Between the years 1914-1923 the Othoman Turks killed over 353.000 Greeks in Minor Asia. that was planned by the so called "father"of the Turkish Nation Kemal Attaturk ( a massive killer actually that wiped Greeks and Armenians)
The American Consulate George Horton in his book "The plaque of Minor Asia" he wrote after leaving Smerni, a town that Greeks were living for 3000 years. The Turks entered and killed thousands of people, burn the city, raped, destroyed, and expressed their barbarian insticts. He said "I was feeling shame because I was belonging to the human race"... The eye witness like Protestand preacher King Bridge, British politician Chris Woodhouse, are some of the eye witnesses that record the slaughtering of the Greek population. The Greek Bishop of the town of Smerni was killed by the Turkish army, in the most brudal way.
The Othoman Turks planned this genocide in order to get rid the "minorities"in the land that actually they have occupied from the Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds. Their first target was the Christians, and as a total more than 2.500.000(Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians)have been slaughtered between the years 1914-1923.
Places like Cappodokia, where the Greek Orthodoxy Fathers of the Early Church lived, and Biblical places(The Revelation of St.John and the letters to the Churches in Minor Asia} places that Christianity blossom for thousands of years, and Euxinos Pontos were we had Greek precence for 3000 years, vanished in just few years.
Again Turkey refuses that they commited those crimes. For all those years they just ignore the facts, and by even refering to those facts you can end up in prison!!! Indeed we have Turksh writters in prison because they exposed the dark years of the Othoman Turks...
For the Greek Orthodox Christians, those places remind us all that pain we suffered. My grandmother was one of the survivors in Smerna, and every time she was referring to what happened she was crying.Because for us it includes much more than a place that was occupied my the Othoman Turks.
It has to do with our faith and Christianity, since Christianity expanded from Minor Asia to the rest of the Roman Empire. Places were Saints, lived and Martyred. A visit to Capodocia, Minor Asia, shows the magnitude of destruction. Churches, holy places, monuments are left without any restoration and waiting for time for their total vanishment. The modern Turkish regime, refuses to do anything regarding those monuments. They are only task it is to vanish any Christian monument in Minor Asia that prooves that it was a Christian place. Unfortunately no "free"nation at that time did anything to stop the Turkish Barbarism against unarmed population. U.S.A, Britain, France, Russia, stood from a distance without giving a helping hand, and they just witnessed the genocide in taking place in front of their eyes...what a shame...
The truth HURTS for modern Turkey. It hurts because it reminds them that they are Vampire Nation that killed millions in order to survive. It hurts because it reminds them that they have only stolen the land by force. It hurts because it reminds them that they are thieves and Barbarians, without respect to human life, and most of all human degnity