The family of Evgenia Tsompanopoulou

Evgenia Tsompanopoulou was born in 1915 in Sevdikioi (Seydiköy) of Asia Minor, a town located about 12 km outside of Smyrna. At the time, it had a population of approximately 10,000 people, most of whom were Greek and worked in farming, just like Evgenia’s father, Nikos Tsompanopoulos. Her mother, Marina Baxevanoglou, also hailed from a family of farmers. Nikos and Marina had four children in Asia Minor: Evgenia, Labros, Thanos and Maritsa. In August 1922, after the Asia Minor Catastrophe, all members of Evgenia’s family became refugees, except one: her father was captured and had to stay behind. Marina and her four children boarded a ship that carried refugees to the Greek ports of Kavala, Thessaloniki, Volos and Piraeus.

They disembarked at the port of Volos and settled temporarily in the area of the Old Port Authority, where they were housed in the Volos Municipal Theatre along with hundreds of other refugees. They were then transferred to the area of Xirokampos where the refugee settlement of Nea Ionia was established. After settling there permanently, Evgenia and her siblings were enrolled in the local elementary school and completed their primary education. In 1924, the family was reunited when Nikos Tsompanopoulos managed to locate his family with the help of the Red Cross. The couple had a fifth child, Giorgos, who was born in the refugee settlement, as the family had finally acquired a house of their own in Nea Ionia on the corner of Dorylaiou Street and Myriofytou Street in the western part of the settlement.

In his new home, Nikos Tsompanopoulos continued the professional activity he had been engaged in before he found refuge in Volos returning to the trade of fresh produce. He opened a greengrocery at the front of the land plot granted by the state to house the family and managed to secure a livelihood and ensure their survival. Marina was a housewife, ‘a very capable woman from Smyrna, full of love and kindness for her children, her neighbours, her fellow humans’, says her grandson, Margaritis Patsiantas. Their son, Labros, also worked at the grocery store and later inherited and expanded the business, teaching its ‘secrets’ to his own son, Nikos, who dealt in produce in the city’s fruit and vegetable market. The family tradition would continue for one more generation, as Nikos’ son, Labros, the great-grandson of the refugee Nikos Tsompanopoulos, is active in the Volos fruit trade to this day.

Nikos Tsompanopoulos, Evgenia’s father, had three brothers and two sisters in Sevdikioi. One of his brothers settled in Thessaloniki in September 1922 and became a land broker, while the other, Labros, was killed in the Greco-Turkish war. Labros’ wife and their children made it to Korydallos in Piraeus as refugees. The third brother, Kostas, ended up in the U.S.A. while his two sisters, Anastasia and Marianthi, found refuge in France, first in Marseilles and then in Lyon where they settled permanently. Throughout his life, Nikos stayed in touch with his siblings via letters and phone calls. His sister Anastasia, accompanied by her Greek husband, even visited him and his family in Nea Ionia a couple of times and, at least once, so did his brother Kostas. The family also met regularly with Labros’ family who lived in Korydallos.

Evgenia Tsompanopoulou started working at the Matsangos Tobacco Industry at the age of 13. During the 1920s, the news that the factory was looking for workers had spread far and wide in Nea Ionia, leading to many refugees, men and women, getting hired. Evgenia worked at the packing department, putting cigarettes in packs by hand. ‘They were working really long hours… When the eight-hour day came into effect, they were relieved because they could finally work less’, says her son, Margaritis, quoting his mother. Margaritis remembers her as a particularly hard-working and creative person with many talents: ‘She could sew, knit, embroider… she was an amazing cook… I still remember the flavours, they are imprinted in my brain’. The flavours that Evgenia’s son remembers are the flavours of Asia Minor, proof of the fact that the food choices and habits of the refugee population, the scents and aromas of the kitchen, are permanently inscribed in the memory of second- and third-generation refugees, constituting an important cultural reference point in the formation of collective identities and representations.

In February 1941, Evgenia married Rigas Patsiantas, whom she had met at the cigarette factory where they both worked. Rigas was a native of Volos hailing from a petit-bourgeois family and his marriage to a refugee from Nea Ionia was a rare occurrence in the city in 1941. Even eighteen years after the arrival of the refugees, mixed marriages between natives and refugees were still the exception that proved the rule. The wedding took place in the groom’s family home at the centre of Volos, on the corner of Deligiorgi Street and Gazi Street. This was also the house where the couple’s first child was born and raised. Evgenia stopped working at the Matsangos Tobacco Industry when she became pregnant in 1941. At the end of the year, she gave birth to her first child, Filitsa, and 11 years later to her second, Margaritis. The gap between the two children can be explained by the adverse sociopolitical conditions of the 1940s, caused by the German occupation and the civil war that followed. Rigas was the secretary of the National Workers’ Liberation Front (EEAM) in the Matsangos Tobacco Industry, a member of the local National Liberation Front (EAM) committee, a member of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and was particularly active in the resistance movement during the German occupation.

Being politically active was inherently dangerous at the time, since it wasn’t only the occupiers, but also their native collaborators, the members of the National Agricultural Association of Anticommunist Action (EASAD), who were spying on people for signs of disobedience. Margaritis Patsiantas notes that, during the occupation, ‘almost all the employees’ of the Matsangos factory were members of the National Liberation Front. Even though she was not as active as her husband, Evgenia also took part in the political processes and resistance operations that were brewing all over the city. After the occupation, during the country’s ‘White Terror’ period, members of the resistance and the work movement were persecuted and murdered by local paramilitary groups. To avoid persecution, Rigas was forced to leave the city for months and go into hiding. In September 1946, he joined the mountain insurgency and became a soldier in the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). He stayed in the mountains until January 1950 when he was arrested along with other comrades and fellow fighters. He stood trial, was jailed in the Volos prison for a while, then was court-martialed and acquitted thanks to the reconciliation measures of the Plastiras government. He returned to his family and his job in the factory in 1951. He became head of the commercial department and, in 1964, was promoted to director of the factory when it was acquired by the Hellenic Industrial Development Bank.

Going back to Evgenia’s refugee family tree, Margaritis informs us that Evgenia’s mother, Marina Baxevanoglou, had a sister, Maria, who came to Athens with her husband and her son, Grigoris, after the Asia Minor Catastrophe and settled in the area of Ymittos. Marina stayed in touch with her sister and her family and so did their children, Evgenia and Grigoris. ‘[The refugees] were scattered, you see. They were scattered everywhere… In Thessaloniki, in Korydallos, in Ymittos, in Nea Ionia, in America, in France’, notes Margaritis Patsiantas. The example of his family confirms the fact that the Asia Minor refugees, whether by choice or by chance, were spread across various places both in Greece and abroad in search of the most favourable circumstances that would allow them to rebuild their lives.

Evgenia Tsompanopoulou died in Volos in 1999 at the age of 84. At the end of her life, she could still recall disjointed images from the pier of Smyrna, the persecution, the boat journey to Greece and the settlement in Nea Ionia; pieces of the agony and heartbreak she had to experience as a seven-year-old girl in September 1922.

Oral testimony of Margaritis Patsiantas. The interview was conducted on March 22, 2022, at the historic coffee and pastry shop ‘Minerva’ in Volos.