Bringing salvation: Türkiye’s humanitarian aid to Greece during World War II

By Ahmet Gencturk

ANKARA (AA) - The fall of Athens to the Nazis on April 27, 1941 and the subsequent occupation of mainland Greece by the Axis -- Germany, Bulgaria, and Italy -- left in shambles the infrastructure, industry, and agriculture of the country, already devastated by months of war.

To worsen this predicament, the Nazi occupation set in motion a ruthless program of economic exploitation that entailed rationing raw materials and food from Greece to dress, feed, and equip the German armies fighting across Europe.

Coupled with the Allied blockade of Greece, this led to drastic food shortages in the country, particularly in the capital Athens and the adjacent port city of Piraeus. According to Greek historian Polymeris Voglis, at least 300,000 Greeks died of starvation or malnutrition during the occupation that lasted until October 1944.

Türkiye was among the first countries that rushed to the aid of famine-stricken Greece, according to the Turkish Red Crescent’s Director General Ibrahim Altan, stressing the point in an interview with Anadolu Agency.

He emphasized that Türkiye, whose own population also faced acute food shortages as millions of men had to leave the fields for military mobilization, did not ignore the plight that neighboring Greece had to endure.

The first batch of humanitarian aid -- over 2,000 tons including fish, pork, eggs, and potatoes -- departed from Istanbul on Oct. 6, 1941 aboard the SS Kurtulus, a Turkish freighter that would play a crucial role in alleviating the suffering of many Greeks, Altan related.

An old freighter, almost 60 years old at the time, carried not only over 8,000 tons much needed aid but also the hope and sense of solidarity to Greece, he remarked.

Altan noted that even though the Kurtulus sank in the Sea of Marmara on its fifth relief voyage to Greece on Feb.1942, owing to unfavorable weather conditions, after a six-month compulsory hiatus, its mission took over by other Turkish ships organized by the government and Red Crescent.

The Dumlupinar, Tunc, Konya, Guneysu, and Aksu cargo ships transported a total of at least 50,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Greece by 1946, he said, adding Dumlupinar also brought around 1,000 sick Greek children aged 13-16 to Istanbul to recuperate in a safe place.

Turkish aid to Greece did not start with the Kurtulus, which literally means salvation, or its successors, according to Cagla Derya Tagmat, a scholar of modern Greek history at Ankara University in Türkiye’s capital.

Tagmat told Anadolu Agency that, beginning in the fall of 1940, the Turkish relief effort for its western neighbor, which it fought in its own independence struggle just two decades earlier, supplied Greeks with tons of salt and thousands of tetanus vaccines and necrosis serums.

While not all the aid was financed by the Turkish government, which was in dire financial straits at the time, Ankara’s diplomacy and neutrality were crucial in getting the vast amount of much-needed foodstuff across the Aegean Sea as the world’s most deadly conflict raged in the backdrop, said Tagmat, who wrote a book on Turkish humanitarian aid to Greece during World War II using primary Greek sources.

Besides the government, she added, many Turkish professional organizations and common people contributed from their savings to the donation campaigns that funded a significant portion of the relief materials.

Many Greeks still remember and regard very highly the aid Türkiye sent, Tagmat said, citing her own interviews and archival studies.

On Ankara’s neutral status for most of the war, Tugba Eray Biber, an expert on Turkish-Greek relations at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, said the country was masterful in using it to aid Greece.

She said Turkish professional associations that sent relief materials to their Greek counterparts included journalists, bank employees, athletes, and municipal staff.

The Kurtulus, as the first ship loaded with aid to arrive in Greece, swiftly gained renown, becoming a ray of hope in the eyes of many Greeks, particularly of those in Athens and Piraeus, she said.

On one occasion, Greek journalists who visited Kurtulus to take pictures remarked that they would launch a donation campaign to buy Kurtulus and turn it into a museum once the war ended, Biber said, adding that there were even thoughts to name one of the Athens' main streets after the Turkish Red Crescent.

So, its sinking was devastating news for many, expressed in part by Greece’s then-premier Georgios Tsolakoglou, who made remarks to the press to express the sorrow of the Greek nation, she said.

Citing a communique from the Turkish Embassy in Greece to the Foreign Ministry in Ankara, Biber revealed that many Greeks believed that Kurtulus was torpedoed.

As Türkiye's wholehearted aid to Greece during troubled times shows, important to remember that relations between the two historical neighbors, Türkiye and Greece, fortunately, are not only informed by disputes and tensions.