PERSONAL MEMORIES OF THE CATASTROPHE
THE STORY OF JOHN DRAKOS
My name is John Drakos, or Yianni Drakakis in Greek. I am unsure of my exact date of birth because the official records were destroyed in the Catastrophe, but it was sometime between August and September 1913. My family lived in a large town called Alatsata, which is situated near the city of Smyrna on the west coast of Asia Minor. In May 1914, at the time when the First World War began, all of the Greek families living in Asia Minor were forced to pack up their belongings and leave the country as they were being persecuted by the Turks. My parents, Nicholaos and Malama, older sister Georgia (age 5 years) and I (age 9 months), sailed to the Greek Island of Chios nearby. We only stayed for a few days because it was so overcrowded with refugees from Asia Minor. We then sailed to Thesslonica in northern mainland Greece but my father decided to leave because the Germans were bombing the city from overhead flying Zeppelins. We then sailed to the city of Athens and settled in a town called Marousi. Relatives of ours were living there and helped us to settle in. We lived in Marousi for 6 years and I went to school there. My younger brother Stamati, was born in Athens in 1917.
World War 1 ended in November 1918, however, we could not return to our home in Alatsata because the war between Greece and Turkey was still going on in Asia Minor. A peace treaty was signed in 1919 and we were told that it was safe to return to our homeland. We were not able to leave immediately because my mother was expecting a baby. My younger sister Kalliope was born in January 1920. When she was 40 days old, we sailed back home. When we arrived, we found that all of the Greek properties including housed, businesses and farms had been destroyed by the Turks, and we had to start over again. My parents had to work very hard to feed their children and to rebuild our house that had been almost demolished during the 5 years that the Greeks had been in exile. I went to school in Alatsata for the next two and a half years.
The Greek army came to Asia Minor in 1921 and were fighting the Turks. Word was spreading through the town that the Greek army had been defeated and that the Turks were going to retaliate. However, we were not officially informed that we were in any danger as we had been after the first persecution in 1914. My father decided that we should leave the country so he told us to pack our belongings then he went to Agrilia and paid for a boat to take his family to Chios. We got to Agrilia and we were about to board the boat when we were stopped by some Turks. They told us that we could not leave even though we had paid for the boat. While we were there we heard the sounds of a cannon firing in the distance. The Turks ordered us back to our house. We all went to my Aunty Kalomana’s house where the men devised a plan. Anesti Roumana climbed onto the roof to look out to see where the cannon fire was coming from. He signalled that the Turks were coming. We were told to go and hide in our houses. My Aunty cut my sister’s hair and dressed her in my clothes so she would look like a boy. Soon after, the Turks broke into all of the housed demanding ‘para’ which is money. It was then decided that we leave our housed and hide in small groups in different places. We hid in the bakery and at night my father would go out looking for food and then my mother would try to cook something for us to eat with the scraps he had found. Another time we hid under some rocks that were piled up to make a fence. Some of the soldiers came over to the rocks and started to talk. They stayed there for what seemed like hours before moving away. It was so hard to keep still and quiet when our hearts were beating so fast. At one time when we were hiding in the Ayia Triada church with other refugees, my baby sister Kalliope began to cry. The Turks would have killed us all if they discovered our hiding place. My mother also knew that a fellow refugee, terrified of being found, could try to smother her baby to save the lives of the group. Her prayers were answered as my sister stopped crying.
We stayed in groups with our relatives and neighbours and sought refuge in the ruins and churches as we made our way towards the sea. One time, we hid in the caves along the water’s edge at Agrilia. Unfortunately, the Turks were informed of the hiding place and we were forced to flee. We were left destitute without a home, food or water. We could not get any drinking water from the wells because they were full to the top with dead bodies. May women were so afraid of the fates awaiting them and their children should they be captured by the Turks, that they threw their children then themselves into the wells to drown. We were living in a state of terror not knowing what fate had in store for us. We were exhausted and weak from thirst and starvation. For two long months we hid in churches and deserted houses, scavenging for food at night.
One day a battalion of Turkish troops on horseback arrived and went around the streets calling out ‘Come out Greeks! You’re leaving this place!’ They rounded us up and made everyone in the town line up in one long line. They took us to the Panayia Church. We waited in the queue for a long time and I started to get bored. The queue went for miles from the church door, past the school and down the street. I decided to go for a walk into the school to see my classroom. When I got in there, there were some Turkish soldiers having a meeting. When they saw me, one of them pulled out his sword, started yelling and chased me into the street. Fortunately for me, I was a fast runner and I was able to get back to the Greeks and hide in amongst the crowd. He walked up and down the street yelling and waving his sword before going back into the school.
The Turks were searching people for money and jewellery as they go to the door of the church. My father put his money pouch around my neck as he thought that they might not search the children. When it was our turn to go into the church, I ran ahead as the Turks were searching my father. A soldier called me and another grabbed me and slapped me hard and threw me to the floor. He put me aside until he had finished what he was doing then he ripped my shirt into two and found my father’s pouch which he tore from my neck. The Church was packed with destitute and terrified refugees. Every night the soldiers would come and look for young girls. My Aunty and Mother would hide my sister under a hessian sack which they sat on when they saw the Turks coming.
