New York Times
Sept 23 2005
Photo Show on a Pogrom 50 Years Ago Is Itself Attacked by a Mob
ISTANBUL – Tucked away for more than 40 years, the 120
black-and-white photographs hanging in a gallery here have the stark
appearance and potential emotional impact of evidence presented in a
legal proceeding.
Karsi Gallery
One of the photographs from the Karsi Gallery collection, from 1955.
This article is exclusive to the Web. And that, it turns out, is what
they are.
One image shows a mob outside a row of storefronts, with some people
watching passively and others cheering as a shop is ransacked. A
young man stands with his half-clenched fist raised in the air, as if
he is egging on the vandals; his other hand rests passively on his
hip, suggesting nonchalance. A boy stares up numbly, as if looking in
vain for answers. Above him, a man in the shell of the shop’s wrecked
building heaves a baby carriage to the street below.
Fifty years ago this month, erroneous reports spread that Greeks had
set fire to the childhood home of Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s
founder, in Salonika, Greece. The rumors prompted an angry mob to
converge on Taksim Square in Istanbul for an anti-foreigner pogrom
that left thousands of houses and many hundreds of shops destroyed.
Gallery officials said about a dozen people were killed, but the
death toll has never been confirmed because of official secrecy.
Cemeteries were desecrated, dozens of churches were burned, and many
schools were plundered.
Fahri Coker, a former assistant military prosecutor, served as a
legal adviser to the military investigation of the events of Sept.
6-7, 1955, an inquiry that historians describe as a whitewash. Coker
had 250 photographs taken by foreign news photographers and
government employees, and even a few by Ara Guler, one of Turkey’s
few internationally known photographers. Judge Coker held on to the
pictures and left word that they could be displayed only after his
death, which occurred in 2001.
To mark the 50-year anniversary of the long night of violence, Karsi,
a gallery in the Beyoglu neighborhood, where the pogrom occurred,
organized an exhibition of the photos to open on Sept. 6. Although
curators were no doubt aware that the pictures would arouse strong
feelings, given the emotion surrounding historical discussions in
Turkey, they have been surprised by the passions unleashed by the
show.
The Sept. 6 opening was disrupted by a group of nationalists who
entered the gallery, carrying a Turkish flag. Chanting slogans like
“Turkey, love it or leave it!,” they vandalized some of the
photographs and tossed others out the window. They also threw eggs at
the pictures, leaving a vivid testimonial to how controversial free
expression remains in Turkey.
“We left it that way, but unfortunately, after a few days it started
to smell,” Ozkan Taner, one of the gallery’s directors, said of the
exhibition, which the gallery then cleaned and restored. It remains
on view through Sept. 26.
News of the attacks spread quickly to the front pages of the Turkish
papers and to television and radio news broadcasts, turning the show
into a national topic of conversation.
Attendance has been heavy, easily exceeding expectations. On a recent
day, dozens of people crowded into the gallery to study the images.
The pictures, as might be expected, show faces riven by anger and
fear, but the photos are also packed with small surprises.
One centers on the familiar monument at the center of Taksim Square,
so crowded with young protesters that some are falling off as others
rise to take their places. At the top of the image, a small group is
working to hoist the Turkish flag, while a young man in a crisp,
clean suit holds unsteadily over his head a small portrait of
Ataturk. But away from the monument, the people in the crowd turning
to face the photographer have blank, uncertain expressions, as if
they are as unnerved by the outpouring as many of the gallery’s
visitors have been.
In the beginning, the photo exhibition was hailed as a major step
forward for a country trying to show a more democratic face in
preparation for possible membership in the European Union.
“For the first time in the history of Turkey, a shameful happening
has been brought out into the open,” said Ishak Alaton, chairman of
the Alarko Holding company and a leader of Turkey’s tiny population
of Jews. “September 6, 1955, was our Kristallnacht.”
Ozcan Yurdalan, a freelance photographer here who took part in a
recent news conference denouncing the attacks on the exhibition, said
the straightforward documentary style of the photos made them more
disturbing.
“They show directly what they saw in life,” he said. “If you take
straight photographs, they show the reality – the faces of the
people, some fearful, some thinking, Yeah, we are doing something
well against our enemy.”
“The pictures showed me this is not the past,” he said. “We are still
living in the same condition today. I am ashamed of that, and also
very fearful.”
Greek-Turkish tensions over the future of Cyprus were running high in
1955, and the future of that island remains unresolved, threatening
to hold up Turkey’s bid to begin negotiations to join the European
Union. More broadly, Western ideas of the rightful role of dissent
have made limited inroads in Turkey. The acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk
has been charged with “public denigrating of Turkish identity” for
telling a newspaper: “Thirty-thousand Kurds were killed here, one
million Armenians as well. And almost no one talks about it.”
Mehmet Guleryuz, an Abstract Expressionist-style painter who helped
organize a protest against the attack on the exhibition, said: “We’re
going through sensitive times. We have to have the ability to open up
hidden parts of our history and deal with it. We have to have the
ability to argue.”