The Greek Centre was lit up yesterday in red to mark the remembrance of the Pontian Greek Genocide (1916-1923), one of the darkest moments in Greece’s history.
The Greek genocide, which included the Pontian genocide instigated by the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish national movement, is one of the darkest chapters in all of Greece’s long history. Those years included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, expulsions, executions, and the wholesale destruction of Eastern Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments.
“My grandma was born in Trabzon in Minor Asia, she was pushed out of her home and came to Greece in the early 19th century,” President of the GCM Bill Papastergiadis OAM, said.
“The courage, her strong ethics and her outstanding strength from within, was remarkable. My grandmother has fought and worked hard her whole life and she raised 4 children by herself in Kastoria. She witnessed the genocide and her wounds never healed. When she moved to Australia to raise me, one thing I remember vividly was that she was speaking to me in the Pontian dialect. After all these years I still remember her words,” Mr Papastergiadis said before he reiterated his grandmother’s advice.
“Bill I can’t really talk about what happened to me but let’s move forward, always move forward,” she would tell him.
“These memories followed her and the least we could do today is to remember and honour the memory of all those innocent victims who suffered and lost their lives,” stressed Mr Papastergiadis.
“Our decision today, to illuminate the Greek centre in red light is to let everyone know that our generation and the future generations will never forget.”
The red light on the Greek centre symbolizes the 350,000 fallen Pontian’s who were massacred by the Turkish army. The initiative was taken in cooperation of the Pontian Association and the GCM.