From his house in Noosa, Queensland, David Caratzas begins to explain to me his transformation from being an Australian man named Peter Newman to becoming a 57-year-old Greek Australian – David Caratzas.
“I can make a great moussaka,” he tells Neos Kosmos with a smile in his voice, “I eat olives straight from the jar now, and I have a bottle of ouzo right next to me.”
Tales of adoption aren’t uncommon. But this story is surreal. From an early age, David felt things didn’t quite fit, things weren’t right. Small clues like not having the same musical capabilities as his adopted father made him feel inferior. How were the same genes not passed on to him, he thought, as he struggled with the guitar at the age of 12 – whereas his adoptive father came from a long line of musicians, and could pick up any instrument and play any tune.
The stand out clue for him, however, has always been why was he born in Mildura. David lived in the middle-class suburb of Box Hill, where his adoptive parents had lived all their life, even ten years before David was born. Yet each and every time David asked his adoptive father why he was born in the rural town, he would always avoid the subject.
When the time had come to turn to a family friend for answers, David was 54. He had just separated from his wife – they are back together now – and resigned from a managerial position in the city to spend more time with his family. He asked her one simple question: “how come I was born in Mildura?”
“Because you were adopted,” was her response. She was under the impression David knew, as it was common knowledge in his extended family that both he and his sister were adopted.
“I felt lost,” says David of the bombshell that had just landed in his life.
“You have an idea of who you are and why you are who you are, and why you are like the way you are – then all of a sudden this happens, and you don’t understand yourself at all.”
He needed to find out where he came from. He was compelled to find the truth. The first point of contact was with an organisation known as Jigsaw, who assist adoptees in discovering information about their origin and provide a link to contact their biological parents. After two months, he received a copy of his birth certificate and adoption papers. He had no contact details for his parents and didn’t know if they were in fact still alive, or if he had any siblings. He had no information apart from his mother’s name – Patricia Mary Caratzas.
“I thought, that’s not an Anglo surname…” And just like that, David realised he was Greek.
Having expertise in project management, David began searching for his family. He started with the obvious White Pages and found only five people in Australia with the surname; they all denied any link to his mother. He went to Facebook and befriended a man living in Australia with the surname Caratzas. After telling him his story, David discovered he was speaking with his cousin – his mother’s brother’s son. Sadly, the siblings hadn’t spoken in 20 years, but he did give him an indication on where to look. He said his father believed David’s mother married and lived in Broken Hill. Armed with his mother’s married name of Cox, David took to the phone book again in search of relatives in Broken Hill.
“My wife made the phone call that changed my life,” he explains. “She introduced herself and told the woman who answered the phone my story. ‘It’s David, isn’t it?’ the woman said. She was my sister.”
His sister Rhonda – as well as his other sister and brother – knew exactly who David was. For every year, they – along with their mother – would celebrate his birthday in secret.
It was the 1950s. Patricia was an unmarried 20-year-old woman working as a domestic servant to Robert Cox – the man she fell pregnant to. He denied paternity, she had the baby and after three months, she had no choice but to give up her first-born son for adoption. Devastated, she tried to get her son back but to no avail. She eventually married Robert Cox, and had three other children – David’s siblings.
“My mother – to her dying day – would always say, ‘David will come through the door one day’… but I was too late; I never quite made it in time,” David says, choking up. Sadly, his mother had passed away three years before David found out the truth.
Becoming Greek came easy to David; he embraced his new culture with gusto. Eating the food, learning the language, reading as much on Greek history as he could, preparing himself for the day – the day he arrived home.
“When I landed in Greece, there was an incredible feeling of being at home,” he says unbelievably yet completely understandably. As someone of Greek background who has grown up Greek in the diaspora, the intense feeling of belonging, the affinity you have for the country of your forefathers, can be understood wholeheartedly. But to feel that innate connection to the land of his mother, that kinship, after only being Greek for 14 months is overwhelming. The old adage ‘blood is thicker than water’ couldn’t be more true.
But the unusual and strange – almost unbelievable – happenings were to occur in the mother country. Prior to leaving for Greece, David had made contact with Phillip Lee, who lived in a village close to his mother’s village of Krieza in Evia.
On the day he arrived in his mother’s village, he visited a kafenio. He had with him a letter in Greek explaining his story, and his search for his mother’s family. The scene was set with men around tables playing tavli; he approached one man and said, in his broken and lack of Greek language, “Caratzas”.
The man grabbed his forearm and took him across the road. Unbeknownst to David, the kafenio he visited was right opposite his mother’s fathers home; the family home. The home is now occupied by his grandfather’s brother’s daughter, but this is where his mother was definitely looking out for her David. His family live in Athens ten months a year, so to happen to find them there on that day was a sign. Lee – who he originally contacted in the village close by – not only caught wind that there was an Australian in Krieza, but put two and two together and realised it was David. But, again, in another twist of fate, Lee is an interpreter. For four hours, he sat with David and translated for both families in what was to be a reunion nearly 60 years in the making. The next day, David was invited back to the family home – there were nearly 40 relatives all waiting to meet their long-lost family member from Australia.
Stories about his grandfather Ionnis were flying in abundance.
“He was a ladies’ man,” says David, “and every time the women of the village spoke of him, they would giggle and say, ‘Caratzas is strong man,’ and flex their biceps.” David then revealed the tattoo he had recently gotten. The name Caratzas written in Greek. A mark of his identity etched on his body forever; now he was a Greek man inside and out.
And his passing on his culture to his children and grandchildren. His son, who accompanied him to Greece last year, says he “looks like a Spartan”, and he ensures his grandchildren study Greek history.
“I had been very heavily involved [in] studying Greek history, and I am [taking] pains to make [sure] my grandchildren know about their heritage. I always tell them that they should be very, very grateful to be Greek, about all the things that Greeks accomplished; and they should be proud of their connection to the Greek culture.”
And as for the name, is the transformation to his new identity as David Caratzas complete?
“It gets a bit confusing,” confesses David. His wife still calls him Peter, but his sister, Rhonda – who still lives in Broken Hill, and who he’s become quite close to – calls him David, as do his other brother and sister. But when I asked him who he is, who he identifies with – David or Peter – there’s a long pause down the phone line.
“…I came into this world as David,” he starts pensively, “and I am David now.
“I was Peter in the middle, but I will always, always be David.”