PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE THE ...

PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 15
and export of merchandise exclusively through Mussulman
hands.
The way these requisitions were carried out is sufficiently
described in a report from Constantinople dated
November 13, 1915, No. 6353 (Ministerial Documents,
No. 39904) in which the manner of the destruction of
Greek commerce is made evident. The requisitions practically
amounted to the confiscation of Greek property
and the plundering thereof. For how else can such
procedure be characterized, when it is well known that
this requisitioning was so widely extended that even common
soldiers, without any warrant had the right to enter
into houses, as happened in Bryoulla in June, 1915, and
by threats to take possession of hay, beans, etc., stored
in them, and, taking advantage of the circumstances, to
steal whatever they could lay hands on. When military
officers and civil officials were permitted to enter Greek
shops and take for their private use anything that they
happened upon without paying for it or giving any
receipt, can such action rightly be called " requisitioning"?
Certainly a course of general procedure, accord-,
ing to which the very food in the houses of the Greeks
was seized, thus condemning the owners to sure starvation,
cannot rightly be thus entitled.
Contributions
These requisitions, thus executed, were followed by
imposing, day by day, obligatory assessments, in the
name of the Committee for the Relief of the Refugees,
or in behalf of the Turkish fleet, or for purchasing military
uniforms and other things.
These assessments at first were levied in the form of
tickets for compulsory attendance at theatrical performances
and voluntary (!) contributions. Yet, in both of
these cases, the Greek was not free to give what he was
able and desired to give, but there was imposed upon
him an amount arbitrarily fixed by the first committee