§ 6 Losing a Homeland, 1923 – 1924
The Population Exchange of 1923
Stepping into the halls of the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland in
the summer of 1923 , we might overhear the following conversation:
§ “I represent Turkish Muslims in Macedonia” says the man to Rıza Nur,
whose thick mustache sits like a brush above his upper lip. Nur is the
second plenipotentiary, or representative of the Turkish delegation to the
Lausanne conference, a native of the Black Sea town of Sinop who favors
a fur cap. He is a medical doctor, Turkey’s minister of health, and a former
CUP member.
“Can you exclude Salonikan Muslims from the population exchange?”
Nur is not taken aback by the earnest request. Such a demand is not
unusual at the time. Orthodox Christians of Antioch, for example, have
petitioned the governor not to be subject to exchange.^1 But the Salonikan
Muslim request disturbs Nur. He asks others to find out who he is.
He soon discovers he is actually a Dönme, a professor at the Darulfünun,
the predecessor of Istanbul University.
Nur is an extreme nationalist who loves to insult other leading Turks
by labeling them Kurds, Albanians, or Circassians. But he saves his best
insults for Jews. He is no friend of Jews, especially not “secret Jews.” He
is already bothered by the presence on the Turkish delegation of Mehmet
Cavid, and Haim Nahum, the CUP-supporting, former post-revolution
chief rabbi of Istanbul. Nur knows the latter is there “only to stuff his
pockets.”2 And hadn’t that journalist Ahmet Emin Yalman been asked to
be the personal interpreter at the conference of the head of the Turkish
delegation, İsmet İnönü, but fortunately, had declined?^3