Nominee for the audience awards Skroutz Book Awards 2025.
The collapse of the Asia Minor front (August 1922) and the subsequent Asia Minor Catastrophe have been the subject of extensive research in numerous studies to this day. However, in these studies, there are few references to the tens of thousands of Greek officers and soldiers who ended up as prisoners of war in Turkish concentration camps in Asia Minor.
What was the fate of these people during the period 1919-1924? What were the living conditions during their prolonged captivity? How many of them eventually returned to their homeland? When and how was their repatriation carried out? This study, based on a wealth of firsthand accounts written by officers and soldiers who were prisoners, as well as rich archival material, seeks to answer these and many other questions.
Additionally, the book investigates for the first time the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which undertook the inspection of the Turkish concentration camps holding Greek prisoners, as well as the interpersonal relationships developed among the prisoners during their confinement in the Turkish camps, and with their captors.
At the same time, the study examines the exploitation – for propaganda purposes – of prisoners of war by both the Greek and Turkish sides, while the thorough approach to the issue of Greek prisoners of war in Asia Minor inevitably leads to the tragic conclusion that the Greek prisoners suffered the harshest treatment and recorded the highest mortality rate compared to other nationalities of prisoners in the Great War.
