With the anniversary marking 50 years as refugees, 50 years of occupation, and 50 years since we shrank to half of our homeland, black-and-white photos have emerged from the archives.
These images are eerily similar to scenes we witness happening elsewhere today. For those who haven’t lived through these times, it might indeed feel like they occurred somewhere else.
Children with sorrowful faces clutching photos of their loved ones, women crying, prisoners returning, foreigners rushing to board military helicopters to escape war, armed soldiers advancing, soldiers being mistreated, children playing amidst tents, bombed-out buildings…
Simultaneously, memories resurface. Aspects that were partially unknown or forgotten come to light. One such aspect is the unaccompanied refugee children who were hosted in Greece.
Approximately two thousand children, aged 6 to 17, some being orphans, were sent to Greece and accommodated in public and ecclesiastical institutions, boarding schools, orphanages, and families.
The fact that this aspect was largely unknown is possibly due to the traumatic nature of the experience. It was traumatic both for the children forced to live far from their parents and for the parents who had to send their children away to save them and to offer them better opportunities than they would have had living in camps, as deemed necessary during those difficult days.
Today, these individuals, now in their sixties and older, are organising and sharing their experiences. “We travelled without passports or identity cards; only a piece of paper with our name for counting purposes…” recalls Andreas Theodosiou, president of the Initiative Group for Unaccompanied Refugee Children Hosted in Greece.
“We did not grasp the essence of this journey and separation from our parents, those of us who had parents… But when darkness fell and we were in the middle of the sea, we realised we were alone…”
Our colleague Kornilios Hadjicostas was one of those children. He recalls meeting a boy in Athens, Giannis, who, like many Greeks, had sent clothes with a note in the pocket containing his contact details.
These notes led to the development of relationships. Upon discovering the note, he found it was from a poor orphan living with his mother.
Anna Athanasiou Sisou, at a recent event organised to remember and thank those who embraced them during such a difficult time, described her feelings when she lost her three younger siblings, who were hosted elsewhere without her knowing their whereabouts. She met them by chance months later.
Similar stories unfold around us today. Yet, we wonder how it is possible to send your children into the unknown. The answer lies in ’74.