"Reflecting on Genocide and Modern Pontian Heroes"


"Reflecting on Genocide and Modern Pontian Heroes" is a commentary printed in cosmosphilly.com



"On May 19th. Pontian Greeks around the world will gather and hold memorial services. They will remember the loss of their ancestors and homeland along the Eastern Black Sea shores of Turkey, in the region known as Pontos. It is a day of genocide. The official day, Kemal Ataturk and the “Young Turks”, launched the invasion on the Eastern shores of the Black Sea coast, at the city of Samsun (Samsounda). Recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century or the “quiet genocide”, it includes Armenians, Assyrians and other Greek-speaking people from around Asia Minor and Thrace, from 1915 to 1922.
More than 3.5 million people were lost in this genocide that ethnically cleansed 99% of all Christian-speaking minorities, in what is today the modern state of Turkey. Many western countries, scholars and humanitarian organizations have acknowledged the human atrocities committed by the then Young Turks and the Ottoman Empire and deemed it genocide."


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