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State of New Jersey

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

Proclamation

WHEREAS, the people of the State of New Jersey have long recognized the importance of the principles of freedom and democracy upon which our Nation was founded and the importance of commemorating tragic historical events which show

that such principles of freedom and democracy are not honored in other parts of the globe; and

WHEREAS, one such event is the systematic campaign to eradicate the ethnic Greek population in Asia Minor, from 1914 to 1922, by consigning the killing [of] thousands of male conscripts in forced labor battalions and destroying Greek towns and villages and slaughtering additional hundreds of thousands of civilians in areas where Greeks composed a majority, as on the Black Sea coast, Pontus, and areas around Smyrna, resulting in the genocide of over 500,000 Greeks of Pontus and Asia Minor; and

WHEREAS, beginning September 9, 1922, Smyrna, the largest city in Asia Minor, populated by a vibrant Greek community, was sacked and burned, its Greek and Armenian neighborhoods razed, and an estimated 150,000 of its Greek and Armenian population slaughtered by Turkish forces; and

WHEREAS, on that terrible day, Metropolitan Chrysostomos, the bishop and spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians in Smyrna who refused to abandon the city,

was seized from religious services he was conducting in the cathedral by Turkish police forces and given over to be killed by a mob in the streets; and

WHEREAS, during the period that all those atrocities were committed, over 1,500,000 Greeks who survived that genocide were exiled from Asia Minor and Pontus and became refugees around the globe, many of them coming to the United States; and

WHEREAS, the majority of the Greeks of Asia Minor and Pontus who immigrated to the United States, entered through Ellis Island, and many of them and their descendants became exemplary citizens of the great State of New Jersey; and

WHEREAS, the people of New Jersey desire to join the Greek American community in honoring the memory of the victims of Smyrna in 1922 and the Greeks who perished in the genocidal campaign in Asia Minor and Pontus from 1914 to 1922; and

WHEREAS, it is important for future generations that we commemorate these events, so that such atrocities may never be repeated; and

WHEREAS, it is fitting that the people of New Jersey share in the remembrance of the 80th Anniversary of the destruction of Smyrna, and join with the Greek-American community in recognizing the genocide of the Greek people of Pontus and Asia Minor;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JAMES E. McGREEVEY, Governor of the State of New Jersey, do hereby proclaim

SEPTEMBER 9,2002

as

A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF

SMYRNA AND THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE GREEK

PEOPLE OF PONTUS AND ASIA MINOR

in New Jersey.

GIVEN, under my hand and the Great Seal

[graphic of the of the State of New Jersey, this

Great Seal of the fourth day of September in the year

State of New Jersey] of our Lord two thousand two and of

the Independence of the United States,

BY THE GOVERNOR the two hundred and twenty-seventh.

[signature of [signature of]

NJ Sec. of State] James E. McGreevey

GOVERNOR

REGENA L. THOMAS

SECRETARY OF STATE

 

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