It’s a bizarre twist of fate.
I have arrived in Greece exactly 70 years to the week when my parents set foot for the first time in Australia back in June 1953 as immigrants.
For decades my parents had kept an old brown battered school-case on top of a wardrobe.
that was stuffed with papers they had accumulated mainly during the 1950’s when they first arrived in Australia as immigrants from Greece. To me the case contained their dreams, those fulfilled and others not.
Seeming my mum died at the end of last year I thought it was time to do a general clean up and open that bag for the first time without one of them being alive. A fine film of dust had settled on the top of it as it sprayed onto the floor as I opened it.
Inside were various documents including a pile of letters scrunched up into a ball type shape written by relatives from the USA to my parents in the 1950’s.
As I continued taking out and sorting papers from the bag I found two certificates that had been given to each of my parents for crossing the equator on board the ship The Seven Seas as it sailed to take them to what they thought would be their temporary home in Australia.
My parents on that ship were heading for a new and unknown future as newly-weds having married on April 30 in Greece.
Their plan was to arrive and work in Australia for two years and return to their village of birth outside the town of Patra. My newly-wed parents and 2 families were the first from their village to immigrate to Australia.
They were peasants and I say this in a respectful manner as they were all agricultural workers.
Greece in 1953 was still in ruins economically and politically having been involved in a long Civil war that had ended just over 3 years earlier. Dad had been in the army while he’s eldest brother was on the other side as a communist guerrilla fighter.
I still don’t know the exact reason why my dad made the decision to immigrate to Australia.
As I carefully unfolded papers that probably hadn’t been touched for years I found discharge cards from two migrant camps, dad’s BHP group certificates from 1953/54 onwards plus his union card from the Federated Ironworkers’ Association of Australia dated 14/9/53.
But the real treasure in that suitcase was something I never knew existed. Stuck to the bottom of the case was a cardboard folder that if you shook the bag upside down it wouldn’t fall out as it was fitted in snugly and tight. It contained all the documentation my parents were required to complete in Greece so as to get approval to immigrate here including a description of them and stating what type of work my dad could do which noted he “can grow tobacco, cotton wheat and slaughter small animals….”
However there was one piece of paper at A4 size letter from the ‘Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration’ written in Greek that I found extraordinary due to it’s contents and was obviously given to those who had been approved to immigrate.
I have now shown this to numerous other Greek immigrants and no one had ever seen it before and every one of them became emotional on reading it. Although it’s an official document it’s hard to believe something like this could ever be written today and handed to an intending migrant.
It begins by stating and this is my rough English translation of it:
“Bon Voyage”.
‘Dear Friend’ and talks about my parents starting a new life full of hope and ‘we know with a heavy heart you are leaving your relatives, friends and the sun of your homeland. Poverty is pushing you down the road of a foreign country’.
It also warns “you have to know that at the beginning you will meet difficulties along your path. Every beginning is difficult but for you it will be more difficult because you are going to a country with a different language and different customs. Along that new road you are not alone.”
It gives further advice but ends by stating “Good luck and may God be with you”.
The contents of the letter drips with empathy and emotion for the intended recipient and sounds it was written by a wordsmith to touch one’s inner soul and to inspire the immigrant who it was given to. Somehow I doubt my parents paid much attention to the contents and probably thought of it as just another official document to be attached with the rest of their papers.
But it is obvious that letter could never be written today with such honesty and in a personable manner.
This suitcase is the most valuable item my parents could have left their children.