During the day off (April 2nd), I went to the Benaki Museum, which
Professor Hall had pointed out on the Lakivatos morning trip. It's a
nice little museum, encompassing Greek history from the Classical and
Roman periods, to the Byzantine period, and through to today. On the
third floor, there was a temporary exhibit, titled "Expulsion and
Exchange of Populations (Turkey -Greece 1922-1924)". In it were a series
of photographs, from the end of the first World War through to the end
of the population exchange, along with snippets of text walking visitors
through the events of those two years.
The images alone were powerful, but even more so when combined with the objects I'd seen in the rest of the museum. In Turkey and the Near East, Greek Orthodox families had been powerful, and rich. However, during and after the Greco-Turkish war, these families were uprooted, broken apart, and forced from a stable, comfortable life. "Greek" men in Turkey were gathered up and sent to labor camps, from which few returned. Others, along with women and children, were sent on death marches. Refugees from Smyrna and other Turkish towns flooded Thessaloniki, Athens, and other Greece cities, even before the war ended and the population exchange was initiated. The estimate presented in the exhibit was that over 1,000,000 refugees tried to find new homes at this point. Then, at the end of the war, another 200,000 or so Greek Orthodox Christians were ejected from Turkey, while a similar number of Muslims were moved from Greek to Turkey. On both sides, the new immigrants were treated with suspicion and contempt, and were kept as outsiders.
My favorite photograph out of the set was of a young refugee girl sitting on the lap of an evzone, the Greek ceremonial guard. The girl was laughing at the camera, a little shyly, while the soldier laughed slightly along with her. In other photos, too, in the awful conditions of the refugee camps, the some of the children were still smiling, and life went on. It made me wonder if there could ever be a tragedy so great that even the kids would be unable to smile and enjoy life. If so, I hope no one ever has to experience them. Things would have to be awful indeed for even the children to lose hope entirely.
The other striking thing about the photographs was just how similar they were to images of much more recent disasters. In China, Japan, Haiti, New Orleans, Iraq, and Sumatra, in just the past decade, we've seen memorable photos of people living in the exact same sort of conditions. The faces and landscapes and disaster stories change, but the degree of human suffering, and human spirit... those are the same. The expressions of hopelessness, pain, and grief visible in pictures from this 1922-24 set are just as clear in the photos taken today. But present, too, are the expressions of defiance, of hope, and of the human will to survive. At the end of the exhibit, along with the photo of the little girl and the soldier, were several family portraits of refugees, who created a new middle class in Greece. Seeing that gives me hope that people will recover from today's disasters as well, and make the world a better place in spite of the hardship they have faced.
The images alone were powerful, but even more so when combined with the objects I'd seen in the rest of the museum. In Turkey and the Near East, Greek Orthodox families had been powerful, and rich. However, during and after the Greco-Turkish war, these families were uprooted, broken apart, and forced from a stable, comfortable life. "Greek" men in Turkey were gathered up and sent to labor camps, from which few returned. Others, along with women and children, were sent on death marches. Refugees from Smyrna and other Turkish towns flooded Thessaloniki, Athens, and other Greece cities, even before the war ended and the population exchange was initiated. The estimate presented in the exhibit was that over 1,000,000 refugees tried to find new homes at this point. Then, at the end of the war, another 200,000 or so Greek Orthodox Christians were ejected from Turkey, while a similar number of Muslims were moved from Greek to Turkey. On both sides, the new immigrants were treated with suspicion and contempt, and were kept as outsiders.
My favorite photograph out of the set was of a young refugee girl sitting on the lap of an evzone, the Greek ceremonial guard. The girl was laughing at the camera, a little shyly, while the soldier laughed slightly along with her. In other photos, too, in the awful conditions of the refugee camps, the some of the children were still smiling, and life went on. It made me wonder if there could ever be a tragedy so great that even the kids would be unable to smile and enjoy life. If so, I hope no one ever has to experience them. Things would have to be awful indeed for even the children to lose hope entirely.
The other striking thing about the photographs was just how similar they were to images of much more recent disasters. In China, Japan, Haiti, New Orleans, Iraq, and Sumatra, in just the past decade, we've seen memorable photos of people living in the exact same sort of conditions. The faces and landscapes and disaster stories change, but the degree of human suffering, and human spirit... those are the same. The expressions of hopelessness, pain, and grief visible in pictures from this 1922-24 set are just as clear in the photos taken today. But present, too, are the expressions of defiance, of hope, and of the human will to survive. At the end of the exhibit, along with the photo of the little girl and the soldier, were several family portraits of refugees, who created a new middle class in Greece. Seeing that gives me hope that people will recover from today's disasters as well, and make the world a better place in spite of the hardship they have faced.
