Greek refugees Greek refugees Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the nearly one million Greek Orthodox natives of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea areas who fled during the Greek genocide (1914-1922) and Greece's later defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), as well as remaining Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Turkey who were required to leave their homes for Greece shortly thereafter as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which formalized the population transfer and barred the return of the refugees. This Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was signed in Lausanne,
Asia word "asa" meaning east. This may be contrasted to a similar etymology proposed for "Europe", as being from Akkadian "erēbu(m)" 'to enter' or 'set' (of the sun). T.R. Reid supports this alternative etymology, noting that the ancient Greek name must have derived from "asu", meaning 'east' in Assyrian ("ereb" for "Europe" meaning 'west'). The ideas of "Occidental" (form Latin "Occidens" 'setting') and "Oriental" (from Latin "Oriens" for 'rising') are also European invention, synonymous with "Western" and "Eastern". Reid further emphasizes that it explains the Western point of view of placing all the peoples and cultures of Asia into a single