The American who Saved 250,000 Greeks from Death in Smyrna During the Final Days of the Genocide

[poiuytrewq0987]

The final chapter of the genocide that swept Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century was written in Smyrna, one of the richest and most cosmopolitan cities of the Ottoman Empire.

It was there, in Smyrna, where a small-town minister from upstate New York put together one of the most astonishing rescues in history. He saved the lives of tens of thousands of Christian women and children.

His name was Asa Kent Jennings, and he is worth remembering now at the centennial of the Armenian genocide. His memory is also timely now that the problem of Christian persecution has arisen again in the Mideast and refugees are flooding out of Africa seeking safety in Europe.

Jennings was an unlikely hero. Barely over 5 feet tall with a crooked back that was an artifact of a bout with tuberculosis, Jennings had only recently arrived as an employee of the YMCA, which had a chapter in the city.

The time was September 1922, and the Turkish nationalist army had entered the city and soon set to slaughtering its Christian residents — both Armenians and Greeks. Smyrna was a polyglot city of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Europeans, but it was predominantly a Greek-Christian city of about a half-million people.

http://www.pappaspost.com/the-americ...-the-genocide/

[Prisoner Of Ice]

What an amazing story. Truly, the hand of God was at work that day.