Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

Note: the current post contains some pictures that they may disturb. 

Hello you beautiful souls. 

I know, it seems like i am neglecting my blog. 

The truth is i had a very weird January. 

Although winter is my favourite time of the year, 

i had this unexplained - yet beautiful - melancholy that kept me away from here 

and very close to my books and documentaries.

But since i don't like feeling down for a long period of time,
i always try to cheer myself up with goodies i can afford. :P
Glasses (finally) and hair, all new! 2014 found me very hipster-ish!

There is a beautiful, warm place 2 minutes away from my home,
called "sanatorium" (cool huh?) with those lovely vintage / antique-ish decorations.
A great place to house my i-want-to-read-my-book-outside-with-a-cup-of-hot-coffee days
(a mysterious girl behind a book and very far from her home
oh yes yes! She lives in the edge!).
The good thing is that it's quite and it satisfies my purpose completely. 

So, recently i got this beauty, The Bloody Soil by Dido Sotiriou

(i have mentioned the book before in this post if you are interested to check)
because i had only the chance to read it from the public library.
I have read it, five to six times till now. I always end up with many tissues around me.
Now i proudly own a copy! (also i will not have to deal again with this awful feeling
when you have to return a book to the library).

And some weeks back my grandma got me those four books 

(or one book in four parts) about the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22), the Asia Minor Catastrophe

and the Greek genocide. I am very sensitive about this subject but i try not to be judgemental. 

So always my main goal is to read about, ask and understand more about those days.

The bottom line is that many souls died during those years, from both sides.
Violence, hunger, killing, rape, diseases, torture, exploitation...
War, power, governments, politicians.
Those are the four evil's of our world and it seems that we close our senses
not to feel or see or learn what history has to teach us.

H i s t o r y

The Greek genocide, part of which is known as the Pontic genocide, was the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population from its historic homeland in Asia Minor, central Anatolia, Pontus, and the former Russian Caucasus province of Kars Oblast during World War I and its aftermath (1914–23). 

It was instigated by the government of the Ottoman Empire against the Greek population of the Empire and it included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, summary expulsions, arbitrary executions, and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical and religious monuments. 

According to various sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. 

Smyrna massacre, 1922. Elder and infants were massacred together

Some of the survivors and refugees, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire. After the end of the 1919–22 Greco-Turkish War, most of the Greeks remaining in the Ottoman Empire were transferred to Greece under the terms of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Armenians, and some scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination.

Photo taken after the Smyrna fire. The text inside indicates that the photo had been taken by representatives of the Red Cross in Smyrna

The Allies of World War I condemned the Ottoman government-sponsored massacres as crimes against humanity. More recently, the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution in 2007 affirming that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire, including the Greeks, was genocide. Some other organisations have also passed resolutions recognising the campaign as a genocide, as have the parliaments of Greece, Cyprus and Sweden.

Smyrna citizens trying to reach the Allied ships during the Smyrna fire, 1922. The photo had been taken from the launch boat of a US battleship.

Greek civilians mourn their dead relatives, Smyrna massacre, 1922

Between the years of 1919 and 1924 the great Greek population of Pontos and all of Asia Minor was forced to leave their homes. The official count stands at 380,000+ pontian lives lost in the , so called exchange of population. [x]

"Take only what you can carry".... in many cases not even themselves. 

Made to walk for hundreds of Kilometres on end.This was known as the Light Death.

The slave labour trains, where thousands will spend their last moments of life.

Kerasounta

Massacre in the area of Kerasounta 1921

At the end of the 1920s in Pontos.

Pontian Greek family of Kakoulidis.

Pontic Greek family of Theofylaktou in Geneva. Kostis, his wife Helen, left their son Adam, the niece Athena and their nephew.

Pontian Greek ladies and children of Trabzon, Athena Fyllizi-Kartasi, Lefkothea Theofylaktou, Julia Theofylaktou (painter), Sophia-Velissaridis Kallivazi

May our days be peaceful people, and my only wish is never in our lives to deal with this monster we call war. My greetings to everyone :)