Hulya was 17 years old in 1955. They thought she was Greek and raped her. Her fiancé broke off the engagement because she was “soiled.” He told her, "You were too close to that Greek girl, anyway."

Hulya was the youngest daughter of an Istanbul family and a literature teacher at a high school. She and I discussed "the image of the non-Muslim woman in the Turkish novel," and she went on to suggest that I read an article by Hercules Millas. Then we fell into conversation over what the minorities had to go through during the events of September 6-7, about the Greek house in Tarlabasi where they lived and her belongings thrown out of that house, about how their beloved butcher Huseyin had joined the looters, about the departure of Eleni, her dearest friend with whom she shared her fortunes and misfortunes... I do not know if she had made up her mind to reveal her story, but she told me what had happened to her when we first met years ago. She told me, she cried; she told me, and we cried... I learned that day that the past can have dark corners for everyone...

The "events" of September 6-7 have been imprinted in our collective memory as the large-scale looting that took place in 1955 on Istiklal Avenue in the Beyoglu district under the pretext of the Cyprus issue. Photos showing the destruction of stores with "foreign" titles owned by "rich" Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in Pera, the former name of the district that was still fresh in memory back then, by an "uncontrollable" crowd were instrumental in creating the aforementioned and intended impression. In the end, the police could not intervene in the pillaging, and the inflamed public could not be brought under control...

But the backdrop of the events was a little different than that. At 1 p.m. on September 6, state radio broadcast news of a bomb attack on the house where Ataturk was born in Thessaloniki. This news was circulated the same day in the afternoon in the deranged second edition of the pro-government Istanbul newspaper Ekspres, embellished with exaggerated stories and photos. Later in the day, a protest was held in Taksim Square, called for by various student groups that had made their preparations in the preceding days and by the "Cyprus is Turkish Society," which according to some sources had been created just for the purpose of this pillaging. Following this protest, the raiders, who had been brought by train from the eastern provinces the day before, received orders to "get going."

Who had marked the doors of non-Muslims the previous days? How could thousands of people suddenly take to the streets? Why had the police not intervened?

The state tried to place the blame on the Democratic Party (DP) government, and the government accused the left; at the Yassiada tribunals that were formed following the military coup of May 27, 1960, it was claimed that the incident was the result of a provocation by Menderes, the former prime minister of the DP government as the lead perpetrator. In the end, it turned out that it was indeed a government-sanctioned, or at least government-informed, operation by the deep state, the so-called "Special War Department." The individual who proudly admitted that the events were a "spectacular organization" of the said "Special War Department," as the "Turkish Gladio" was called at the time, was General Sabri Yirmibesoglu.

It turned out that the Thessaloniki bombing was in fact a Turkish intelligence operation involving Oktay Engin, who studied at the Thessaloniki Law School on a government scholarship and was a member of the intelligence service, and Hasan Ucar, the bailiff at the Thessaloniki Consulate General. They were arrested in connection with the incident. As the consular officials could not be prosecuted because they enjoyed immunity, Ucar and Engin were released after a period of detention. Although Engin was a Greek citizen, he had been naturalized by a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers and enjoyed numerous benefits as well as protection. One of the most telling indications that the provocation was not solely the work of the government but also of the "state" is the fact that bomber Oktay Engin, who owned his work calling it as "heroism," was to be found as the acting police chief during the infamous Beyazit massacre of March 16, 1978, and later to become head of the General Security Directorate's planning department before continuing to rise rapidly through the ranks of the state until he reached the post of governor of Nevsehir province in 1992.

The Perpetually Dangerous Minorities

Minorities have always been branded as "dangerous" in the state's deep agenda since the founding of the republic. The homogenization of Anatolia, which was traditionally home to diverse ethnic groups, was seen by the Kemalist elite as a sine qua non for a sustainable nation-state. Although the newly established state promised to guarantee the rights of Christian minorities, governments in the 1920s and '30s pursued a blatant policy of assimilation and repeatedly urged minorities to leave the country. The main goal was to Turkify their property and expel the "enemies." And they were successful at that. The “Citizen, Speak Turkish” campaign, the “Capiral Tax” Act, the “20-classes” conscription scheme - all of these were aimed at making Armenians, Greeks and Jews fed up, frustrated, anxious and fearful, at making them leave the country and, eventually, at putting an end to their dominance in the economy.

