1934 Thrace pogroms
LocationEastern Thrace, Turkey; including Tekirdağ, Edirne, Kırklareli, and Çanakkale
DateJune–July 1934
TargetProperty of the Jewish population of the city.
Deaths1[1]

The 1934 Thrace pogroms (Turkish: Trakya Olayları, "Thrace incidents" or "Thrace events", Ladino: Furtuna/La Furtuna, "Storm")[1][2] refers to a series of violent attacks against Jewish citizens of Turkey in June and July 1934 in the Thrace region of Turkey. One of the main crucial factors behind the events was the Resettlement Law passed by the Turkish Assembly on 14 June 1934.[3][4][5]

Background

Some have argued that the acts were initiated by the articles written by Pan-Turkist ideologists like Cevat Rıfat Atilhan and Faik Kurdoğlu in Millî İnkılâp [6] (National Revolution) magazine and Nihal Atsız[6][7] in Orhun magazine. One researcher accepted Atilhan's role, but he argued that Atsız did not participate in such an act, because Orhun only contained two articles about Jews, and both of them were published after Atsız resettled in İstanbul.[8] Then the Resettlement Law was meant to enable demographic engineering in favor of a potentially Turkish speaking majority and the campaign Citizens speak Turkish!, which meant to force the people to speak Turkish, was supported by the Turkish Peoples Houses.[9] On the 5 July after having become aware of the potential repercussions, the chairman of the Peoples House in Izmir denied the campaign was directed at Jews and claimed it was only against foreign languages, including Greek, Spanish and Albanian.[9]

Pogrom

The incidents which preceded the pogrom started in Çanakkale in the second half of June 1934.[10][11] The pogroms occurred in Tekirdağ, Edirne, Kırklareli, and Çanakkale, and they were motivated by anti-Semitism.[12][13][14]

The government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk failed to stop the pogrom.[15] In the context of the 1934 Turkish Resettlement Law, foreign diplomats who were based in Turkey at that time believed that the Turkish government implicitly supported the Thrace pogrom in order to facilitate the relocation of Turkey's Jewish population.[16][4] After the foreign press reported about the pogroms, Prime Minister Ismet Inönü acknowledged their existence, condemned them and blamed them on anti-semitism.[5] Haaretz reports that according to the historian Corry Guttstadt, "the Turkish authorities had apparently opted for the strategy of putting the Jews under such pressure with boycott activities and anonymous threats 'from the population' that they would leave the area 'voluntarily.'" Further, according to historian Rifat Bali, incitement of violence against Jews was common in the press at the time and this contributed to the violence.[17]

Aftermath

Over 15,000 Jewish citizens of Turkey had to flee from the region.[4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Pekesen, Birna (2019). "The AntiJewish Pogrom in 1934 Problems of Historiography Terms and Methodology". In Krawietz, Birgit; Riedler, Florian (eds.). The Heritage of Edirne in Ottoman and Turkish Times: Continuities, Disruptions and Reconnections. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 430. ISBN 978-3-11-063908-7.
  2. ↑ Bulut, Eduard Alan (2017). Minorities in constitution making in Turkey. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. p. 29. ISBN 9781527507500. Retrieved 8 July 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ↑ "Pogroms to the Jews for the "Secular Democratic" of Turkey - Part I". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 2018-07-05.
  4. 1 2 3 Guttstadt, Corry (2013). Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 9780521769914. OCLC 870196866.
  5. 1 2 Lamprou, Alexandrous (2013). "Nationalist Mobilization and State—Society Relations: The People's Houses' Campaign for Turkish in Izmir, June—July 1934". Middle Eastern Studies. 49 (5): 824–839. doi:10.1080/00263206.2013.811653. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 24585944. S2CID 143520978 – via JSTOR.
  6. 1 2 Rifat Bali, 1934 Trakya Olayları, 2008
  7. ↑ "Nihal Atsız profile (in Turkish)". Archived from the original on 2015-10-02. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  8. ↑ Karabulak, Ozan (2018). Atsız ve Türkçülüğün Yarım Asrı - Süreli Yayınlarda Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Seyri (1931-1975) (in Turkish). Ötüken Neşriyat. pp. 144–147. ISBN 9786051556307.
  9. 1 2 Lamprou, Alexandrous (2013).pp.829–830
  10. ↑ Benbassa, Esther (2001). Türkiye ve Balkan Yahudileri tarihi : (14.-20. yüzyıllar) = Juifs des Balkans espaces Judéo-Ibériques, XIVe-XXe-siècles (1 ed.). İstanbul: İletişim. pp. 242–244. ISBN 9789754709230.
  11. ↑ ŞimŞek, Halil. "Çanakkale Bağlamında 1934 Trakya Yahudi Olayları" (PDF). Cumhuriyet Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi. 5 (9): 144. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
  12. ↑ "Pogroms to the Jews at the time of "Secular and Democratic" Turkey - Part III". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 2018-07-05.
  13. ↑ "Pogroms to the Jews for the "Secular Democratic" of Turkey – Part II". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 2018-07-05.
  14. ↑ Özkimirli, Umut; Sofos, Spyros A (2008). Tormented by history: nationalism in Greece and Turkey. Columbia University Press. p. 167. ISBN 9780231700528. OCLC 608489245.
  15. ↑ Age of Terror Undermining Turkish Jews By Henry Kamm and Special to the New York Times Sept. 10, 1986
  16. ↑ Bayraktar, Hatiice (May 2006). "The anti-Jewish pogrom in Eastern Thrace in 1934: new evidence for the responsibility of the Turkish government". Patterns of Prejudice. 40 (2): 95–111. doi:10.1080/00313220600634238. ISSN 0031-322X. S2CID 144078355.
  17. ↑ Green, David (5 June 2014). "1934: A Rare Kind of Pogrom Begins, in Turkey". Haaretz. Retrieved 29 September 2019.

Further reading

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