Speech #670145275

However. with courge the survivors begaln the work of reconstruction. opened.an orplanage. formed a community. elected their elders and school board. and founded a charitable society which at the time the reverend father was there was organizing various forms of entertainment for the benefit of the orphanage and the suffering people. From this scene of desolation lie went to Kerassound. an extensive diocese. which before the war contained 2 towns. 14 small towns. 266 villages. with a total Greek population of 167.450. He states that of this number 45.000 were compelled during the armistice to seek refuge in Russia and more than 90.000 were deported by the Turks into the interior of Asia Minor. He declares that 80 per cent of the deportees died of hunger. hardship. and cruel treatment. and that only 7.500 at the time of his visit had returned. Many were hanged without cause. large numbers butchered in cold blood by the Turkish gendarmes and soldiers. and hundreds murdered by Turkish refugees. Every Greek village in the district had been destroyed. many of them being razed to the ground. Mr. Zervos in his report refers to the fiendish methods employed to exterminate Hellenism in Asia Minor. He states that tile Turks deported and exiled the Greeks during tie winter. denying themi any food or clothing. and the soldiers and olflcials convoying the deportees and the exiles refused to permit their victims to camp near inhabited places. their object being to expose them to cold and hunger in order that their death might more quickly be brought about. He calls attention to the fact that little children and the old. infirm. and sick were abandoned in the ravines and the woods. where they died either of hunger and exposure or from the bayonets of the Turks. "At every step the traveler now finds the skeletons of Greeks who thus suffered martyrdom." Those who read these reports will be filled with horror and indignation. It seels as though every device of refined cruelty was employed by the heartless and bloodthirsty Turks to inflict suffering upon the unhappy people who were their victims. Mr. Zervos states that of the 600.000 Pontian Greeks who were living in their homes at Ihe beginning of the European war. at least 235.000 were butchered or came to their death through famine and hardship following deportations and that 80.000 succeeded in escaping to tle Caucasus. where they are refugees and suffering a wretched existence. Senators will remember that Mr. Zervos speaks of conditions prior to his report in October. .19.8.