This year marks one hundred years since the Asia Minor Catastrophe. All of us who come from there honor this black anniversary where our ancestors sewed their little golden crosses on their linings and with a small bottle in hand, took the path of uprooting.
Persecuted and despised. Princes left their homes to end up more strangers than strangers in an inhospitable place, in dry and hard soil. They left their households and came to Greece to face tight lips, slitted eyes, bitter words from serpent tongues.
Barren land, barren people, stone and cotron and a vengeful sun like a skin on the late bodies of our ancestors, begged the natives for a corner to tilt their heads, a bite to put in their mouths, a sip, a sip of water for their children.
"I spat in my child's mouth to quench his thirst".
(3rd High School History Book, 1987).
There are shocking testimonies about the hatred and racism experienced by the refugees when they set foot in Greece. Many of them are recorded on the website of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, but there are other reliable sources, such as the Publications from the Center for Asia Minor Studies .
- "When we arrived in Serras, the locals didn't want us. My uncle used to go to get sugar for the tea and they wouldn't give him any. They did not give coal to refugees. This is how racism was".
Katina Emfietzi- Mitsakou.
- "Another thing I remember in Stylida was the bad relations the locals had with the refugees. They treated us worse than animals even though we were their brothers. The children of the refugees beat them, while their own children scared them that if they were not wise they would give them to the refugees to eat. The locals called us "turks" and burned us in the heart. We had been uprooted from our homeland and the locals were also uprooting us from ourselves".
Konstantina Kontou from the Archives of the East Fthiotida Asia Minor Association.
- "We got into a boat, along with a few villagers, and went out to Chios. At first we stayed at the port. I'm lost in the dirt we sleep. We shoulder our belongings and pull south and go to an orchard. The landlord is kicking us out, he was afraid we wouldn't eat the tangerines. Let's go to an olive tree. They are kicking us out of here too. We didn't leave. Horns, my husband says to him, we are chased where do you want us to go? We made little houses with stones, like children, and sat. We stayed in Chios for a month, we didn't see any window or door open in Chios".
Maria Birbili from Yatzilari.
- "Man's ability to survive and endure is admirable. All of us, who were used to having all the good things of God, huddled in a dark warehouse, without a mattress to lay our aching bones! And yet, we did not despair... Twelve families of us stayed in this warehouse. Twelve families in a miserable 12X4 space... We found some sacks, washed them and sewed dividers. We tried to give each other courage, so that we could endure and recover. We lived like this for two and a half years".
Kiss Caressed. Three centuries a life. Lebanon Publications. Athens 2005
- "Back and forth in Mytilini they did not accept us. It is not a rich place from a harvest (=harvest) waiting. We were tortured, we slept badly, we ate badly, we suffered a great calamity. And who hasn't cried dead? And who hasn't suffered and who isn't still crying? Only the children who were born here hear them as false fairy tales".
Apostolos Mykoniatis The Exodus (published by the Center for Asia Minor Studies)
- "We stayed on the ships for fifteen days. Then we arrived in Piraeus. Aman, they scolded us a lot, they tortured us a lot. They put us in line. The little ones and the old ones were cut from our roots.
They stripped us. Everything we wore in the furnace, come on, they put it on. We then had no shoes to wear. They gave us food. We also had with us. But in the quarantine, there was a big fever, a big syphilis (=malignancy). It lasted twenty days.
From Ai-Georgis, from Piraeus, they put us on the steamer and let us go. They left us in the streets of Thessaloniki. We were thrown into the streets of Thessaloniki. Lying like this, in the alleys. People were passing by and seeing us. Aman, reziliki!
A man passed by, a jerk. He threw us a fiver. I caught the five, I was shouting, crying:
– We have money! We have to eat! We left our homes, we left so many vines! We are not beggars!
– Leave the high five. Calm down, my mother said.
My mother was sick. She was sitting in a bundle.
People were passing by. They were watching us from afar. They didn't come near us:
– Refugee! Immigration! They were saying and passing...
Kallistheni Kallidou The Exodus
- Finally we arrived in Piraeus. Others got off there, we continued the journey to Kavala. They took us to Cinar Dere, near today's Nea Karvali. We stayed there under the roof for two years. People were getting sick and dying every day. My husband died, my child Charalambos also died. At night the jackals came, dug the graves and ate the dead. We didn't know such savages in our village. They had, well, such big teeth...
Despina Simeonidou The Exodus
«After Rhodes we reached Piraeus, then we reached Corfu. It was Saint Spyridon's Eve, December 11, 1922. It was raining. We went to the beach in boats. They say:"We will take you with donkeys to a village". They took us to the village of Stavros, it took us four hours to get there. We were going on foot, things only in carts. And getting wet all this time...
Others were put in the village church, others in the school, others in homes. No one asks:"Who are you, what do you want?" An indifference. They didn't give us anything to eat. Didn't they have something to give us? They only said "good morning" to us. She was good too. Fortunately we had bread with us".
Eleni Manailoglou The Exodus
And finally.
Ilias Venezis writes in 'Aeolica' of 'Gi'.
"The grandmother leans her head to rest it on the breasts that protected her all the days of her life. Something is stopping her and she can't find peace of mind:Like a bullet is under the old man's shirt.
-What is this here? he asks almost nonchalantly.
Grandfather brings his hand. He tucks it under the clothes, finds the small foreign body resting on his body and listening to his heartbeat.
-What is;
- It's nothing, says the grandfather timidly, like a child who was at fault. It's nothing. It's a bit of dirt.
-Soil!
Yes, some soil from their land. To plant a basil, he tells her, in the foreign place they are going. To remember.
Slowly the old man's fingers open the scarf where the soil is kept. They search in there, they also search for the grandmother's fingers, as if caressing it. Their eyes, tearful, stand there.
- It's nothing, I say. A little soil.
Earth, Aeolian Earth, Earth of my place".