Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (46 page)

At some point in the afternoon, Kemal left the ladies for a few minutes, only to reappear in a beautiful white suit. Latife gazed at him admiringly. ‘She was dazzled by him and he was frankly in love. So the strong current of human attraction between the two enlivened the evening.’

Kemal, in an ebullient mood, was delighted that, with Smyrna in nationalist hands, his long battle was nearly over.

While the Turkish generals plotted their next move, Garabed Hatcherian had temporarily managed to escape from the quayside. Among the few homes that had escaped the fire he found one that belonged to the renowned Sivrihissarian family. He returned to fetch his family and the Hatcherians made their way to the house, where they were given a warm welcome.

They were not alone in seeking shelter. Scores of other refugees – all friends and acquaintances of the family – had taken refuge here. One of these informed Hatcherian that a number of houses on Chalgidji Bashi Street had also escaped the fire. Since this was where he had lived – and he was anxious to gather a few treasured belongings before leaving the city – Hatcherian decided to see whether the rumour was true. He and a friend disguised themselves as Turks and set off through the smouldering city.

They soon grasped the impossibility of their mission. ‘Out of the ruins of the buildings, smoke and flames are still rising . . .’ he wrote. ‘The fire has been much more extensive than we thought.’ He realised that there was no chance of finding his house intact; in the Armenian quarter scarcely a wall remained standing. ‘Only a few of us have witnessed the utter devastation caused by the fire,’ he wrote. ‘Its horrendous impression will be indelibly retained in our memories.’

As Hatcherian and his friend made their way back to the quayside they were stopped at gunpoint by a Turkish soldier. He quizzed them about their nationality and – not believing their claim to be Turkish – arrested them, taking them to a military bureau in the unburned section of Basmakhanien train station. Here they were interrogated before being led to a detention centre. For the next twelve hours, they were held in a crowded room along with forty other prisoners.

‘Near the door of the room, there is a petrol tank filled with water and a small tin bowl,’ wrote Hatcherian. ‘Only after constant begging are the prisoners allowed to drink water. As for the natural needs, it is very difficult to get the permission to go downstairs, and only under police supervision.’

Every few minutes, more prisoners were led into the room, which was soon packed and claustrophobic. As darkness fell, a new horror emerged. ‘After midnight . . . my attention is drawn to the begging voice of a woman coming from the floor below,’ wrote Hatcherian. ‘Her voice is mixed with the threatening voice of a Turkish soldier and the plaintive screaming of a three to four year old. The woman, whose voice sounds young, implores the soldier to spare her honour.’

Her pleas went unanswered. She was repeatedly raped – at least twelve times – before dawn brought an end to her ordeal.

On the following morning, Hatcherian and his friend were told to line up and were then led outside. As they reached the gate of the building, they watched a cart passing by, piled high with human corpses. ‘Many of them are beyond recognition,’ wrote Hatcherian. ‘Some are bloated and different body parts are charred. This loathsome picture makes me shudder.’

Under armed guard, the men were marched through the Turkish quarter, then herded inside a large military compound and told to find a space in the courtyard, alongside the other prisoners.

‘The barrack square is rife with filth,’ wrote Hatcherian. ‘The prisoners . . . relieve themselves wherever they can, so that urine and excrement flow all over the place.’ Throughout the day, hundreds more people were brought to the barracks prior to their deportation to the interior. With each new batch of arrivals, the conditions – already bad when Garabed arrived – became increasingly intolerable.

‘It is not possible to breathe the fetid air of the square,’ he wrote. ‘The stench causes nausea, we become dizzy and can hardly stand straight.’ The men were continually hassled and abused by their guards, who would grab prisoners at random and lead them outside the compound. None was ever seen again.

‘It is impossible to describe the horror and the emotional chills we felt each time we saw a soldier approaching us,’ wrote Hatcherian. ‘Not even for a minute did we close our eyes, and the hours felt like months.’

Senior American officials spent the weekend trying to persuade the Greek government to send a fleet of vessels to rescue the crowds on the quayside before it was too late. But the Greeks would only agree to this if the safety of their ships would be guaranteed by the Turks. Such an assurance was not forthcoming. According to a telegram sent to Admiral Mark Bristol in Constantinople, ‘Kemal . . . said he would not take responsibility to allow Greek ships into the harbour.’

Bristol himself was coming under increasing pressure to send more vessels to Smyrna in order to speed up the humanitarian relief effort, yet he remained extremely reluctant to get involved, fearing that it would jeopardise American interests and potential future oil deals. His policy came under much criticism in Constantinople. The former consul-general to Persia was so disgusted that he launched a stinging attack on Bristol in an interview for the
New York Times
. ‘The United States,’ he said, ‘cannot afford to have its fair name besmirched and befouled by allowing such a man to speak for the American soul and conscience.’ He informed the newspaper’s readers how Bristol had once told him: ‘I hate the Greeks, I hate the Armenians and I hate the Jews. The Turks are fine fellows.’

Although no American vessels pulled into the bay of Smyrna that weekend, a few other ships made an appearance. Among them was a little freighter called the
Dotch
, which arrived on Sunday with a delivery of food and supplies for the American Relief Committee. This had been established, against all the odds, at the farthest end of the quayside.

On board the
Dotch
was an American doctor named Esther Lovejoy, who had volunteered to come to Smyrna in order to help with the relief effort. She had visited the city once before, in 1904, and had fond memories of its Edwardian charm. Now, a rather different sight greeted her eyes. ‘The destruction was complete,’ she wrote. ‘The ruin somehow reminded me of trees I had seen in Belleau Wood [site of a ferocious battle in France in 1918], with all the branches shot away.’

