Date of birth: 21 May 1929
Place of birth: Skepasto, province of Thessaloniki, Macedonia
Arrived in Australia: 3 July 1969
Occupation: Factory Worker
My village is small but very beautiful. It is situated next to a mountain and has a large valley. In the spring time we used to go to the mountain and admire the beautiful valley. In the spring time the plains became green and in the summer they turned gold before harvest. It was very beautiful. The valley was far away from Thessaloniki, and it didn’t have public transport but now it has everything. There are three children in the family. When I was young we used to live well. We had many acres of land and we used to cultivate wheat, and we also had sheep and cows. we lived well and had everything. When the war (1) began and my father died, everything changed. we were forced to sell the sheep. We were only kids then and we couldn’t cope. We went through many hardships.
I was eleven years old when the war began. Even though I was small, I remember everything. We went through hardships. Then came the occupation of Greece by the Germans. In the meantime, my father died and we were orphaned at a very young age. Food was very scarce in ’41 and ’42 and we went through hard times. Afterwards the resistance against the Germans began and when the Germans left Greece the Civil War began (2). The Civil War was the most ugly. One night the resistance fighters entered the village and burned it down. I was 17 or 18 years old – the best years of my life. they burned all our homes through no fault of our own. The following day we didn’t even have bread to eat. they burned all our things and our animals. We were evacuated and taken to a town named Sochos. At Sochos we were getting assistance from the government. We lived at Sochos for a year and a half, but even there, there was great fear. Sochos was also burned down one night, and from there we were taken to Langada, where we lived for a while.
The photograph was taken when we were living in Sochos in 1950. My friend Vaso and I are in the photograph. The photograph was taken in front of Vaso’s house.
From Langada we were taken back to the village, but until they rebuilt our houses, we were housed in sheds. Each shed had one room and housed one family. In the meantime I got engaged and remained engaged for three years. We didn’t have our own home. We built one room, and for seven years I lived in that room with two children. We lived our life in poverty. After that we built a new house to live in.
The photograph was taken in 1954, in front of my in-law’s house, on my wedding day. In the photograph there is me on the left, next to me is Kosta my husband, and next to him, his two sisters – Maria and Smirna. In the middle sits my mother-in-law and next to her is a cousin of hers. The old woman in the background is my mother-in-law’s cousin.
There were no jobs. The country was not settled enough to open factories. We had three and a half acres of land and we made a living from those. We cultivated a little wheat and tobacco, but the tobacco was never any good because of the lack of rain. My husband became a shepherd because we were having difficulties surviving. With the children growing up there were many expenses. So when Australia began accepting migrants we decided to leave for a better way of life.
The photograph was taken aboard the ship, ‘Patris’, in 1969, when we were travelling to Australia. Aboard the ship I was only confronted with the problem of heavy seas. We suffered greatly for ten days, because of the heavy seas. However, when it was all over the captain congratulated us for our courage. As you can see in the photograph, I also waited for my turn to be congratulated by the captain.
A cousin of mine was waiting for us at the Port (3).He took us to his house and looked after us for fifteen days. In the photograph we are at my cousin’s house in Parkville, where we lived for the first few days in Australia. From the left, there is my husband Kosta, my son John, myself and my daughter Paula.
A few days later we began looking for jobs. My daughter foud a job immediately but my husband and I had some difficulties. after a while he did find a job with the Railways but I was going from one factory to another for a year. I was very ill during that time. I don’t know whether it was due to the weather or stress. I used to go to one factory and as soon as I settled down, I used to get sick and they used to sack me. I had to start the whole process again.
I worked in many factories – a shoe factory, a factory where I peeled onions for pickling, and a factory where jumpers were made. My daughter took me to the factory where she worked, and there I ironed robes and nighties. When my daughter left to go to another factory she took me there too. I was cutting and ironing pockets in this factory and I was also getting a good wage. However the factory sacked us all. I was so worried that day that without really knowing how it happened, I fell from a ladder [inside the factory]. I was badly hurt, and had to stop working. I never worked again. They gave me the pension.
When we first came we didn’t go out anywhere, but as my daughter grew older, we went out to night clubs. We had good company and good entertainment. I had fellow villagers and cousins here, and we used to go to dances regularly. We had great times dancing to all the songs. We also used to have parties at various houses as well as baptisms and weddings. We took this photograph in 1971 when we were celebrating Easter over at a friend’s house in Moorabbin. We had a lamb on the spit. I am on the right, and next to me is my son John, my husband Kosta and our relatives and friends.
I don’t go anywhere now, but in those days every Saturday night we had to go somewhere. My life has changed greatly, now that the children are married and have left. I have a grandaughter. I am left at home on my own now, and I wait for my children and my grandaughter to come so that my home will be filled again, like it used to be. When the children were with me it was much better. We used to go to dances and visiting together. Now they are married and have families of their own, while I sit at home with my husband and wait for a Sunday or a celebration when my children will come. Life does change once your children leave home.
1 Second World War
2 Civil War in Greece between the years 1946 and 1949.
3 Port Melbourne
Source: ’1985. Brunswick City Council. For a better life we came’. Collected and edited by the Brunswick Oral History Project. Copies available for lending and sale at Moreland City Libraries (Brunswick) ph 9389 8600. Images taken after 1955 are available in the print publication. Original images available in exhibition boxes in storage at Brunswick Library.