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 European Witness


TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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ADDED DETAILS LEARNED AFTER THE TRAGEDY


The European Prospect
Page 3

    Among other witnesses of the Smyrna outrage was an employee of the great firm of MacAndrews and Forbes, of New York. Their offices at Smyrna were in the fire-devastated area. This man saw Turks throwing hand-grenades into buildings, which later caught fire.

    A prominent Y. M. C. A. official, a native-born American, related to me the following:

    "I was standing with several others on the deck of a ship, watching the fire, when I saw some persons throwing some liquid against one of the large buildings directly on the sea, and very soon the building burst into bright flames. Turkish soldiers were patrolling up and down in front of the building at the time and did not interfere."

    A well-known Y. M. C. A. worker informed me at Athens that he saw women stabbed with bayonets by Turks and the bodies of children who had been thus stabbed. His progress through the town in an automobile while on errands of mercy, was impeded by corpses.

    While I was in Washington during 1922 and 1923, I saw much of Doctor Esther Lovejoy, the well-known woman physician of New York. Doctor Lovejoy had arrived in Smyrna while the refugees were still on the quay and the evacuation was going on. She literally threw herself into the work of giving medical aid to the sick and wounded, and especially to women in childbirth. She described vividly to me the robbing of the refugees by Turks, soldiers and civilians—both on the water-front and at the moment of their embarking. While our men were helping these unfortunate people to get away, the Turks were pawing them over, women and men, searching through their clothes for any money or valuables that they might have on them.

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