Theofilos Chardaloupas, Greek immigrant in Munich, 1965-1975

Theofilos Chardaloupas was born in Platanos Almyrou in the prefecture of Magnisia in 1939. His father was a railway worker and his mother a housewife. They had eight children, two of which, a set of twins, died when they were still infants. The first six children were raised in Platanos, but the father’s job demanded that the family move to a nearby village, Aerino, at the beginning of the 1940s. They stayed in Aerino for a couple of years and then settled permanently in Volos. The family was living in Volos during the civil war when the father was fired from the railway for political reasons. He went on to do mostly farm work, but also any job that could secure a livelihood for his large family.

When they arrived in the city, they looked for affordable housing in the refugee and working class neighbourhoods where other internal migrants had also settled. They first lived in the area of Koufovouno, in Nea Ionia, later moved to the working class neighbourhood of Nea Dimitriada in the eastern part of the city, and then on to the ‘shantytown’, the refugee settlement of Iolkos. They finally settled in Kallithea, an area in the northern part of the city next to the Iolkos settlement. They lived in a small, plain house, consisting of a single room and a kitchen, leased to them by the father’s former foreman in the railway in exchange for looking after the land and the house.

That’s where Theofilos spent his childhood and teenage years. He finished elementary school, but the family was in dire straits and continuing his education proved difficult. His older sister, Charikleia, who was working at the Matsangos Tobacco Industry at the time, encouraged him to sit the entrance exams for the Commercial School that was operating in Volos in the 1950s, providing him with all the necessary financial support, but Theofilos did not succeed. At the age of eleven years old, he started working as a waiter, a job that he would do until he was 19 when he was drafted in the army. After he did his service, he returned to Volos, but did not wish to work as a waiter anymore, as he confided in his sister.

 ‘I told my sister I don’t want to be a waiter anymore. I had had no childhood, no adolescence, because I had been working from 10 in the morning until 12 at night! I had no personal life!’

In 1962, with the financial support of his sister, he opened a small glassware shop near the Matsangos factory where she worked. He managed to keep it operational for only two years, since he didn’t have the funds necessary to meet the shop’s expenses and financial demands while also fending off the competition. He doesn’t mention it explicitly, but perhaps that was when he first got the idea to migrate to Germany and follow in the footsteps of his older brother and his wife.

 ‘My older brother, Christos, had migrated to Germany in 1963. They met a guy from Volos there and thought he’d make a good match for my sister [the one working at the Matsangos factory]. He came to Greece, she saw him, and because she didn’t want to be a spinster, she married him. So, she too left for Germany. My brother and my sister-in-law, my sister and my brother-in-law were now all in Germany. So, then, they invited me too! It was my brother who invited me to work at a factory he knew, where the money was good’.

Having secured an invitation to work, which was a mandatory condition for migration to Germany, and with all the necessary documents from the Prefecture in hand, Theofilos found himself waiting for the train at the railway station of Volos in August 1965, holding a small suitcase filled with the bare necessities. He was ready to start his migration journey to Munich:

 ‘The train was crowded and there was no bed left to lie down in, which was a problem because it was a long journey… We left Volos at 10 and we were travelling all day and all night… we reached the Munich train station in the morning. I found my family waiting for me, my brother, my sister-in-law…’

He still clearly remembers the moment he had to say farewell to the people he was leaving behind. Deeply moved and in tears, Theofilos relives the moment as he narrates it:

 ‘I was very sad, because we were all crying. I was well-loved, you know… by my parents and especially by my mother… there were a lot of people there… I remember my mother saying, “I will never see you again, my son”, and this and that, you know how it goes… very intense emotions… I remember my mother…’

At the Munich station he was met by his siblings and they led him to his living quarters. It was accommodation provided by the factory to its migrant workers and consisted of separate dormitories made up of twelve beds each. Theofilos shared a space with ten more Greeks from Karditsa and one from Katerini. He stayed there for a year, the full length of the contract he had signed, working in heavy industry at a train and boat engine manufacturer.

‘I had a lot of trouble because I didn’t speak the language and it was difficult to communicate, but fortunately there were Greek interpreters, so we could get by until we learned the job…’

Unsatisfied with his wages, he left this job and worked at a beer factory owned by one of the largest breweries in Munich. He only stayed there for two months and his next job was in the knitwear factory where his sister was working after initially working for Siemens. She was the one who informed Theofilos about the better wages and work conditions in that factory and recommended him to the hiring manager. Theofilos worked there for a total of eight years, the majority of his time in Germany.

‘There were 550 women and 50 men working at the factory… I worked at the cutting department. They would knit four pieces at the knitting department, in the machines, then there were women who would put the pieces together and we cut them in different styles, a round neck, an open neck, and so on… After a week, they told me I would do “Akkord”. “Akkord” was piece work which meant I was getting paid by the item produced… I made more money that way. There were 20 women and 2 men in my department and the foreman was German… Out of about 600 people in the factory, 50 were Greek, 5 or 6 were Serbs, 2 were Turks, a married couple, and 4 were Poles… the rest were German… At first, they [the German workers] liked us, but then they wanted to slack off to chat and gossip; they weren’t as hard-working as we were. They would get paid six, seven, eight marks per hour and be satisfied, while we worked hard enough to make 12 or 15 marks. They soured on us, some of them turning downright hostile because we worked “Akkord”.’

‘Akkord, Akkord, money, money, what are you going to do with all this money?’, Theofilos says, mimicking the derogatory and accusatory tone of his German co-workers.

During his stay in Germany from 1965 to 1975, Theofilos stayed in touch with his parents in Greece through letters and phone calls. His mother even managed to visit once and stay with Theofilos and his brother for a long time. He recalls his life outside the factory, having fun on the weekends, the only free time he had, flirting with young Greek immigrants but also German co-workers, meeting Greek friends and enjoying family feasts, travelling with his brothers to neighbouring countries. He also remembers the friends he made in Munich, immigrants from various parts of Greece, but also from other countries, and the few of these friendships he managed to maintain after his return to Greece.

 ‘Every Sunday the cinema had a Greek film on. All the Greeks gathered there… It was near the houses of the Siemens factory girls [immigrant workers], it was like a regular bride market… every Sunday we would be there and then go for coffee afterwards. Our only other chance for fun was Sunday night, we would go to music halls and dance… all other nights we were home by 6, because we had to get up at 5 in the morning. That was our entertainment. A movie on Sunday and going out on Saturday…’

Theofilos returned to Greece in 1975, once again following his siblings, but this time in the opposite direction. He returned to Volos where he still lives today. He once more utilised networks built around familial and friendly bonds to start a new professional life which proved particularly successful. Supported by his sister again, he bought a small framing workshop. His dexterity and the experience he acquired working in the knitting factory in Munich came in handy and contributed to the success of his new business venture, in conjunction with the support of the acquaintances, family and friends he had reconnected with in Volos. He appears nostalgic of his years in Germany. Memory seems to be working as a filter that dulls and represses negative experiences, while preserving the vivid colours of the most positive ones.

Oral interview of Theofilos Chardaloupas to Thanasis Betas, conducted on 18/7/2022.