Greek Refugees - Negative Effects

Negative Effects

The Asia Minor Greeks constituted one of the wealthiest groups of the ethnic Greeks anywhere. They held much of the economic life and the trade of Anatolia in their hands. Their expulsion led to the abandonment of thousands of factories and shops in the hands of the newly established Republic of Turkey. According to the Treaty of Lausanne, both states had the obligation to make reparations of the properties of the exchanged populations, an obligation that was never fulfilled, on the expense of mostly the Greek refugees (whose number was three times larger and were wealthier than the agricultural Muslim population of Greece). Unlike the Muslims of Greece, the Asia Minor Greeks were forced to leave without any of their possessions.

Rather severe were the demographic changes of the Anatolian Greek population, as well as the changes in the demography of Greece herself. The Young Turks revolution, the Asia Minor Expedition and subsequent Catastrophe, had as a result, apart from the 1.5 million refugees, the death of approximately 1 million ethnic Greek civilians (the most notable case being the Greek genocide) and the hostage of hundreds of thousands of Greek men, who were not allowed to leave Anatolia, but were sent to labor battalions after the war (it is estimated that as many as 150,000 Greek men from Smyrna were not allowed to go to Greece). The demographic bleeding of the refugee population continued in Greece, where thousands of people (especially women and children) died of diseases. The diseases had also an impact on the native population of the country. Apart from malaria, which caused the death of tens of thousands, diseases that had not appeared in Greece for years (cholera, plague) increased the already high mortality rates.

The problem of the housing of the refugees was the most imminent. Within the first ten days of October 1922, 50,000 Greeks mainly from Aivali arrived in Lesbos, creating a huge humanitarian problem. During the years 1923–1928, the Greek state built 25,000 houses for the refugees. The Institute for the relief of the Refugees (ΕΑΠ, EAP) built another 27,000 houses (11,000 only in Attica). The same institute spent an estimated 2,422,961 English pounds in order to house 165,000 refugees in Athens and Thessaloniki.