"The booklet of originally sixty print pages in the Greek language, published by the war correspondent Konstantinos Faltaits as early as 1921 makes a very depressing reading, for it comprises episodes which seem to come directly from hell: from hell of human suffering, and from the hell of human capacity to commit crimes that are otherwise known as crimes against humanity."
This is the first paragraph of the Prologue in The Genocide of the Greeks in Turkey: Survivor Testimonies From The Nicomedia (Izmit) Massacres of 1920-1921, first published in Greek with the translated title of These are the Turks - Narratives of the massacres in Nicomedia.
This first paragraph of the Prologue hauntingly describes in accuracy the shock, anguish, grief and sorrow one feels when reading the crimes committed by the Kemalist and Nationalist Turks during the genocide of the Greeks in Nicomedia (Νικομήδεια, Turkish: İzmit), about 100 kilometres southeast from Constantinople, in 1920-1921.
Konstantinos Faltaits first published the book in November 1921 when he was collecting testimonies from genocide survivors, whilst he was a correspondent for the Embros newspaper covering the Greek Army's brave advance into Asia Minor during the Greco-Turkish War 1919–1922.
His collected testimonies highlighted a number of shocking stories of Turkish barbarity, such as burying children alive, the live crucifixion of an 85 year old woman after her eyes were plucked out, and the rape and sexual torture of women, some of whom had their nipples cut off.
During the Greek Genocide, around a million Greeks were massacred, indiscriminately, and in every corner of the Ottoman Empire where Greeks existed. The book explains how this was known by the Great Colonial Powers at the time, but completely ignored as they did not want to jeopardise trade relations with the emerging Turkey.
Faltaits' work was also published in French in 1922 and used by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs during international summits. The book was supposed to be translated into every major European language, however this never occurred.
That was until Ellene S. Phufas-Jousma and Aris Tsilfidis of the Greek Genocide Resource Center translated and edited the book into English, published by Cosmos Publishing in 2016.
Their careful editing and translation has allowed genocide scholars and interested readers alike to have access to a very important source of direct testimonies of the Greek Genocide in the Nicomedia region. Any serious study as well as readers beginning to learn about the Greek Genocide absolutely cannot ignore this book.
Turkey to this day refuses to acknowledge that their founding fathers committed a genocide and say the so-called claim is "without any historical basis." They make this claim despite the fact that the International Association of Genocide Scholars recognise Turkish actions in 1914–23 against the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
Because of Turkey's geostrategic significance, many countries are yet to recognise the Greek Genocide. However, Greek inaction over many decades is also at fault for not campaigning to make the world aware of the Greek Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide, in which only 10,000 Armenians of their 80,000 strong community in Nicomedia survived, is universally known despite it happening simultaneously with the Greek and Assyrian Genocide, because of their strong campaigns for awareness and recognition.
However, with important books like The Genocide of the Greeks in Turkey: Survivor Testimonies From The Nicomedia (Izmit) Massacres of 1920-1921 translated into English and the upcoming release of Lethal Nationalism: Genocide of the Greeks 1913-1923, the forgotten genocide is becoming known all across the world.
[su_youtube_advanced url="https://youtu.be/uFEe8g2XXT0" width="300" height="200" theme="light" title="“Lethal Nationalism”: New explosive documentary will expose Turkey’s Genocide of the Greeks"]The Genocide of the Greeks in Turkey: Survivor Testimonies From The Nicomedia (Izmit) Massacres of 1920-1921 is a MUST READ book, so be sure to purchase it here. It will be a book that will make you question human morality and also put into broader perspective Turkey's aggression against Greece to this very day.