Everybody is different Everybody is equal

GREECE

Greece’s position is truly tragic; on the shoulders of every modern Greek it places a duty at once dangerous and extremely difficult to carry out. We bear an extremely heavy responsibility. New forces are rising from the East, new forces are rising from the West, and Greece, caught as always between the two colliding impulses, once more becomes a whirlpool…Greece is at the world’s geographical and spiritual crossroads. Once again its duty is to reconcile these two monstrous impulses by finding a synthesis. Will it succeed?

Extract from the book “Report to Greco” by Nikos Kazantzakis

There have been many times in the long history of Greece that it had to reconcile opposite forces, welcome refugees on the one hand and send its own “children” abroad on the other. One of those cases was the exchange of population , as ordered by the Treaty of Lausanne, after the so called Disaster in Asia Minor in 1922. After that, the Greek community that lived in Asia Minor was forced to leave their homes and property and move to the mainland of Greece.

Let us now tell you the story of the Tsingos family, who abandoned their home and land in Asia Minor and after long sufferings, material and human losses, settled in Agios Nikolaos at first, and later in Kritsa, a village located a few kilometres from our school. The little son of the family, named Kostis, who experienced all this, narrated the story to his daughter Maria and she willingly shared it with us.

“My father was born in a beautiful, picturesque village with whitewashed courtyards, lush green mulberries and beautiful flowers, Alatsata. There was a big, fertile valley lying around the village and for that reason most residents were mainly occupied with farming and stockbreeding. They lived a happy, peaceful and industrious life, with respect for their land that sustained them amply, until everything was turned upside down on a sad morning in 1922, when the Turks attacked the village.

My grandfather instructed his wife to get the children ready without worrying them. They had to go and leave everything behind, otherwise their life would be in great danger….

He lifted his little son Kostis on his shoulders and asked him to take two small pouches full of gold sovereigns which was hidden in a top cupboard. This was all their savings. He gave them to his wife to hide in her bosom.

Then, the father took his little son Kostis aside, looked at him straight in the eye and explained to him his “duty”.
-If anything happens to me, YOU are going to be the father for your sisters and the protector of your mother.

These words stuck to the eight-year-old’s mind and he never let his father’s hand go. The whole family cross themselves and set off without knowing where they are heading for.
Houses and properties around them were being looted and their own house was consumed by flames, but they kept walking. Besides, there was no time for emotionalism. They had to get to the dock of Smirni ( Izmir), so as to stand a chance of being saved. They all walked hastily together; parents, children, neighbours. Kostis held his father’s hand tightly until a Turkish officer left it hanging, when he snatched his father away from his family.-Carry on! He shouted. I will find you!...Just go!! Kostis, remember what I told you!!
The mother pulled the boy and the rest of her children closer to her, stifled her tears and carried on. They reached the dock, without their father. They got on a small, old boat and lay next to their mother, constantly crying for the father and the homeland they were leaving behind. Literally stacked one above the other, they arrived in Thessaloniki. They reached to a refugee shelter where they were wet, with dirty clothes, hit by the strong wind. They spent the first night in their new land. They were refugees and they sought acceptance…What they were asking wasn’t so simple…

Some people welcomed them warmly and kindly.But most of the people were scared and avoided them. They thought they had contagious diseases or they were lowlife criminals. When their mother wanted to borrow plates or cutlery, they were willing to give them but emphasized that they didn’t want them back. In addition, the most common phrase Greek mothers used to say so as to make their children eat all of their food was : “Eat your food or the refugee will take you away…”All this racist behavior and bitter words was another straw for those people who had been forced to leave their home.

“…My dad’s family was the receiver of all that behaviour and continued to live in a camp with very little food and a dire lack of money.” Unfortunately , they did not hear from their father and Kostis was from then on the protector of the family. The gold sovereigns had already run out, since the merchants used to sell their products to refugees at high prices… They saw refugees as an opportunity to make a profit….
My father had to make a living for his brothers and his mother, so he left the refugee shelter without permission from anyone, and together with two of his cousins he headed to a neighboring garbage dump. He dug into the rubbish and found scrap metal (copper, iron, bronze) in order to sell it and make money. With that money he bought bread for the whole family and his mother gave him her blessing. She also worked a lot, washing clothes and cleaning houses for the local households. Little Kostis, with his mother’s permission, ran errands and they managed to get by in Thessaloniki. Time went by roughly, but then the Greek government gave refugees permission to move town if they liked. Their mother wished for a better life, so she took her children and headed to Aigio. Their life did not change much as they still had to work here and there and run errands…. Then they heard that the island of Crete welcomed refugees.

Then, World War II broke out and everyone, including refugees, suffered, as soldiers were sent out to the front. When the war was over, the Greek government finally decided to take serious action as regards the refugee population. So it reached the decision to distribute monastic and church property to them.
My father’s suffering family got a share from the estate of Saint John Theologos near the village of Kritsa. Kostis and his siblings moved there and cultivated the fields. Some of them were located on a rugged mountainside, which they tamed .with hard work and loving care. He also worked at building sites and did hard jobs that others refused to do; he even cleaned drainage pipes. He did all this to support his mother and siblings and the family he created.

He was a kind long-suffering man who didn’t have the chance to experience a carefree childhood, but kept the promise he had made his father to the fullest supporting both his paternal family as well as the family he made. Unfortunately, he never heard from his father or managed to go back to his village, Alatsata, not even as a visitor. Still, he was happy that he was blessed with a wonderful, big family. He died at the age of 87 in 1998. Let his memory be eternal and may he rest in peace!”