Samsun Mübadele Museum
Alaçam Mübadele Museum is a thematic museum consisting of ethnographic artifacts. The artifacts in the museum consist of daily use items, documents and photographs brought by the immigrants who were subjected to forced migration with the additional protocol to the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923. Restored in 2010 by Samsun Special Provincial Administration, the museum was officially opened on September 18, 2012.
According to the additional protocol signed in the Lausanne Treaty, Turks in Greece and Greeks in Turkey were subjected to forced migration, except for Istanbul and Western Thrace. This mass and compulsory migration is called “Exchange” and the people subjected to exchange are called “Immigrants”. With this forced migration based on religion, approximately 1 million 250 thousand Greek Orthodox Christians migrated from Anatolia to Greece, while approximately 500 thousand Muslim Turks migrated from Anatolia. With the exchange of peoples, the first official forced migration in history, approximately two million people left their homeland and moved to new settlements
Between December 31, 1923 and July 1924, 44,255 immigrants were brought to Samsun. While some of the immigrants were settled in the districts of Alaçam, Tekkeköy, Bafra, Ondokuzmayıs, Çarşamba, Terme, some of them were moved by land and railroad to more inland regions, especially Tokat, Amasya, Çorum, Sivas, Yozgat and Niğde.