After 10 days, the Turks commanded that all the men in the church had to go outside leaving only women and children inside. My father and uncles were taken away from us. We were all cried. That was the last time I saw my father. The Turks then placed drums of petrol all around the church. We could smell it from inside, it was so strong. They locked the doors and then it was silent. A soldier on horseback unexpectedly arrived with a message from their commander. He announced that the prisoners were to be deported to Greece. We were saved from being burned alive by the grace of God!!
After two long months of terror and starvation we were ordered by the Turks to go to Tzesme which was eight miles from Alatsata. I found a donkey and put our few possessions on its back as my mother had her hands full carrying the baby. Along the way, my younger brother Stamati was lost in the crowd. My mother was frantic with fear that he would be left behind. When we arrived in Tzesme, we were rounded up into the Ayio Haralambou Church. Then we were sent to the harbour to wait for our torn to be loaded onto a ship. When we got the waterfront, we met up with my mother’s sister Kalomana and her daughter Kiriakouli. She had found my brother in the crowd and brought him to my mother. My widowed uncle was also with her and his two young daughters. When it was our turn to get into a boat, my uncle was told that no men were allowed to leave. My mother whispered to me to jump into the boat with my uncle and hide him under the blanket while she pleaded with them.
There were thousands of refugees waiting to board the shops. There were English, French, Italian, Japanese and American ships in the harbour. The ship we boarded was American. We were herded like cattle onto the shop and were each given one slice of bread and one slice of cheese. We had not eaten so much food in months. The ship took us to the island of Lesvos (Mytiline). Everyone was ordered to disembark. The island was swarming with refugees. People were dying by the hundreds from starvation and outbreaks of diseases such as Malaria and Dysentery. Every morning they would collect the dead in horse drawn carts. The government then set up army tents and provided one small meal per day.
My Aunty Kalomana, her daughter Kiriakouli and her future daughter in law Malama left Lesvos on a ship bound for Thessaloniki where they boarded a ship to Australia. Her two sons who had gone to live in Australia after the first persecution in 1914 had paid for their fares. After two weeks in Lesvos, we boarded another ship that went to the islands of Andros, Milos, Santorini and Crete, depositing a certain number of people at each island. When we arrived at the port of Heraklion in Crete, we gathered our belongings to disembark. My two young female cousins and my older sister Georgia aged 13 were the first to get off the ship. When we went to follow, we were stopped and told that no more people could get off the ship. My mother’s pleas to keep her family together were ignored. So we sailed on to the port of Piraeus near Athens where we stayed for a few days. We stayed on the wharves begging for food until a ship came in that was heading for Crete. We boarded the ship and immediately upon our arrival, they went to the police to help us find my sister and cousins. We found my sister working as a housemaid for a wealthy family. We were relieved to find that she was safe and well fed and decided that she would be better off staying where she was.
We, along with the other refugees were placed in the military barracks where we received the rations of one small meal per day. We set out to find work. Many people, including my mother got a job harvesting olives in the country. She had to walk for miles to get there, so she set out early in the morning and did not return until late at night. I found work in the city doing odd jobs for people and also looked after my younger brother and sister. After a while, the government gave us shares that we used to buy a house. We were given eight years to repay the government loan. I had to find more work to help my mother, so my younger sister was sent to the country to live with my two cousins and their father. She stayed there for two years but my mother missed her so much that she asked a neighbour who had set up a childminding business to look after her. My older sister also came to live with us after spending two years working as a live in housemaid.
Around this time, my mother’s sister, Kalomana Cholakos wrote to my mother telling her to send me to Australia to live with her. My aunt sent the money for the fares. I travelled to Athens in 1926 but it took a year before I could get a passport as all the records had been destroyed in the war. Luckily, I had an uncle living in nearby Marousi (my father’s brother Barba Kosta), and I was able to live with his family for a year. In 1926, three years after our arrival in Crete, I embarked on my long journey to Australia. I travelled on a French ship- The SS Sefe. The trip took 40 days. We went through the Suez Canal, via Aden and Colombo before arriving at Freemantle. I disembarked in Sydney on the 21st June 1926 and caught the train to Brisbane where I was greeted by my Aunty Kalomana and her children. I had just travelled half way around the world on my own at the age of 12. My relatives welcomed me into their house and my aunty treated me like her own son. She raised me and cared for me for the next 12 years of my life.
I had not wanted to leave my family in Greece, but felt that there was no choice. As the eldest son, it was my duty to do everything I could to help feed my family. It took me many years of hard work, but I finally achieved what I had set out to do when I first came to Australia- I brought the rest of my family over so we could be together again.
Submitted by Despina Drakos (John’s daughter)