3/12/2016 Refugee crisis: how Greeks opened their hearts to strangers | World news | The Guardian
Refugee crisis: how Greeks opened their
hearts to strangers
Despite six years of economic hardship, ordinary people have shown astonishing generosity in
helping the 42,000 migrants stranded in their country
Helena Smith in Idomeni
Saturday 12 March 2016 22.20 GMT
Compassion, kindness, generosity of spirit: all three apply to Panayiota Drougas and her
husband, Dimitris, as they pace the platform of the train station at Idomeni.
There is no reason in the world that they should be here. Idomeni, at the best of times, is a
godforsaken place: bleak, barren and infused with a melancholy typical of remote border
posts. It is a starkness made more haunting still by the thousands of refugees who,
following the railway tracks that have led them to this northern corner of Greece, now live
in a squalid camp that has sprung up around the Macedonian frontier – which is, of course,
why the couple are here.
“We saw their little faces on television, all these children, so hungry, so tired, and just
wanted to help,” says Panayiota, a retired headteacher, handing out the 150 chocolate-
filled croissants the pair have brought with them. “They are refugees – they don’t want to
be here,” she sighs, eyes streaming in the cold. “We see it as our duty to show them that
someone cares. We’re going to spread the word, tell former colleagues and friends to do the
same.”
They are not alone. The conviction that compelled the couple to purchase the croissants,
get into their car and make the drive from Thessaloniki is one that many appear to share.
Hardship, Greeks have discovered, comes in different shades. For six years they may have
been in the eye of the great eurozone storm, buffeted by the depredations of austerity, the
byproduct of their worst crisis in modern times.
But the sight of thousands of refugees stranded on their shores, often with little more than
the clothes on their backs, has now taken them somewhere else. As the numbers have
grown so, too, have the acts of altruism – some recorded, some never seen – nationwide.
In Idomeni, pensioners struggling to make ends meet buy two loaves of bread, one to share
with those who have descended on their tiny community; elsewhere, villagers open their
homes. On Aegean islands that have borne the brunt of the influx of refugees, shops – hard
hit by plummeting consumption – donate supplies.
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In Athens, where passenger terminals, parks and public squares have been turned into
chaotic reception centres, Greeks of all backgrounds and ages have rushed to join the relief
effort. Everywhere, NGOs speak of an explosion of giving that has taken them aback. “I
could tell you so many stories,” says Caroline Haga, a Finn seconded for the past four
months to the country, with the International Red Cross. “In Samos and Chios, recently,
every shopkeeper I met wanted to give something for the children. It’s amazing,
considering what they’ve been going through themselves. And more and more, every day,
are signing up as volunteers.”
It’s a generosity of spirit that has not been lost on recipients. With Greece’s impoverished
state structure stretched to breaking point, refugees have been dependent on the kindness
of strangers. “The Greek police are terrible,” says Amar Souadi, an Iraqi, standing on the
bluff where he has pitched his tent in the mud fields that are now home to the refugees in
Idomeni. “But the Greek people are very good,” he exclaims, breaking into a smile.
“In Kos island my wife, Selma, gave birth. They did everything for us. Look, here is my boy,
Kasum, he is 10 days old. We didn’t want to make this journey but in Baghdad I worked as a
translator for a British oil company and people saw me as a traitor. Look at my arm, look at
my stomach, look at these [gun] wounds.”
In the coming months, EU officials predict that as many as 150,000 migrants and refugees
could reach the country. By Friday, 42,000 were recorded across Greece. Any hopes of the
numbers dropping as a result of the draft deal agreed between the bloc and Turkey to stem
the tide have not been borne out.
Reaction to the flows could have gone either way; and with the closure last week of
Europe’s Balkan corridor by Macedonia and other states, it could yet change. On the back of
economic collapse, the anti-immigrant, neo-fascist Golden Dawn has emerged, and held
sway, as the third-biggest political force. The prospect of Greece becoming a permanent
base for refugees would not only place extra pressure on society, but inject it with renewed
vitality.
“Everything we are seeing has been a pleasant surprise,” says Melia Eleftheriadi, an
employee with the Athens prefecture. “The feeling, right now, is we live under the same
sun. We fall in love under the same moon. We are all human – we have to help these
people.’
From her work cabin outside the former Olympic taekwondo stadium – whose basement
storage space has been turned with record speed into an aid distribution centre –
Eleftheriadi has a bird’s-eye view of those wanting to help. Since the centre opened barely
seven days ago, a seemingly endless stream of people have made their way to its doors,
some in cars, some on foot, some old, some young, but all in common pursuit: to alleviate
the plight of refugees.
“It’s been very moving,” she adds, shaking her head almost in disbelief. “There was one
man, in his 50s, earlier this week who, not being able to drive, took a bus from Nafplion [in
the Peloponnese] just so he could drop off a box with a few things for them.”
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Stacks of shoes, sleeping bags, nappies, towels, clothes, water and food supplies are
sprawled around the basement – testament, if anything, to the purely organisational nature
of the problem now facing authorities. “Almost every Greek has a family member who has
immigrated or been a refugee,” says Eleftheriadi. “My own grandmother fled Turkey
during the Asia Minor disaster [following the first world war]. So many of us have similar
stories, which might explain why donations aren’t the problem. It’s what to do with them
all.”
Where the state has failed, volunteers and NGOs have stepped in. On the islands, in Athens
and in the innumerable shelters set up in disused army barracks, hotels, parks and public
buildings, they have come deploying crisis management skills and the enthusiasm of do-
gooders everywhere.
For people such as Nibal Shkirm, a Syrian teacher from Aleppo, who landed in Lesbos with
her four children and husband last week, the groups have been a godsend. “You see these
shoes?” she says, brandishing a pair of Timberland sneakers outside her tent on a pier in
Piraeus port. “Some good Greek gave me them. You see her shoes, and his shoes, and her
shoes? Some good Greek gave them, too. These people, they are very kind but please write
that we don’t want to stay. We want to go to Germany. Maybe you can help?”
With the EU rushing in emergency humanitarian aid in the weeks ahead, the volunteer
movement is bound to grow.
Like the crises that have overlapped in the country on the frontline of Europe’s two great
dramas, history is being played out in waves. The refugee emergency resonates because
Greeks, too, have moved to foreign lands and have also been immigrants and émigrés
forced, through self-exile, or political and economic need, to seek better lives abroad. After
the civil war’s brutal end in 1949, more than a third of the rural population emigrated to
Australia, Germany and America. Ever since, Greek blues lyricists, poets and film-makers
have been inspired by what is known as xenitia.
“This is an experience that very few other people have. It is dug into our collective
consciousness,” says Professor Constantinos Tsoukalas, Greece’s pre-eminent sociologist.
“Greeks know what it is like to lose everything: homes, friends, memories, pictures, the
memorabilia of their lives. The kindness, the compassion can’t go on for ever, of course,
but to a great degree it explains what we are seeing today.”
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Topics
Greece Europe Migration Refugees
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