From refugees in Greece to migrants in Germany (a common family history of 20th century Greece)

First, refugees in Greece. Then, migrants in Germany. Later, repatriated to Thessaloniki. This was a common life trajectory for many inhabitants of Macedonia.

Georgios Koumaridis, son of Ioannis, was one of them. He was born in 1921 in Primikiri (today called Harmanli) in the Bithynia province, near Lake Apolloniada (Uluabat). According to oral tradition, most of the village’s Christian residents had moved there from Mani as Ottoman captives after the Orlov revolt of 1770. ^[1]In their new home, they were mostly employed as ‘πιστικοί’ (pronounced ‘pistikoi’), namely trusted shepherds for the local beys, and that is where the local villages got their name: Pistikochoria. At the end of the 19^th century, Primikiri was also the home of Muslims from the area of Larisa who had probably moved there after Larisa was integrated into the Greek state.

The next chapter of his life was written in Greece. The family’s refugee settlement documents read: ‘Head of household: Koumaridis Ioannis, son of Theodoros. Profession: farmer. Origin: Primikir of Michalitsi in Prusa. Age: 46.^[2] Other members of the family: Efstratia, wife, age: 35. Konstantinos, son, age: 11. Efstratia, niece, age: 8. Georgios, son, age: 2’. The family settled in Palaiochori of Pravi (Eleftheroupoli), where both Muslims and Christians lived until 1924. However, after the exchange, refugees from Asia Minor, Pontus and Thrace settled in the houses of the Muslim residents who had abandoned them. During 1923 and 1924, the Settlement Service billed the family 50 drachmas, one ‘appropriated’ ox, 18 okas (approx. 24 kgs) of corn, 184 okas (approx.  240 kgs) of grass and 220 okas (approx. 286 kgs) of wheat. The family settled their debt in 1926 paying 225 drachmas and 50 cents.

Fifteen years later, during the Bulgarian occupation (1941-1944), Georgios was conscripted into labour battalions by the Bulgarian command. He was a ‘durduvaki’, a word probably deriving from a corrupted version of the Bulgarian word for the labour battalions. Along with some compatriots, Georgios was taken to Bulgaria to do hard labour like opening roads and laying train tracks. He returned to the village and was soon drafted in the Greek Army for a three-year service, fighting on the civil war frontlines (the third photograph was taken in Agrafa, on 12/8/1947).

After the end of the war, Georgios married Anastasia Lafazanidou (depicted in the second photograph with their first-born son, Kostis), daughter of Apostolis and Archonti, born in 1931 in Palaiochori. Her father was from Primikiri and her mother from the village of Kavak in Amasya. ^[3] Georgios and Anastasia had two sons, Kostis in 1953 and Panagiotis in 1961. Like most of the residents of Palaiochori, the family were tobacco and corn farmers. However, tobacco farming was not profitable and they found themselves constantly in debt to the producers’ co-op. All they managed to do with the money from the year’s tobacco sales was repay the previous year’s debt.

Anastasia was the first to leave for Germany in 1968, where she worked at a paper bag factory. After a while, Georgios left too. He had to be officially invited by his wife since he was older than 35, which was the German government’s age limit for migrants. The couple started working at the metal factory ‘Estenberg und Sohn’ in Ennepetal, a small town near Wuppertal in North-Rhine Westphalia. The factory made parts for Volkswagen tractors, combine harvesters and cars. They originally stayed at the ‘heim’, nicknamed the ‘hovel’ by the migrants, a dormitory next to the factory provided by the company where 15 families lived together sharing a single bathroom. Later, they moved into a house. The house they had left behind back in the village gradually fell into disrepair and was demolished. The couple returned to Thessaloniki in 1983 where they bought an apartment in the area of Agios Pavlos.   

^[1] Some may have also moved earlier, at the end of the 15^th century, after Mystras was conquered by the Ottomans.

^[2] http://stavrakoudis.econ.uoi.gr/stavrakoudis/pontos/images/4/40050040929.jpg , 1928 census.

^[3] http://stavrakoudis.econ.uoi.gr/stavrakoudis/pontos/images/5/40050050085.jpg , 1928 census.