THE MIRACLE A True Story   2    For us, it all began one hot afternoon in July, 1964. It was a Tuesday, which my father had always considered to be an unlucky day because 29th May, 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, was a Tuesday.    He was at the electrical goods store in the centre of the aristocratic district of Cihangir. He had been looking after this shop for 25 years and had spent a major part of his life there.    In common with all the other Greeks living in the city, my father had recently become very concerned. Greeks were now being deported from Constantinople on a variety of senseless pretexts. He was well aware that Turkey had, several decades earlier, mapped out a strategy to get rid of the Greeks living there and was merely biding its time and turning to full advantage any opportunity that might arise to put this strategy into effect.    However, with the outbreak of the Second World War, Turkey generously offered "facilities" to Fascists and Allies alike and managed not to shed a single drop of Turkish blood. On the contrary, it saw the period as an excellent chance to deal a severe blow to Hellenism in Constantinople.    Thus with the fall of Crete in May, 1941, Turkey devised a plan for the general mobilisation of the non-Muslim population; men aged between 23 and 48 -including Greeks, naturally, but also many Armenians and Jews -were taken to forced labour camps in Anatolia, as had also happened in 1914.    These were in effect labour battalions operating under military conditions and led by junior officers in the Turkish army, who did not bother to conceal the ulterior motives of their superiors.    "You can forget about Istanbul!" they used to say. "That's it, you're finished here! Your wives and daughters will never see you again -they'll become Turkish women!"    However, under foreign pressure against this act of provocation, even in time of war, the Turks were obliged to stop the mobilisation procedure a year later and release all those who had survived. After wiping them out physically, they now proceeded to do so financially.    On 11th November, 1942, Law 4305 on a capital property tax (Varlik Vergisi) was debated and passed in a single sitting of the Turkish parliament; this law meant, in essence, economic ruin for the non-Muslim population and was applied in an eminently "Turkish" fashion to the Greeks, Armenians and Jews in Constantinople: the local tax officer summoned non-Muslim residents of the city and informed them of the amount of tax they owed -a quite arbitrary figure that was frequently as much as ten times the taxpayer's salary or many more times greater than a businessman's assets.    Non-Muslim taxpayers had no right to discuss or appeal against this decision. Within 15 days the unfortunate citizens had to hand over the whole amount that had been arbitrarily determined by the tax officer, even if this meant selling off their entire property, otherwise they would be sent to a forced labour camp.    In other words, if they did not manage to pay all the tax within the specified period of 15 days, followed by a further two-week extension period with penalty, they were packed off to Askale, in Asia Minor, which was seen as the Turkish equivalent of Siberia. The offenders built roads or cleared them of snow, for which they were paid two Turkish lira a day; the rest of their "wages" went 19 and 20 Leonidas Koumakis THE MIRACLE A True Story If you prefer a hard copy of the book, please send an email to HEC-Books@hec.greece.org Previous Page | Initial Page | Site Map | Next Page (21st of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.