big question. If this violent shrinkage of Pontic Hellenism is not GENOCIDE, then how can we baptize this unpunished crime of Turkey? If the annihilation of so many thousands of Greeks is not GENOCIDE, then how can we write it in the blank pages of Pontian Hellenism? Can the killers themselves or those who armed the killers’ hands show us the term that suits Turkey’s atrocities? For us Greek Pontians, for us New Greeks who are fortunate to be the continuation of the historical course of our heroic race, it was, is and will remain GENOCIDE.