The Last Muslims Depart

On 30^th January 1923 Greece and Turkey signed the Population Exchange Accord. Under this, Greeks living on Turkish soil and Muslims in Greece were obliged to move to Greece and Turkey respectively. The departure of Cretan Muslims under the terms of this agreement began in August 1923. Greek and Turkish steamships transported the exchangee populations, as they then became known, from Heraklion to their new homeland.

Although all departures were supposed to have taken place by the deadline set for 1^st May 1924, the Prefecture of Heraklion was obliged to grant an extension until 17^th June, since a sizeable number of Muslims had stayed on in the town "invoking various pretexts" (Idi ["Ida"] newspaper, 13-6-1924). The last 32 Muslims from the Heraklion area finally left Crete in late August of the same year on a steamship named the Antigone (Idi 20-8-1924). Over the period from 1923 to 1924, a total of 23 821 Muslims left Crete - a small number managed to stay on the island, though from then on they held Turkish or Italian citizenship.