1934 Thrace pogroms explained

1934 Thrace pogroms
Location:Eastern Thrace, Turkey; including Tekirdağ, Edirne, Kırklareli, and Çanakkale
Target:Property of the Jewish population of the city.
Date:June–July 1934
Fatalities:1
Perpetrators:Republican People's PartyTurkish mobs

The 1934 Thrace pogroms (Turkish: Trakya Olayları, "Thrace incidents" or "Thrace events", Ladino: Furtuna/La Furtuna, "Storm")[1] [2] were 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.

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 antisemitism.[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] After the foreign press reported about the pogroms, Prime Minister Ismet Inönü acknowledged their existence, condemned them and blamed them on antisemitism. 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.'" However, others disagree. Although the Law on Settlement may well have actually provoked the incidents’ outbreak, the national authorities did not side with the attackers but immediately intervened in the incidents. After order was restored, the governors and mayors of the provinces involved were removed from office.[17] 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.[18]

Aftermath

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

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Book: Pekesen . Birna . Krawietz . Birgit . Riedler . Florian . The Heritage of Edirne in Ottoman and Turkish Times: Continuities, Disruptions and Reconnections . 2019 . Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG . 978-3-11-063908-7 . 430 . en . The AntiJewish Pogrom in 1934 Problems of Historiography Terms and Methodology.
  2. Book: Bulut . Eduard Alan . Minorities in constitution making in Turkey . 2017 . Newcastle upon Tyne, UK . 9781527507500 . 29 . 8 July 2021.
  3. News: Pogroms to the Jews for the "Secular Democratic" of Turkey - Part I. Yekta Uzunoglu. 2018-07-05. en-US.
  4. Book: Guttstadt, Corry. Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust. 2013. Cambridge University Press. 9780521769914. 65–66. 870196866.
  5. 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 . 10.1080/00263206.2013.811653 . 24585944 . 143520978 . 0026-3206 . JSTOR.
  6. Rifat Bali, 1934 Trakya Olayları, 2008
  7. Web site: Nihal Atsız profile (in Turkish) . 2020-05-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151002070510/http://www.nihalatsiz.org/ . 2015-10-02 . dead .
  8. Book: Karabulak . Ozan . Atsız ve Türkçülüğün Yarım Asrı - Süreli Yayınlarda Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Seyri (1931-1975) . 2018 . Ötüken Neşriyat . 9786051556307 . 144–147. tr.
  9. Lamprou, Alexandrous (2013).pp.829–830
  10. Book: Benbassa . Esther . Türkiye ve Balkan Yahudileri tarihi : (14.-20. yüzyıllar) = Juifs des Balkans espaces Judéo-Ibériques, XIVe-XXe-siècles . 2001 . İletişim . İstanbul . 9789754709230 . 242–244 . 1.
  11. ŞimŞek . Halil . Çanakkale Bağlamında 1934 Trakya Yahudi Olayları . Cumhuriyet Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi . 5 . 9 . 144 . 11 July 2021 . 11 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210711084942/https://arastirmax.com/tr/system/files/dergiler/69633/makaleler/9/arastirmax-canakkale-baglaminda-1934-trakya-yahudi-olaylari.pdf . dead .
  12. News: Pogroms to the Jews at the time of "Secular and Democratic" Turkey - Part III. Yekta Uzunoglu. 2018-07-05. en-US.
  13. News: Pogroms to the Jews for the "Secular Democratic" of Turkey – Part II. Yekta Uzunoglu. 2018-07-05. en-US.
  14. Book: Tormented by history: nationalism in Greece and Turkey. Özkimirli. Umut. Sofos. Spyros A. Columbia University Press. 2008. 9780231700528. 167. 608489245.
  15. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/10/world/age-of-terror-undermining-turkish-jews.html Age of Terror Undermining Turkish Jews
  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. 10.1080/00313220600634238. 144078355. 0031-322X.
  17. Toprak, Zafer. 1996 ‘1934 Trakya olaylarında hukumetin ve CHP’in sorumlulugu (Government responsibility and the CHP in the 1934 Thracian incidents), Toplumsal Tarih, vol. 34, pp. 19-25.
  18. News: Green . David . 1934: A Rare Kind of Pogrom Begins, in Turkey . 29 September 2019 . Haaretz . 5 June 2014.

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