September 6th, 1955 - The Anti-Greek Riots and Pogrom of Constantinople

After the Lausanne Treaty (1923), the remaining Greeks in Anatolia & Asia Minor who had survived the Greek Genocide (1914-23), were uprooted from their homes and shipped to Greece. Around 250,000 Greeks were exempt from this population exchange & remained in Constantinople and on the islands of Imbros & Tenedos.

However these exempt Greeks, would soon be subjected to the same discrimination & attacks from the Turkish state.

In 1932, laws were enacted by the Turks, preventing and excluding Greeks from a series of 30 professions, leading to another mass exodus.

In 1942, an extra capital gains tax was imposed on ethnic Greeks, in a bid to reduce the economic potential of Greeks in this new Turkey.

By September 6, 1955, only around 100,000 Greeks had remained in Constantinople.

On that day, an orchestrated attack against the Greek Community was carried out by mobs of Turk extremists. The riots were organised by the Turkish government and were triggered by fake news that the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki had been bombed by Greeks.

It turned out the bomber was a Turk and an usher at the Turkish consulate in a false flag attack, who was arrested and also confessed.

The Turkish state controlled press, was silent about the arrest and instead still insinuated that Greeks had planted and set off a bomb.

Turkish mobs assaulted the Greek community of Constantinople over the next few days. Dozens of Greeks were killed, assaults and rapes were committed and over 5,000 Greek owned properties - homes, businesses, churches, schools, cemeteries, monasteries, factories, pharmacies, hotels were looted, damaged or destroyed.

What occurred, accelerated the exodus and decline of the historic Greek population of Constantinople and in the aftermath, what was left of the vast and historical Greek population of the Great Greek City had all but been extinguished, to where it currently stands at less than 3,000 today.