Lovejoy estimated that there were still 300,000 refugees on the quayside, all of whom were in a terrible condition. ‘The people squatting on that quay were filthy,’ she wrote. ‘They had no means of keeping clean. They dared not go back into the ruins of the city for any purpose lest they lost their lives. In less than two weeks, the quay had become a reeking sewer in which the refugees sat and waited for deliverance. When the crowd stirred, the stench was beyond belief.’

Lovejoy realised the absolute urgency of getting these people off the quayside. Just thirteen days remained before all who were still alive would be deported to the interior. And this, she knew, was considered by everyone to be ‘a short life sentence to slavery under brutal masters, ended by mysterious death’.

If their lives were to be saved, it would be achieved only by a monumental effort. Although she could not do it by herself, she knew that there was someone on hand to help.

Tuesday, 19 September – Saturday, 30 September 1922

A
sa Jennings had scarcely slept in six nights. As an employee of Smyrna’s YMCA, and a man with a clear sense of duty, he was proving extraordinarily resourceful in a time of crisis. As soon as the fire had begun to burn itself out on the previous weekend, he commandeered two intact and unoccupied houses that were situated in the far north of the city. One of the buildings was transformed into an emergency maternity hospital; the other was converted into a supply depot to feed the hungry and needy.

This alone was a remarkable achievement, given that large numbers of out-of-control Turkish irregulars were roaming the burned-out city. However, Jennings was soon to perform far greater feats. He would lead what must rank as the most extraordinary rescue operation of the entire twentieth century.

He was, according to most accounts, a shy and unprepossessing individual. Scarcely five feet tall, and diminutive of build, he wore large glasses and had an uncommonly large mouth. When he smiled, he looked like a frog. A devout Methodist minister from New York, Asa had worked for the YMCA in several foreign countries but had singularly failed to make much of an impression. Now forty-five years of age, he had come to Smyrna with his wife and two sons in order to take up his appointment as Boys’ Works Secretary.

He had been in the job for only a few weeks when he found himself caught up in a crisis of unprecedented proportions. When the killings began in earnest, he was urged to follow the example of his fellow Americans and retreat to the safety of one of the destroyers in the bay. Nevertheless, Jennings refused to be intimidated by the Turkish irregulars and vowed instead to do everything in his power to save the refugees on the quayside. He hoisted the American flag over the two properties that he had appropriated and told the marines on shore to bring pregnant women and orphaned children into his care. Within hours, he had more than 1,000 people in what he labelled – somewhat unfortunately – his ‘concentration camps’.

His work won him no plaudits from the American navy. Commander Halsley Powell of the
Edsall
told him that his humanitarian work was ‘irresponsible’ and ordered him to remove the American flag from the quayside buildings. Jennings duly obliged, but he had no intention of stopping his rescue mission. ‘I have seen men, women and children whipped, robbed, shot, stabbed and drowned in the sea,’ he wrote, ‘and while I helped save some it seemed like nothing as compared with the great need. It seemed as though the awful, agonising, hopeless shrieks for help would forever haunt me.’

He had already saved several lives during his occasional visits to the
Edsall
and the experience had taught him that individuals could make a very real difference in such a desperate situation. On one occasion, he was standing on deck when he heard a low cry from the water. When he peered over the rail, he saw a refugee floundering around in the sea, too cold and exhausted to reach the ship. The sailors on board were prepared to let the person drown, but Jennings gave them a public dressing down and ordered them to drop a line into the water. The refugee – a little boy, naked and freezing – was hauled aboard and given warm clothes.

A few minutes later, a second person could be seen attempting to reach the destroyer. The ship’s lights were making the swimmer a target for Turkish snipers on shore and so they were turned off, yet once again the sailors refused to lift a finger to rescue the refugee.

‘For pity’s sake,’ said Jennings, ‘why don’t you lower a boat?’

The men told him that it would be a breach of American neutrality and added that they could not do such a thing without specific orders.

‘Well, I’ll order it,’ said Jennings. ‘Push off that boat.’

The men meekly obeyed, rowing across to the swimmer and fishing out a bedraggled young girl. She was brought on deck and handed over to Jennings, who wrapped her in blankets. Although she slowly began to revive, she was clearly dazed by her long swim. ‘She looked at us with a wild expression in her eyes . . .’ wrote Jennings, ‘[but] finally she realised she was with friends who would protect her, and such a look of joy and thankfulness came over her face as I shall never forget.’

When the pain of her suffering suddenly returned, she began to sob and call out someone’s name. Jennings did not speak Greek so he decided to ask the rescued boy – who knew a little English – whether he might translate what she was saying. ‘Suddenly,’ wrote Jennings, ‘I felt the boy’s grip tighten in mine, the little fellow bounded from my side and threw himself on the girl. Then, from her lips, there burst the name she had been moaning before in grief. He was her brother, and there on the deck of that ship we had reunited them.’

By Tuesday, 19 September, the humanitarian crisis on the quayside had become a sanitary crisis as well. Corpses had lain on the cobblestones for almost a week and were in an advanced state of putrefaction. Many of the refugees were suffering from fevers and acute diarrhoea, a result of living off contaminated water and food. When Esther Lovejoy peered into the harbour that morning, she was sickened to see that the current had drawn the carcasses of hundreds of horses towards the water’s edge. ‘As the mass washed to and fro with the waves against the stonework,’ she wrote, ‘a bloated human body occasionally appeared and this sickening spectacle was augmented by the liberation of offensive gases peculiar to putrefying flesh.’