1934 Thrace pogroms
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]
| 1934 Thrace pogroms | |
|---|---|
| Part of the late Ottoman genocides | |
| Location | Eastern Thrace, Turkey; including Tekirdağ, Edirne, Kırklareli, and Çanakkale |
| Date | June–July 1934 |
| Target | Property of the Jewish population of the city. |
| Deaths | 1[1] |
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]
They were followed by acts of vandalism against Jewish houses and shops. The tensions started in June 1934 and they spread to a few other villages in the Eastern Thrace region and some small cities in the Western Aegean region. At the height of the violent events, it was rumored that a rabbi was stripped naked and shamefully dragged through the streets and his daughter was raped.
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
- 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.
- 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) - "Pogroms to the Jews for the "Secular Democratic" of Turkey - Part I". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 2018-07-05.
- Guttstadt, Corry (2013). Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 9780521769914. OCLC 870196866.
- 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.
- Rifat Bali, 1934 Trakya Olayları, 2008
- "Nihal Atsız profile (in Turkish)". Archived from the original on 2015-10-02. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
- Karabulak, Ozan (2018). Atsız ve Türkçülüğün Yarım Asrı - Süreli Yayınlarda Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Seyri (1931-1975) (in Turkish). Ötüken Neşriyat. pp. 144–147. ISBN 9786051556307.
- Lamprou, Alexandrous (2013).pp.829–830
- 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.
- 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.
- "Pogroms to the Jews at the time of "Secular and Democratic" Turkey - Part III". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 2018-07-05.
- "Pogroms to the Jews for the "Secular Democratic" of Turkey – Part II". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 2018-07-05.
- Özkimirli, Umut; Sofos, Spyros A (2008). Tormented by history: nationalism in Greece and Turkey. Columbia University Press. p. 167. ISBN 9780231700528. OCLC 608489245.
- Age of Terror Undermining Turkish Jews By Henry Kamm and Special to the New York Times Sept. 10, 1986
- 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.
- Green, David (5 June 2014). "1934: A Rare Kind of Pogrom Begins, in Turkey". Haaretz. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
Further reading
- Baer, Marc D. (2020). Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-04542-3.
- Bali, Rıfat (2008). "The 1934 Thrace events: continuity and change within Turkish state policies regarding non-Muslim minorities. An interview with Rıfat Bali". European Journal of Turkish Studies (7). doi:10.4000/ejts.2903.
- Bali, Rıfat N. (2008). 1934 Trakya olayları (in Turkish). Kitabevi. ISBN 978-975-9173-64-7.
- Bayraktar, Hatiice (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. S2CID 144078355.
- Daniels, Jacob (2017). "Prelude to a Turkish Anomaly: Eastern Thrace Before the 1934 Attacks on Jews". Antisemitism Studies. 1 (2): 364. doi:10.2979/antistud.1.2.06. S2CID 134187035.
- Eligür, Banu (2017). "The 1934 anti-Jewish Thrace riots: the Jewish exodus of Thrace through the lens of nationalism and collective violence". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 44 (1): 88–109. doi:10.1080/13530194.2016.1182422. S2CID 147807971.
- Green, D. B. (5 June 2014), "1934: A Rare Kind of Pogrom Begins, in Turkey", Haaretz, retrieved 17 January 2023
- Güven, Erdem; Yılmazata, Mehmet (2014). "MİLLİ İNKILAP AND THE THRACE INCIDENTS OF 1934". Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. 13 (2): 190–211. doi:10.1080/14725886.2014.918738. S2CID 144955905.
- Koldas, Umut (2014). "Playing in the Discursive Backyard of the State: Turkish National Press Discourse towards the Anti-Jewish Incidents of 1934". Kwartalnik Historii Żydów. 250 (2): 297–320. ISSN 1899-3044.
- Pekesen, B. (2019). "The Anti-Jewish Pogrom in 1934. Problems of Historiography, Terms and Methodology". The Heritage of Edirne in Ottoman and Turkish Times. De Gruyter. pp. 412–432. doi:10.1515/9783110639087-013. ISBN 978-3-11-063908-7. S2CID 212934694.