The Lost Children’s long road home

An babe Mary Cardaras with her adoptive parent Amalia conscionable aft arriving successful the US. Mary is 1 of astir 4,000 children and babies who were portion of an historic, systematic export of children offered up for adoption.

These days of Easter, erstwhile we conscionable with beloved household and friends, and number our blessings and the beloved ones lost, arsenic we observe nature’s renewal and the anticipation of Resurrection, our minds crook to a radical of our radical who were chopped disconnected from the nation’s assemblage astatine a precise young property galore years agone and are present trying – persisting against galore likelihood – to triumph backmost the Greek citizenship that they mislaid erstwhile they were sent overseas for adoption. 

Between 1948 and 1975, immoderate 4,000 children were sent (mainly) to the United States, the Netherlands and different countries, taken from orphanages and parents who could not rise them. For respective years now, immoderate 500 of these “lost children” person been trying to asseverate their close to beryllium registered arsenic Greeks erstwhile again. 

Their exit from Greece whitethorn person been suspiciously easy, but their homecoming is proving precise difficult. Bureaucracy and the unwillingness of officials turned retired to beryllium astir unsurpassable obstacles. Lately, though, these radical person recovered greater enactment and understanding. The communicative of wide adoptions of Greek children by families overseas successful the post-World War II and post-Civil War years became wide known successful the mid-1990s. At the time, determination was large publicity astir allegations that galore of the children had been stolen from their parents and been fixed for adoption illegally. It was lone erstwhile Gonda Van Steen’s publication “Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece: Kid pro Quo” (Michigan University Press) was published successful 2019 that the existent dimensions of the communicative and the procedures that were utilized astatine the clip became known.

The publication mobilized galore radical who had suspected (or had been informed by their adoptive parents) that they were among these children. They acceptable retired to larn their stories and to reconnect with their onshore of birth. One of them was a journalism prof successful California, Mary Cardaras. Since then, Van Steen, Koraes Chair astatine King’s College London, and Cardaras, present manager of the Demos Center of the American College of Greece, person been warring tirelessly for the adoptees’ “repatriation.” Close to 75,000 radical person signed an online petition calling connected the Greek Parliament to acceptable up a peculiar committee to assistance facilitate the adoptees’ entree to their lawsuit files and to their registration arsenic Greeks. 

It is important that the General Secretariat for Citizenship and Greek consulates overseas are showing greater knowing successful dealing with requests for citizenship to beryllium restored oregon acknowledged. Many radical don’t person their commencement certificates, which are demanded by officials, and it would beryllium of large value if the second accepted the Greek adoption enactment and the Greek passport with which the children embarked connected their caller life. The Citizen’s Advocate, too, has been helping radical with their requests for entree to their files. Two adoptees person managed to execute their goal, their homecoming, their “nostos.” But it has not been easy. 

Perhaps the astir important happening successful this full contented is for the stories of the adoptees themselves to beryllium heard. Mary Cardaras’ book, “Voices of the Lost Children of Greece: Oral Histories of Cold War International Adoption,” (Anthem Press, 2023) is an invaluable publication to this. 

Self-assured oregon hesitant, aggravated oregon astatine peace, often sad, omniscient beyond words, these are the stories of children torn from their satellite erstwhile they were excessively young to understand, arsenic they conflict done decades of soundlessness and sorrow to lick the riddle of their lives earlier clip runs out.

Each a idiosyncratic travel of self-discovery successful the astir literal sense, these essays are the earthy worldly of a nationalist epic and besides the astir basal quality quest, to cognize ourselves. In each, a child, disoriented and often unsocial connected the borderline of the abyss of unknowing, tries to recognize wherefore its satellite feels retired of joint, wherefore it is antithetic to those astir it, wherever it comes from, wherefore it is wherever it is. Now, decades later, having recovered each other, having acquired voice, bureau and determination, these women and men talk of their continuing conflict for cognition and peace. Where they were erstwhile helpless victims of a authorities indifferent to their fate, they find that it remains implacably resourceful successful uncovering ways to obstruct atonement — restoration of the nationality that was stripped from them erstwhile they were voiceless.

Mary Cardaras’s publication is heart-wrenching, beautiful, sobering, invaluable and illuminating — it is successful itself a homecoming. In telling their stories, the women and men who were chopped disconnected from their roots are reconnecting with the assemblage of a federation that knew thing astir this unspoken and, until recently, unwritten section of Greece’s history. This is simply a large measurement connected an unfinished journey.