With great emotion and joy, we decided to include in the publications of the Greek Foundation for Studies the handwritten diary of Konstantinos Kiourktsoglou. This is not only because it is the first time that such a testimony regarding the labor battalions of 1943 in Turkey is being published, but also because the diary of K. Kiourktsoglou directly describes the conditions under which dozens of taxpayers were forced to serve in the labor battalions.

Immediately after the imposition of the relevant law - also known as the Varlık Tax - the business and home of K. Kiourktsoglou were sold off by the Turkish state. In January 1943, unable to pay the tax of 200,000 pounds, he was exiled to the depths of the East, along with dozens of other Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, where he served for a minimal remuneration and tried to repay the enormous tax that was due.

The property tax law explicitly prohibited the right to appeal through legal means. In the difficult hours of exile, this diary appears to be his only companion, his only refuge. His narrative begins even before he is sent into exile, and his updates are daily.

(. . .) [Excerpt from the introduction text of the publication]