The Fall of Christian Smyrna Through Dutch Eyes in 1922

Abstract

Besides the Greek majority who populated Smyrna, there were also Turks, Armenians, French, English and Italian minorities in city. Less known was that a mixture of these groups produced a new section of the population: the Levantines. This Dutch colony, comprised of only a few hundred people, was mostly inhabited by Levantines. The acting Dutch consul-general, Arnold Th. Lamping, was an eyewitness of the unfolding catastrophe of the retreat of the Greeks and the carnage inflicted on the Armenian-inhabited neighborhood of Haynots. He witnessed the looting, raping and murder of Christians in Smyrna. Lamping tried to save the Dutch Levantines with the assistance of Captain Wijdekop of the SS Deucalion, who also managed to save Armenian refugees in his ship. Dutch National Archives yield several pictures of the Dutch cemetery currently populated with Dutch Levantines, which was violated and plundered much like the other Christian cemeteries in Smyrna. Finally, Lamping proved with his reports that the film documenting the entry of the Turkish troops was a falsification of history by the Turkish authorities.