A strong Australian Hellenic presence was felt at the second ‘Children and War’ International Conference, held last week at the University of Salzburg in Austria, with Melbourne University professor Joy Damousi and UTS lecturer Dr Panayiotis Diamadis adding uniquely Australian Hellenic perspectives with their presentations.
Professor Damousi’s paper, titled The Greek civil war and child migration to Australia, focused on the reunification of children abducted from their extended families during the Hellenic Civil War (1946-49) with their parents in Australia.
“I argue that at this time when international laws were not mandatory in regulating child welfare, it often took localised efforts of non-government bodies in specific locations to agitate for the reunification of children with their parents,” Professor Damousi said in her presentation.
She added that individuals and organisations in Europe and Australia “defied the division and hostilities promoted by the Cold War politics of the day to promote a global community united by humanitarian efforts and transnational exchange”.
Dr Diamadis’ paper, titled Save the Children: The origins of international humanitarian relief efforts, was an examination of the forces that drove the formation of the world’s first international humanitarian relief agencies, the techniques they pioneered during, and subsequent to, the genocides, as well as the impact of these efforts on ‘modern’ humanitarian relief work.
“With initiatives such as ‘Golden Rule Sunday’ and ‘Bundle Day’ and the support of Hollywood child star Jackie Coogan, the Save The Children fund and the Near East Relief were highly successful in securing desperately needed emergency supplies for the survivors of the Armenian, Hellenic and Assyrian genocides,” Dr Diamadis said.
The international multidisciplinary conference was organised by the University of Salzburg and the University of Wolverhampton, in association with the United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.
The three-day event attracted 138 presentations from across the world, including a panel on the Hellenic Genocide (1914-24) and the Hellenic Civil War.
“It is very important that Hellenic research is promoted beyond Hellenic Studies conferences such as the recent one at Flinders University in Adelaide,” Dr Diamadis stated.
“As Hellenists, we need to be illustrating our work in diverse arenas,” he said.