by guest contributor Dimitrios Machairidis
Photo credit: Papadakis Press
“Give a kiss to your mum,” says Oscar winning actress Vanessa Redgrave as she greets a child from Iraq in a refugee camp in the outskirts of Athens. “You are very pretty,” the refugee teenager tells her. “My granddaughter says the same,” Vanessa replies smiling to the young girl who fled with her family from their homeland, Syria, in order to escape the devastating war.
Vanessa Redgrave, the famous British actress, was invited last January to Greece by the famous Greek actress and producer Mimi Denissi, to watch her play “My Beloved Smyrna” and had the chance to visit the two camps in Athens where the refugees from Syria and Iraq were staying. The play was a big theatrical success and also a story about refugees.
In September 1922, the Greeks from Smyrna, a large commercial center on the Asia Minor coast, fled from their homeland to Greece, having been chased by the Turks.
Vanessa Redgrave and Mimi Denissi with refugees at the Hellinikon refugee camp in Athens
“I was a refugee, and that is how I spent my life after I saw one of our big cities in England going up in flames with the whole sky full of fire during the 2nd World War. But I also know what my government didn’t do during that time. They didn’t welcome the Jewish people. We have to tell our governments and the European institutions in Brussels that you are giving money to help the refugees who have escaped the bombs, the fire and the violence,” said Redgrave after her visit to the two camps.
Prior to her visit, famous names such as Susan Sarandon, Orlando Bloom, David Morrissey (“The Walking Dead”), Mandy Patinkin (“Homeland”), and Ai Weiwei (the world famous Chinese modern artist) had visited the refugee camps at the Greek borders. They have been trying ever since to send all over the world the message of solidarity, generosity and support for the Syrian war refugees. This massive refugee crisis, the first in the 21st century, has resulted in the drowning of innocent people trying to get from the Turkish coast to the Greek Islands on tiny boats, has prevented the free movement of citizens into the European Union, has ignited anti-immigrant reactions in Sweden, England, Germany and elsewhere in Europe and has flooded the Greek Islands with thousands of homeless people, experiencing great despair. Looking back, the 20th century was full of wars and refugee crises as well. Do we learn anything from these wars and refugee stories?
Vanessa Redgrave and Mimi Denissi
“I personally thank all those people from all over the world who help the refugees. Greeks have been left to do it on their own. But Greece cannot solve these problems and yet it is giving us the best lesson of all, the lesson of humanity. The Greeks are an example of how to try to help fellow human beings. Bravo Greece! And I am sure that every refugee we have met feels unbelievable gratitude,” added Redgrave.
Indeed, Greek history is full of refugees who have escaped wars and have been taught tough lessons about human suffering. The play My Beloved Smyrna presents one of the darkest periods of modern Greek history. Smyrna was one of the most important ports of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean Sea where Greeks, Turks, French, Italians, Armenians and other nations coexisted for centuries. The Greek-Turkish war started in 1919 after the end of the 1st World War and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. In September, 1922, Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk) led his troops into Smyrna (now Izmir) a predominantly Christian city, as a flotilla of 27 allied warships – including three American destroyers – looked on. The Turks soon proceeded to indulge in an orgy of pillage, rape and slaughter that the Western powers, anxious to protect their oil and trade interests in Turkey, encouraged through their silence and refusal to intervene. Turkish forces then set fire to the legendary city and totally destroyed it. Ernest Hemingway, the famous American novelist and journalist, as a foreign correspondent for the Canadian newspaper Toronto Star in Smyrna witnessed the last days of the city. The Greek army and navy departed from Smyrna and left the Greeks unprotected, without passports (they were still citizens of Ottoman Empire, a non-existing country anymore) and surrounded by the Turkish army. In less than four months millions lost their lives trying to escape, and more than 1.5 million Greeks left Asia Minor seeking a new homeland. Many of them arrived at the refugee camps in Lavrion, the Greek port near Cape Sounion and Athens, and from there they migrated permanently to the United States and Europe. By 1923 Smyrna’s demise was all but erased from historical memory.
Vanessa Redgrave, Mimi Denissi and playwright and screenwriter Martin Sherman
“My whole life is Smyrna. How can it fit into this tiny luggage,” questions the rich lady portrayed in My Beloved Smyrna as she rushes to leave Smyrna and lose everything. In the same way, each refugee living in the refugee camps in Greece keeps hidden in their tiny backpack the personal reasons that forced them to flee from their beloved but brutalized country. Through a perilous journey to Europe, these refugees are seeking to materialize a dream that looks impossible:A better and safer future.
“Those refugees in Smyrna had the wrong passports and nobody took them on the ships. That is the story of the refugees. If you want to die when things are difficult you must remember never to forget the truth. You are giving hope because you are telling the truth. It does not matter how many mistakes the governments make. Go forward with strength and hope that you give to the people. People are over power and government,” said Vanessa Redgrave after watching the play.
“My beloved Smyrna”
“My beloved Smyrna” inspired a movie about the refugee problem, the filming of which is expected to start next year. Vanessa Redgrave and Olympia Dukakis might be part of the cast. A film’s message more easily reaches an international audience. In the meantime. anonymous volunteers continue to help refugees who arrive in Greece. Last Sunday Freddie, an American friend who lives in Athens, called me because a boat full of refugees was arriving in Piraeus from Lesvos and there was urgent need for diapers and powdered milk for newborn babies. A network of volunteers, American and Canadian residents of Athens and also Greeks, helped refugee families with children and handicapped members to arrive in Athens. As Vanessa Redgrave said, “People are stronger as long as they believe it.”
Vanessa Redgrave courtesy of nosokompacreations:
