*This documentary is for educational purposes only and does not claim any right to the archival footage or pictures used in this project. Footage provided by the Red Cross, Near EAst Relief, International YMCA, British Pathe KZread, US Library of Congress, Levantine Heritage, Robert Davidian; Asa K. Jennings images courtesy Roger Jennings.
**Copyright: Mike Damergis, for all the interviews conducted in the piece.
In August and September of 1922, the beautiful port of Smyrna became Ground Zero for one of the greatest human tragedies. It was the last violent episode in a ten-year holocaust that had killed three million people-Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians, all Christian minorities-on the Turkish subcontinent between 1912 and 1922. It would also serve as a marker of the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Smyrna was reduced to ashes as the Armenian quarter of the city was set fire with petroleum gasoline by the Turkish troops on September 13th according to sources. The Greek, Armenian and Levantine quarters were completely incinerated while the Turkish and Jewish sections survived.
The respected peace between Christians and Muslims was over in Smyrna. What ensued over the next months was nothing less than tragic and catastrophic.
“Turkey for Turks” was the motto across the land as Kemal looked to rid the country of what the Turks called infidels and Giaour - non believers...
Ataturk, Father of the Turks, as he became later known, was going to save Turkey and purify the land of the Christian souls.
Humanity was on fire...from the ashes of despair rose heroes, like American Consul General George Horton and Lieutenant Commander Halsey Powell, who defied United States Admiral Mark Bristol’s orders to remain neutral and not allow any refugees aboard ship.
Then there is the Reverend Asa K. Jennings, the frail YMCA employee, who fed, sheltered and led an evacuation of nearly 350,000 people from Smyrna to neighboring islands and mainland. How could one frail man, with nothing more than faith in his heart, become the Shepard of hundreds-of-thousands of refugees?
In over a 10-month period, Jennings, Captain Powell and the U-S Navy transported over one-million people to safety.
Fifteen years earlier, Jennings was fighting for his life, doctors didn't give him much hope. The medical team at the general hospital in Utica, New York told his wife Amy to make Asa as comfortable in his final days saying the disease was far too advanced to save his life. His condition was deemed hopeless.
Unwilling to accept the harsh news, she turned to the Bible for guidance. Her eyes fell on the eleventh verse of the Gospel of St John.