Turkey’s Kristallnacht, By Uzay Bulut on September 30, 2014 Special for the Armenian Weekly, Sept. 6, 1955 started just like any other day for the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews of Istanbul—or Constantinople. ”I resided in Cengelkoy with my wife and two children back then,” wrote Apostolos Nikolaidis in the book I Nihta ton Kristallon. ”Just as protests were starting in Taksim, I left my shop in Karakoy and went home.”
Nikolaidis did not know that a horrid ethnic cleansing campaign was on the way. Just like Nikolaidis, thousands of non-Muslims in Istanbul were not yet aware of the intent of their own state to destroy their private property, businesses, and places of worship, to terrorize them into abandoning their ancient homeland.