The events of September 6-7, which resulted in one of the largest instances of expulsion of non-Muslim minorities from these lands, were a legacy of the CHP to the DP. An undifferentiated minority policy and an illiberal "perception of non-Muslims" had destroyed minorities who were not sympathetic to the CHP and had voted for the DP. With the events of September 6-7, the "state" had "killed several birds with one stone." The events were to be used as leverage in the ongoing negotiations on Cyprus and also served to rid Istanbul and Izmir of non-Muslims, as well as to break the leg of the socialists as they were portrayed as "communist sedition" to prevent protests from abroad, and even to be used against the DP government during the trials that followed the 1960 coup d'état.

In 1955, Hulya was 17 years old. She was engaged with a medical student named Metin. "We were coming from Elenis' summer house in Buyukada, it had been such a nice summer. We would go to Beyoglu in the morning and go window shopping. The day before, my father had told us not to leave, to stay at home, and even to tell the Elis to come to our house with all the family, surely my mother missed them too..." She says she did not see anything discomforting in this proposal, and it wasn't until a few days later that she realized what was really happening and never forgave her father. "We listened to my dad and we didn't leave. We sat with Elis, and around 6 p.m. they started attacking, people we didn't know, we had never seen in the neighborhood. My mother also brought one or two Armenian neighbors to our apartment; she sent the doorman to those who were to attack, who told them that there were no "unbelievers" there. Then we heard that there were people like us who were hiding their neighbors... They destroyed the next building, the building across the street, everywhere. When things calmed down, Eli said, my father must be at the store, something may have happened to him, I'll go check on him... Our mothers wouldn't let us go, we ran away, to go towards Pera, I couldn't leave Eli alone..."

They cornered Eli and Hulya just two streets away. Hulya cried out that they were Turks, but they did not believe her. She was afraid that they would beat them... They did not beat them... She mentioned that the police passed by them. While she was telling this, I remember that the policemen were reported shouting "We are not police, we are Turks!" on the street that day. Everyone was devastated, "Eli and I couldn't look at each other's faces after that day," Hulya recalled. Eli and her family moved away soon after. Hulya's only hope was Metin, she thought he would bring them to account... "On the contrary, he said it was no longer possible and broke off the engagement... He said I was too close to that Greek girl, which always made his mother uncomfortable... After that day, instead of those men who hurt us, I became an enemy to my father, who knew what was going to happen that day, but did not say anything... I became angry with those who, after protecting their neighbors whom they greeted every day, joined the caravan of raiders themselves, and especially with those who had separated me from Eli."

It is estimated that about 400 women were raped by the aggressors on the night of September 6-7. Only 60 of these were reported to the authorities, but it is believed that the women did not come forward with such incidents out of shame and that the actual number was higher. According to official figures, 4,214 houses, 1,004 workplaces, 73 churches, one synagogue, two monasteries, 26 schools, many cemeteries, and numerous workplaces of various kinds, totaling 5,317, were attacked and destroyed in the incidents in Beyoglu, Kurtulus, Sisli, Nisantasi, Eminonu, Fatih, Eyup, Bakirkoy, Yesilkoy, Ortakoy, Arnavutkoy, Bebek, Moda, Kadikoy, Kuzguncuk, Cengelkoy and Adalar. In the incidents, in which cemeteries were also desecrated, corpses dragged on the streets and clergymen attacked and even circumcised, 12 people were killed and 300 injured. In short, the events far eclipsed the dimensions in DP's statement, made years later, that "we thought they would only break a window or two."

