Should Atatürk’s house in Thessaloniki become a Greek Genocide museum?

There is increasing international discontent about the decision of Turkey to convert Hagia Sophia, an UNESCO monument for the last 100 years, reconstructed by using United Nations funding for the last decades, into a mosque. The action of Erdogan, and Turkish state indicates the willingness of Turkey to celebrate genocides, making a significant part of Greek historians pointing that Greeks and the global community should be aware of Genocides, so as to educate future generations towards peace and mutual respect.

Who was Ataturk

As distinguished journalist Paul Antonopoulos correctly mentions ‘Although Turks think of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk fondly as the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians remember him as one of the main perpetrators of genocide against Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, that led to the systematic extermination of around 3.5 million people’. With about a million Greeks exterminated on policies made by Atatürk and his predecessors, more than 1.2 million Greeks were forcibly removed from Turkey in 1923-1924 as a result of the the Treaty of Lausanne, decimating thousands of years of Greek life in Asia Minor, Pontus and Eastern Thrace.

Atatürk (Father Turk) was an Albanian Jew born in Thessaloniki in 1881. His father died when he was young and his mother worked in a brothel. He rose through the Ottoman military ranks, coming to prominence during World War I and the Greco-Turkish War that followed.

In the midst of the Greco-Turkish war, endless accounts by foreign diplomats, Christian missionaries, survivor testimonies, journalists and many others chronicled the massacres perpetrated by Atatürk’s followers, known as the Kemalists, against the Christian minority in a mad drive to create a “Turkey for the Turks.”. More about Ataturk historical discussion in Greek city times (click to link).

Why Ataturk house should be examined to be converted into a museum of genocide

Future generations should be aware of history. Atatürk was executing his political rivals that emerged and used the genocide as a reason for their killings, without a sense of irony that the genocide took place under his orders and command.

In a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels on November 13, 2008 Dr. Ronald Münch from the University of Bremen said that if Atatürk were alive today, he would have to stand trial for war crimes.

Yet, despite his crimes of killing nearly a million Greeks and wiping out Hellenic life that existed in many regions of today’s Turkey for thousands of years, his birth house in Thessaloniki is not only preserved, but is a part of the Turkish Consulate Complex.

Why a genocide museum is an excellent idea

As Greek City Times explains, at a time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is relentlessly and unapologetically pushing forward with turning the famous Hagia Sophia into a mosque, the heart of Orthodox Christianity that is today a museum, Atatürk’s house needs to be converted into a museum in memory of the near 1 million Greeks exterminated by his regime. The need for a Genocide museum, is more than ever important, as the Turkish regime continues genocide. Last week, for example, Turkey continuesd the genocide of Kurdish people by bombing of hundreds unarmed Kurdish people in Iraq. There is enormous evidence that genocide is continued even in Turkey, where Kurdish-speaking citizens are tortured and killed for the ‘mistake’ of signing Kurdish songs or speaking about their identity.A genocide museum, therefore, will be an excellent opportunity for citizens to understand why the genocide policies that currently Turkish state is implementing, is an integral part of Turkish history and should not be the future of a modern state. Genocide is  a crime against humanity that Turkish state does not acknowledge nor regrets, on the contrary is willing to repeat and is ‘proud of it’, as Turkish president Erdogan reveals in his speeches.

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