The internal postwar migration of Panagiotis Chamourikos, son of Asia Minor refugees

Panagiotis Chamourikos was born in Chania in 1937. His parents were refugees from Asia Minor who had resettled in an exchangeable Ottoman estate, known locally as ‘metochi’, when they gave birth to their son. Panagiotis’ father was killed by a grenade during the occupation when Panagiotis was still young, which made life even more difficult for his family. Ever since childhood, Panagiotis had issues with one of his legs which precluded him from physical labour. He recalls wandering around the area where they lived with a group of children looking for food, even if it was just a piece of bread.

From a young age, Panagiotis had a talent for sewing. In the evenings, when the women gathered in the courtyard of the metochi estate to sew or knit, he remembers himself counting the stitches. ‘She was doing an embroidery. “Mrs. Thodorakaina, this is not straight”, I told her. “You will end up where you started. Start from one end, slowly, one by one, and you will end up here. You need three stitches…”’. Impeded by his health issue and frustrated with life on the metochi, Panagiotis was looking for a way out of poverty. So he started going to tailor shops to learn the trade and hopefully escape his circumstances.

By the time he was 15, he had already become disappointed with his prospects at the tailor shops of Chania. At the beginning of the 1950s, he looked for a way to leave for Athens and he succeeded. An aunt who was working as a servant put him up for a few months. He looked for apprenticeship positions at tailor shops even though they paid virtually nothing. He found one and rented a tin hut: ‘I rented one of those… what’s their name… it was made of tin sheets all around and on top, didn’t even have a floor… just a single bed. I rented it for cheap because I had no money […] Then, I couldn’t take it anymore and me and two more guys rented a house in Psyrri […] It had an old wooden floor… I look down one day and I see a whole army parading! It was bugs!’. Panagiotis ended up moving in the space under his boss’s work bench, which he viewed as an improvement over his previous lodgings.

Throughout his stay in Athens he worked at the same workshop where he started out, under the tutelage of Mr. Tasos, his boss. ‘I honestly didn’t care about the money, I wanted to learn, I was eager to learn. I told him all this and he checked me out and thought, “Well, if he doesn’t want money…”. You see, the other apprentices always had one eye on the clock. They would say, “Hey, boss, one more minute and then I’m gone”, while I stayed overtime, I wouldn’t leave. […] I was there for three years. I was so passionate about the work that one day I said, “Mr. Tasos, I have something to say, but please don’t take it the wrong way”. He said, “You can tell me anything, Panagiotis, don’t be shy”. So I said, “This trial garment you’re making will never balance, you need to do the opposite of what you’re doing.” He said, “Tell me more, go on!”. So I said, “We need to unpick the side seams”. […] And that’s how he knew that I was very perceptive. Anyway, a year later, I was done and I left for Chania. I was 21-22. I found a guy here and we opened a business together’.

Panagiotis Chamourikos became a famous tailor in Chania and stayed in the business all the way until retirement. He escaped from the dark and smelly house where he grew up, a house granted to his parents by the state. He built his own house in another area of Chania, Chalepa, in an effort to provide a life for his children far from where he had had to start his.