Following That September…

We cannot brush off the events that we can call the most massive and extensive "pogrom" that took place in Istanbul in the history of the republic with the excuses of the "agitated people who could not bear the disrespect toward their founding father," as the Kemalists employ, nor with the downplaying as "a revolt against capitalism, an enmity directed at wealth" by the Turkish left, which could not recognize the state provocation, racism and chauvinism underlying the plan. The minorities, whose property was almost entirely confiscated with the Capital Tax, received the coup de grace with the events of September 6-7, which terrified them and left them no choice but to leave. As eyewitnesses established, the police and the attackers assured that there would be "no harm to life, only to property," but this was not enough to guarantee that the targets and methods employed would not change the next time. The main reason why Greeks, Armenians and Jews, who were driven out of not only economic but also social and cultural life by that September, left the country in large waves of migration was the conviction that they were not considered as citizens of Turkey and the belief that the "order of things" would not change regardless of which party would be in power.

It is estimated that about 400 women were raped by the aggressors on the night of September 6-7. Only 60 of these were reported to the authorities, but it is believed that the women did not come forward with such incidents out of shame and that the actual number was higher. According to official figures, 4,214 houses, 1,004 workplaces, 73 churches, one synagogue, two monasteries, 26 schools, many cemeteries, and numerous workplaces of various kinds, totaling 5,317, were attacked and destroyed in the incidents in Beyoglu, Kurtulus, Sisli, Nisantasi, Eminonu, Fatih, Eyup, Bakirkoy, Yesilkoy, Ortakoy, Arnavutkoy, Bebek, Moda, Kadikoy, Kuzguncuk, Cengelkoy and Adalar. In the incidents, in which cemeteries were also desecrated, corpses dragged on the streets and clergymen attacked and even circumcised, 12 people were killed and 300 injured. In short, the events far eclipsed the dimensions in DP's statement, made years later, that "we thought they would only break a window or two."

Following That September…

We cannot brush off the events that we can call the most massive and extensive "pogrom" that took place in Istanbul in the history of the republic with the excuses of the "agitated people who could not bear the disrespect toward their founding father," as the Kemalists employ, nor with the downplaying as "a revolt against capitalism, an enmity directed at wealth" by the Turkish left, which could not recognize the state provocation, racism and chauvinism underlying the plan. The minorities, whose property was almost entirely confiscated with the Capital Tax, received the coup de grace with the events of September 6-7, which terrified them and left them no choice but to leave. As eyewitnesses established, the police and the attackers assured that there would be "no harm to life, only to property," but this was not enough to guarantee that the targets and methods employed would not change the next time. The main reason why Greeks, Armenians and Jews, who were driven out of not only economic but also social and cultural life by that September, left the country in large waves of migration was the conviction that they were not considered as citizens of Turkey and the belief that the "order of things" would not change regardless of which party would be in power.

The Armenian, Greek and Jewish hatred instilled in the population did not prevent them from hiding their neighbors, but it was also an important pillar for the building of "xenophobia" in the hearts of the people, which persists to this day. As Hulya also testifies, "those who hid their neighbors in their houses did not think that they were hiding "a Greek or an Armenian", but that they were hiding a "Stavro or Ohannes."

Although almost 64 years have passed, it is still not accepted that the events were not a "consequence of the psychology of the society" but the latest link of a socio-economic plan that the "deep state" carried out through all the institutions and parties it could manipulate with the ambition of creating a "Turkish-dominated homogenous society." This link is engraved in black letters not only in the memory of non-Muslims, but also in the memory of many Turks who do not want to give up their desire to live together.

*A long-time analyst on regional issues, Alin Ozinian holds a BA in International Relations and Diplomacy and an MA in Turkish Studies. She is currently a PhD researcher at YSU's Faculty of Political Science. Ozinian has worked at the Permanent Mission of Armenia to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) and has served as the Regional Coordinator of International Alert's Caucasus Development Network, based in London, and as a regional analyst for the Armenian Assembly of America, based in Washington DC. She served as press secretary for the Turkish-Armenian Business Council. In 2018, she received the Jampruk Research Award on migration issues, announced by the United Nations Association. Since 2021, Ozinian has been the executive director of the +GercekNews Portal.