‘Refugee affairs’

The bureaucratic processes necessary in order to resolve a range of matters pertaining to refugees led to the establishment of offices for ‘refugee affairs’. Many of the refugees were not proficient in writing, while some didn’t even speak Greek. In addition, most of them found themselves in a foreign country where for many years they were treated by the locals and the state as interlopers. To make matters worse, refugees had little knowledge of Greek legislation, which was itself prone to frequent changes and vagueness.

At the same time, whether because of vulnerability, ignorance, or both, many refugees were susceptible to exploitation by both locals and non-locals. The best known example was banks and individuals purchasing the bonds awarded to refugees as an advance on the compensation they were entitled to at a price much lower than their nominal value.^[1] This was exacerbated by the fact that many refugees, in an effort to meet pressing basic needs, rushed to liquidate their bonds, causing their value to drop dramatically.

The firm of St. Panagiotidis and Ch. Charopoulos had an office at a central location in Thessaloniki which handled ‘refugee affairs’. In this letter, they inform the Brotherhood of Pontus Fighters, an association based in Athens, that they would be willing to establish an association in Thessaloniki which would tackle the issue of war pensions for the widows and orphans of the Pontus insurgency. The Brotherhood had recently pressured the relevant authorities to grant pensions and was collecting applications. With their letter, Panagiotidis and Charopoulos were asking the Brotherhood to send over the organisation’s charter.

The law firm of Kyros Skampavias, located at 32 Panepistimiou Street in Athens, placed this ad in a national refugee newspaper. It reads: ‘Having already established a special department for refugee and administrative affairs, directed by an expert former ministerial employee, our firm undertakes refugee affairs of all kinds, namely appeals, divisions of inheritance, entries in the registers of exchangeable assets beneficiaries, appraisal committee decisions, litigation, Greek citizen compensations, as well as administrative affairs in all ministries’.

Κ. Papaioannou also advertised his experience as a former employee in the Exchangeable Assets Management Service in his press promotion, even though he did not undertake refugee affairs in general but rather specialised in the purchase of exchangeable land.

^[1] On the complex issue of these bonds, see this informative blog post by Kyriakos Lykourinos. https://lykourinos-kavala.blogspot.com/2017/01/blog-post_11.html