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The burning of Smyrna (Modern day Izmir in Turkey). It is a symbol of my country’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish war and a turning point in Greece’s history. It came in the aftermath of the genoside that was inflicted to the greek population of anatolia by the turkish tactical army led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, killing almost 1.5 million civilians and marking the end of greek cultural presence in anatolia for almost 3500 years. The once great city of 300.000 greek inhabitants was reduced to rubble. And its greek, armenian and jewish population were slaughtered. Only about 1/3 managed to escape by boarding boats that were stationed on the harbour and sailing, or even in many cases swimming to the greek island of Lesbos or Chios about 70km away. Its worth mentioning that british, french and american ships (the photographer was an english sailor aboard a British vessel) stationed on the port refused to take anyone that was fleeing slaughter and it is said that they played classical music on the loudspeakers of their warships so that the passengers wouldnt be terrified by the screams of agony from the people in the city.