Testimony: Lazaros G. Macrides

Deportation in Asia Minor is a euphemism for the most heartless and relentless cruelty. It means the loss of home, business property and every personal possession. It means being driven into the desert places, forced to march at the point of the bayonet until strength is exhausted; being refused shelter, food, and drink; subject to outrage and calculated cruelty; facing always, death by violence or from the cumulative effect of exposure, sickness and starvation. The people are herded and goaded like animals. The desperate refugees subsist chiefly on offal; graze like cattle on the roots of scanty grass tufts that push their dry and dusty stems above the sandy soil. It is impossible for words to give an adequate idea of the tragedy of bare existence under such awful conditions. Many dropped by the roadside, to die where they fell. Others that I know of went insane. And that was only at the beginning. They are still marching on!

Note: Lazaros George Macrides of Trebizond escaped from Turkey on a Russian ship. He went to America where he joined the Relief Committee for Greeks in Asia Minor.