The Ottoman Empire lost almost all its lands in Rumelia af-ter the Balkan Wars (1912). Muslims who did not immigrate and wanted to stay there, became a minority and faced heavy oppressions. With “The Convention and Protocol Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Population” signed on January 30, 1923 the decision was made to perform population exchange. However, the implementation of the contract was not easy at all. Because the problems regarding its implementation made the situation more complicated. The immigrants could not fill the deficiency of their past lives for years. Even if we can say that they died when they passed away, they literally lived an incomplete life. Their resentment can still be felt in their grandchildren’s statements. The immigrants, who were taken away from Crete, tried to find solace in items such as bricks, door handles, vas-es and keys of their houses that they had to leave. During the exchange, they disposed of the goods they could sell at a low price. They had to leave their past in their ancestral homeland - their cemeteries, their family homes, their lands, their friends. The most valuable thing they took with them was their identity, and they made great efforts to preserve it. Some families lost their relatives while trying different migration routes, and didn’t receive any news about their lost people for a very long time. Most of the immigrants spent a lifetime with the dream of their possibility to return. Most of them lost their knowledge and experiences, because they could not be placed in the fields where they could continue their professional experience. Some Cretan origin citizens contributed greatly to the development of Izmir and obtained important positions. In this study, the problems experienced by the immigrants coming from Crete to İzmir between 1923 and 1930 as a re-sult of the forced migration decision, their socio-cultural interactions with the local people of the regions where they were settled, and the values they preserved were emphasized. Besides, information about the cultural trans-formation experienced was tried to be conveyed based on the interviews made. The research was supported by relevant sources, visual archives and witnesses.