6-7 September 1955 Events Through the Objective of the Patriarchate Fotographer Dimitrios Kalumenos Volume 1

The ominous story of this photo album begins with an office phone ring and the following unexpected news at the Old Customs Street in Galata on September 6, 1955. Patriarchate Photographer and journalist Dimitrios Kalumenos grabs his camera and runs out into the street, and the hardest and most painful documenting activity of his life, which he would continue for two days, even though he was out of breath, begins.

In the midst of the destruction of September 6/7, 1955, looting, violence, rape and burning, a man in a long trench coat is witnessing the demolition of the world he knew, of centuries-old houses of worship, cemeteries, monasteries, a people, and an ancient culture. A scared witness, a confused witness, an angry witness… 1500 frames of photographs taken by Kalumenos in two days are stuck in the minds with a devastating coldness, a wild aesthetic, and a scream that crosses over the years…

Dimitrios Kalumenos pays a heavy price for documenting the attack on his people, religion and culture. As if the destruction wasn’t enough, because of the photographs he took he was punished first with imprisonment, and then with expulsion from the only place he knew as homeland. He would never see Istanbul again.

On the 60th anniversary of September 6/7, we invite you to look at a day and a geography that are not too far away, with 60 photographs that came to light for the first time from the archive of Dimitrios Kalumenos. This photo album, which is supplemented with the last interview of current Patriarchate Photographer Nikolaos Manginas with his predecessor Dimitrios Kalumenos before his death, and detailed texts by journalist Serdar Korucu, is also the first work of the photographer, who is a legend in his field, to be published in Turkish and Turkey.