THE MIRACLE A True Story top of the hill, at the junction with the main road which was called Kallioncu Kulluk, was a large store named Crystal which occupied the ground floor and basement. It sold household goods and glassware and belonged to a Greek. The mob charged into the store and began to wreak havoc; some of the items that were hurled out on to the street rolled down the hill and ended up outside our front door.    The noise of the merchandise being smashed combined with the shouting of the crowd to produce an atmosphere of sheer terror. The destruction was accompanied by cries of "Today your property, tomorrow your life!" When they had finishing breaking and looting at the Crystal store, the mob moved on towards our house.    The leader of the gang, who was holding a list of houses in the area, stopped in front of the building.    "Giavours live here!" he cried. "In this house there live infidels who torture our brothers in Cyprus and plant bombs in the family home of our Father, Kemal Atatürk!"    The sound of that voice will remain with me for the rest of my life. The hatred and passion in it were like a knife plunged deep into our sensitive souls.    The frenzied mob began to throw the first stones at the door. Paralysed with fear, we crouched motionless on the roof, hardly able to breathe.    Suddenly a familiar voice shouted out "Stop!" from the building opposite. The wife of the infamous Papa Eftim, who lived across the road from us, had appeared on the flat roof of the house opposite.    Papa Eftim was a shady character, detested by the Greeks because he was suspected of being a Turkish agent. It was he who had organised the so-called "Turkish Orthodox Church". The Greek Orthodox Church had repudiated him and all the Greeks viewed him as a traitor; they avoided him whenever possible, even to the extent of not greeting him on the street. Now his wife, who must have weighed at least 130 kilos, suddenly appeared at the last minute on the roof of their house, which was exactly opposite ours.    The mob, knowing perfectly well who and what Papa Eftim was, paused for a moment. The pseudo-priest's wife continued in a voice that did not waver:    "Please, go away. Giavours used to live in that house, but now there are peace-loving people who love Turkey as much as you or I do."    Our anguish was indescribable. We hadn't the strength to make even the slightest movement, not even to look.    "Are you sure, abla (sister)?" asked the leader of the group in disbelief.    "I am sure you know who I am," came the voice of the fat woman.    "Of course we do," was the reply.    "Then you should also know that I get very angry when my word is doubted. Take my word for it and get out of here."    After a slight hesitation, which seemed to us to last a century, the leader shouted:    "Let's go! We still have a lot of work to do!"    The mob followed him as he led the way down the hill past our house, still shouting "Death to the giavours!"    We stayed where we were, transfixed, until the last member of the gang had turned the corner at the bottom of the road.    The houses of the Greeks who lived in the suburbs of Constantinople sustained worse damage that night than those belonging to Greeks living in the city centre. Two areas completely devastated by the Turkish mob were Chrysokeramo (Çengelköy), on the shores of the Bosphorus, 51 and 52 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 (53th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.