Is there a more compelling counterweight of national honor than the unbending adherence of the Pontian people to their faith and traditions? Is there an example of more fervent devotion to duty than that of the priest who, until his dying breath in the snows of the freezing Pontian mountains, continued to guide and comfort his flock in exile, the women and children, the elderly and the sickly? What determination can be considered more heroic than that of the Greek folk shut up in burning churches, when capitulation to Islamization would have ensured not only their survival but privileges as well? A basic difference between the Pontian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust is that the Pontian Christians could have saved themselves if they were willing to reject their religious identity and adopt Islam.