As the 93th anniversary of the burning of Smyrna approach— the final chapter in the events that are known to the world as the mass genocide of Christian populations of Asia Minor, we’ve decided to inaugurate a section in The Pappas Post that will memorialize forever, your family stories from the era.
As most survivors are either long gone, or too old to remember or share their stories, we believe memorializing their stories is critical for the world to know exactly what transpired— on the human level— in the early years of the 20th century when an entire race of people was deemed unfit for survival and destined to death and expulsion from their native lands— simply because they were a different ethnic and religious group.
America was greatly impacted by the Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922. A large number of immigrants arrived and passed through Ellis Island from what was then the Ottoman Empire. These tens of thousands of Greeks were listed as Turkish nationals on Ellis Island immigration records as their country of origin was Turkey.
If you have Asia Minor roots— stories to share about parents, grandparents— loved ones who were protagonists in the epic events of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, we’d like to hear them– and publish them on this special section of The Pappas Post.
Please submit your family stories. Keep your testimony to LESS THAN 1000 words and include:
Family names
Places of origin
Description of their experiences
*Submit jpg or tiff images that accompany your family stories.
By submitting your family story and images, you give us the right to edit them for clarity and length, and to include your family story in this special section of The Pappas Post.
Send your content in word files only (no PDFs), along with any images you have to accompany your stories to greg (at) pappaspost.com
1 comment
Dear Mr Papa my father was from smyrni and all his family. I grow up with eye witness. Please send me an email that I will forward his story. Thank you