Istanbul
and Middle Eastern markets of the Dönme. Ideological conviction within
Greece ensured that their economic loss was complete.
Uncomfortable with the fact that Greeks were a minority in Thessa-
loníki, the Greek government also refused to allow the Dönme to remain
in Greece. It wanted to be rid of this significant non-Greek economic
element. Yıldız Sertel’s memoir claims that the Greek authorities aimed
to prevent wealthy Dönme (and by extension, Turkey) from profiting by
selling their goods and properties before they left for Istanbul, so it con-
fiscated their immovable goods and disallowed the sale of property on the
market, promising to safeguard it.^5 Article 14 of the Treaty of Lausanne
required that “the emigrant shall in principle be entitled to receive in
the country to which he emigrates, as representing the sums due to him,
property of a value equal to and of the same nature as that which he has
left behind.” The Dönme were supposed to have their moveable and im-
movable property valued in gold currency and to receive a declaration in
Thessaloníki from the Mixed Commission for the Exchange of the Greek
and Turkish Populations created under the Lausanne Treaty stating the
value of the property that had been expropriated by the Greek govern-
ment. They were to present this valuation once they arrived in Turkey.
The question was not whether the Greek government would protect their
liquidated property, because it was irrevocably lost, but rather whether
the Turkish government would live up to the Lausanne Treaty and recom-
pense them accordingly.
The Dönme, estimated to number from ten to twenty thousand peo-
ple,^6 were compelled to abandon their native city as part of the popu-
lation exchange between Greece and Turkey. In Greece, the population
exchange was referred to as the “catastrophe,” which literally means “a
sudden ending,” a fitting description of the fate of the Dönme in Thessa-
loníki. With few exceptions, Thessaloníki’s Muslim inhabitants, who had
formed one-third of the population when Greece took control of the city
in 1912 , were all deported and replaced by Orthodox Christians, whose
proportion of the population had risen from a mere quarter to three-
quarters of city residents by 1928.^7 For the first time since the Byzantine
era five hundred years before, the city had a Greek majority.
By the beginning of 1925 , according to Thessaloníkan police records,
only ninety-seven Muslims remained in the city, exempted from deporta-
tion by Serbian or Albanian papers.^8 To be considered Albanian, one had
to have residence in Greece, be a Muslim, have a father born in Albania,