PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE THE ...

58 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS
villages of Yeni-Chehir and Biledjik. The place where
they are to settle is not known exactly, because the authorities
take great care that the displacements of the
Greeks be carried out as quietly as possible, but I was
informed to-day by a Greek soldier (serving in the Turkish
Army) that a good many families from Cydonia are
encamped in a plain about an hour's distance from
Broussa and that they begged him to notify me that
those families which are on their way to Biledjik are
dying from hunger and in need of speedy assistance."
" About twenty-five inhabitants of Cydonia came to
me in a pitiful condition and told me their unheard of
sufferings with sobs and tears. According to their narrative,
the persecutions began the week before Palm
Sunday; they continued the entire Holy Week and were
finally intensified on Good Friday; they had been expelled
in small groups and were only allowed to carry
with them some clothing which they were selling on their
way in order to buy bread; furthermore the gendarmes
on the way had been demanding money from them. I
asked them to give me information about the Bishop
of Cydonia, and a woman who was a neighbor of the
Bishop told me that she saw him for the last time on
Good Friday in front of the Bishop's home selling his
brasier to some Turks, and that he told her that he was
intending to go to Magnesia, the city of his birth; I infer
from this that he has been left free to select his place
of residence. According to their story, the number of
the deported inhabitants of Cydonia and its suburbs is
from thirty-five to forty thousand; that from the time of
their deportation up to to-day 120 persons of the group
that has come here, have died, particularly of hunger and
hardships. My informants belong to a section composed
of 100 families settled in the villages of Yailadjik and
Tahtali which are situated two hours distant from
Broussa; they came here to ask my aid in their distress
both in their own behalf and in that of the others, and