‘I accept citizenship with humility’

“You did it, you earned it, you merit it,” Belgian classical student and linguist Gonda Van Steen said astatine the swearing-in ceremonial of 111 radical who acquired Greek citizenship, connected May 4. Standing successful the league country of the Old Parliament successful downtown Athens, she praised their efforts, the agelong and hard roadworthy they had to travel to get retired of “a comparative invisibility” and determination “to last organization recognition.” She stressed that they present person “every close to belong.”



“It doesn’t mean that you hide your roots,” the Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature, astatine King’s College London pointed out. “You retrieve them adjacent though they are very acold away, but you person besides enactment down roots successful this country.” Her ain – honorary – naturalization had preceded the ceremony.



The fruits of her research

Van Steen did not expect this infinitesimal to come, adjacent though she has dedicated her world vocation and technological work to Greek studies. Nor was this her extremity when she began her meticulous research, years ago, connected the astir 4,000 children sent from Greece to childless couples successful the United States during the Cold War, successful a wide adoption program, often done opaque and inadequate procedures. In caller years, she and different chap “travelers” person systematically pushed to flooded bureaucratic obstacles and rationalize the process of regaining citizenship for the so-called “lost children.”



“I ever felt Greek, but it was ne'er official,” she tells Kathimerini. “I truly wanted to connection my help, to speak the language, to teach, arsenic I person done each my life. I consciousness arrogant to present beryllium a portion of Greece. I judge citizenship with humility, due to the fact that there are so galore others who merit it. They person worked, lived, fixed commencement and raised their children here.”



She remembers being 11 years aged when she archetypal started learning past Greek astatine her Catholic schoolhouse successful Belgium. She loved the language. This was followed by classical studies astatine university, her doctorate astatine Princeton, her thesis connected the reception of past play successful modern Greece. When we conscionable her, she has a small Greek emblem pinned to her jacket, a souvenir she received astatine the caller swearing-in ceremony.



The crushed for her to start her probe into the “lost children” of the Cold War was due to the fact that of an email from a young antheral successful the United States successful 2013. He told her that his parent and aunt had been adopted from Greece successful 1955 and helium was asking for her assistance to reunite the family. He didn’t cognize much; his mother’s relationship of her past was fragmentary. She had lone revealed to him the sanction of her biologic father: Elias Argyriadis, a subordinate of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), executed successful 1952, the aforesaid time arsenic Greek absorption person and KKE cadre Nikos Beloyannis.



“These children were orphans, orphaned by the state,” says Van Steen. “Their parent then committed termination successful beforehand of her eldest daughter. The girls were not fixed to the communist family, they were enactment successful 1 of the orphanages and adopted by a wealthy Greek-American mates successful Massachusetts.” After that, they did not talk astir the past. The prevailing cognition was that soundlessness besides heals trauma. “I bash not judge that,” the classical student says. “It was not lone a household and idiosyncratic trauma. It was besides a nationalist trauma. Collective. [It was] a wholly governmental adoption.”



Van Steen expected to find galore different akin cases when she began her research. She recovered that the wave of wide adoptions lasted astir 25 years, peaking betwixt 1956 and 1962, and continuing astatine a reduced gait aft 1970. She noticed, however, that the bulk of cases did not interest the orphans of the Greek Civil War, but unmarried mothers. They were the illegitimate children of Greece. In blimpish postwar Greek society, the deficiency of a supportive framework, the unit and the stigma of having a kid retired of wedlock forced galore young mothers to travel this path. The stories she uncovered besides showed the disadvantaged presumption successful which Greek women were.



In Gonda van Steen’s archives there are documents of dozens of children from postwar Greece who were adopted by families successful the United States.
[Enri Canaj]

The trauma



At the time, there was a cognition that wide adoptions gave these children, arsenic well arsenic their biologic mothers, a caller life. However, Van Steen recovered done her probe that, successful summation to the children, the mothers besides carried the trauma of separation each their lives. They perpetually wondered what had go of their children, whether they had ended up successful a bully family, whether they had done the close thing. Some carried it within them arsenic a large concealed that they could not stock adjacent with their aboriginal husbands, while others ne'er joined and ne'er had children again. “One happening I regret is that this large probe came a spot precocious and I did not conscionable galore mothers,” says Van Steen.



For much than a decade, the classical student has been helping adopted children who are trying to observe their roots. She has accompanied them to Greek registry offices, translated their documents, and fixed them proposal astatine various stages of their idiosyncratic search. Over the years, the assemblage of adoptees has grown. “It fills maine with adjacent greater restitution that present everyone is helping each other. There is solidarity,” she says. “They person acquired a batch of cognition and they stock it easy and generously.”



For some of the children, this effort to rekindle household past and the achy memories that their past whitethorn fell emerged arsenic a necessity astatine an older age, when they had their ain children. Their extremity now, she tells Kathimerini, is to “find bid successful their souls.”



Various obstacles, chiefly bureaucratic, anagrams and misspellings successful documents, arsenic well arsenic the deficiency of commencement certificates, made it hard for some of those adoptees to regain Greek citizenship. Finally, successful April 2025, a ministerial determination defined successful item the procedures for registering successful the civilian registry for those who had been calved successful Greece and adopted by families overseas successful the years up to 1976. Of the 4,000 who had been sent to the US during the Cold War, it is estimated that 1,500 are live today, and astir 50 person already regained citizenship pursuing the caller regulation.



“These are radical who person achieved a batch successful their lives, person made careers, and person built their families. Some are well-off, but they felt something was amiss, arsenic they had started successful Greece and there was nary way back,” Van Steen says. “The anticipation of present getting their Greek citizenship backmost fills them [with joy]. Because this was their past wish. It erases the wound of abandonment.”



But what has this multiyear effort offered her? “It fills maine with joyousness that for the archetypal clip successful my life, my technological work has a nonstop impact,” she says. “I tin truly alteration something. To bring an reply to a parent who has wondered for a beingness what happened to her child. To marque contact, to bring a photo. That fills maine with joy.”



Hugs and pride



Symbolically, her ain naturalization took spot successful the aforesaid bureau that she had visited galore times successful the past arsenic portion of the run for the ineligible and motivation rehabilitation of adopted children. Present astatine the ceremonial was Mary Cardaras, the laminitis and manager of The Demos Center of The American College of Greece, who had projected that the Belgian Hellenist beryllium awarded this honor. Also contiguous astatine the naturalization ceremonial were Nasos Balerbas, secretary-general of the Interior Ministry; Dimitris Karnavos, secretary-general of Citizenship; and the Governor of the Bank of Greece, Yiannis Stournaras, who had supported the application.



Van Steen’s speech that followed the naturalization ceremonial earlier the caller Greek citizens lasted nary much than six minutes. The assemblage included radical from Egypt, Albania, Pakistan and different countries. “I felt a small strange due to the fact that they had acquired citizenship done exams, with a batch of effort, while it was bestowed to maine arsenic an honor, adjacent though I besides did my bit. I said that they merit galore congratulations for persisting, for uncovering a solution, for having built their lives here,” she says.

“The astir moving infinitesimal was when a woman took the naturalization insubstantial and a small kid successful the assemblage shouted, ‘Well done, mom.’ It was so bully to spot the hugs, the relief, the pride.”

Van Steen urges everyone to stop by and watch an oath-taking ceremonial of caller citizens. The process is unfastened to the public, aft all. “It reminds us however important it is to person a citizenship, to beryllium to a state officially. To person each the advantages, but besides the responsibilities.”