major centre of the Bektashi dervishes. Of the local hamams, the most notable was the so-called "Whisper Bath" (fısıltı hamamı), with its "Ear of Dionysus"; it survived at least until the 1890s. The town had a marketplace but no bezesten; its chief produce were grapes and quinces, but also local pottery and glassware, which had a great reputation. Swedish king Charles XII stayed in the town from February 1713 to October 1714 after his flight from the Battle of Poltava, but otherwise the town became an unimportant provincial backwater in early modern times. Modern era In 1912 the village was briefly occupied by the Bulgarians during the First Balkan War, only to return to Ottoman control in the Second Balkan War. The Ottoman Government offered the city to Bulgaria in 1915, as a reward for entering World War I on the side of the Central Powers. Under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly, Didymoteicho, along with the rest of Western Thrace, came under the temporary management of a multinational Entente military force led by the French General Charles Antoine Charpy. In the second half of April 1920, as a result of the San Remo conference of the leaders of the main allies of the Entente powers (except the United States), the region of Western Thrace was annexed by Greece. The Second World War devastated Didymoteicho. On May, 1943, 731 Jews from the city were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. Modern Didymoteicho is home to numerous descendants of Greek refugees from Eastern Thrace, now in Turkey, as well as members of Greece's Turkish-speaking Muslim minority (Turks of Western Thrace). Like the Pomaks of East Macedonia and Thrace, the Turkish population of Didymoteicho dates to the Ottoman period and, unlike the Turkish Muslims and Greek Muslims of Greek Macedonia and Epirus, was exempted from the 1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange following the Treaty of Lausanne. The village was considerably affected by the Evros river flooding of 17 to 22 February 2005. Flood warnings were reported at that time. The flood affected much of the town on Wednesday, 2 March 2005 and continued for several days. On Friday, 4 March, flood waters began to ebb slowly. Over 5,000 mm of rainfall caused the river to overflow its banks. Buildings, properties and stores were flooded, leaving people stranded. It was the worst flood in nearly 50 years. The railway line south of Didymoteicho