Labour battalion (Turkey)
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- For more information on battalion see Labour battalion
| Armenian Genocide |
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| Armenians in the Ottoman Empire · Armenian Question · Hamidian Massacres · Zeitun Resistance (1895) · 1896 Ottoman Bank Takeover · Yıldız Attempt · Adana Massacre · Young Turk Revolution |
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Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital · Tehcir Law · Armenian casualties of deportations · Ottoman Armenian casualties · Labour battalion |
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A labour battalion (Turkish: Amele Taburu, Greek: Τάγμα Εργασίας Tagma Ergasias) was a form of unfree labor in late Ottoman Empire and later in Turkish Repubic [1] [2] [3]. Labor battalions are part of "Trench warfare", to form the tranches in which both opposing armies have static lines of defense. In them, mostly young and healthy people were forced to work by the Ottoman Administration during the First World War and the Turkish Government after the creation of the Turkish Republic.
Usage of Labor battalions is among major arguments in support of the allegations in Pontic Greek Genocide and Armenian Genocide.
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[edit] Depictions
The well-known writer-novelist Elias Venezis later described the situation in his work the Number 31328 (Το Νούμερο 31328).
An academic approach to Labour Battalions has been provided by Sabancı University Associate Professor Leyla Neyzi who, by her studies on the diary of Yaşar Paker, who was issued from the tiny Jewish community of early 20th century Ankara, and who had actually been enrolled in the Labour Battalions not once but twice, the first time during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and the second time during the Second World War in which Turkey did not take part. One of her studies, published in Jewish Social Studies in the Fall of 2005, presents an overall picture for the conditions in these battalions which were composed entirely of non-Muslims.
[edit] Aim of the battalions
According to Leyla Neyzi, "one of the main reasons for the formation of these units was to ensure that local non-Muslims (...particularly local Greeks) would leave their regions of origin and not join the forces fighting the Turks". Paker, enrolled in the Labour Battalions after their formation on 2 March 1921, was dispatched for work to Kastamonu first, and then to Eastern Anatolia with other non-Muslims. Despite harsh conditions (Paker mentions that they were only given four loaves of bread and a cone full of black olives at the departure from Kastamonu towards Erzincan), His account and the study of his experience does not point to nor hint at acts of a genocidal nature, in the full course of the Greco-Turkish War when "the enemy had come as close as Haymana (a town near Ankara)".[4]
[edit] See also
- Labour battalions in other places
[edit] References
- ^ Henry Morgentau, Sr., "I was sent to Athens", Garden City N. Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1929
- ^ Foreign Office Memorandum by Mr. G.W. Rendel on Turkish Massacres and Persecutions of Minorities since the Armistice, March 20, 1922, Paragraph 35
- ^ USA Congress, Concurrent Resolution, September 9, 1997
- ^ Strong as Steel, Fragile as a Rose: A Turkish Jewish Witness to the Twentieth Century Leyla Neyzi paper on the basis of Yaşar Paker's diary published in the Jewish Social Studies in Fall 2005
