“The right path is an uphill one”, Nikos Kazantzakis once said.
For Nikoleta -Nicky- Panagiotidis, all her life has been an ‘uphill’ battle.
Driven by necessity, like may Greek migrants of the Post-war era, she left behind familiar places, the people she loved, and found herself on the other side of the world.
The stories of migration are numerous. Neos Kosmos is beginning a series to present the stories of our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, women who have been pillars in their families, in our community and ultimately in Australian society.
Below, is our first story, presenting the adventurous life of Nikoleta Panagiotidis.
Kyria Nikoleta came to our attention a few weeks ago, when we reported about the ceiling in her living room collapsing over her and her great-grandson. They were both saved due to her quick thinking. As she was taken to hospital, she turned to her granddaughter, Nicole, and said “It’s going to take something worse than this to kill me.”
“After such a terrifying incident, why did you say that?” we ask when we meet at her home in Ascot Vale where she has lived for fifty years.
Her eyes flash, as if her seeing her whole life pass before her, and she begins to speak.
Nikoleta was born in the village Livadaki in Arcadia, at home, and literary on the ground where they lit the fire, in April 1935. Her parents were Panagiota Michas and Georgios Roumeliotis.
Neither of her two older brothers are alive today. Ioannis born in 1925, and Argyris, in 1929.
“During the Occupation we faced very hard times. We survived mostly on lupine. The plant was boiled and put in sacks to soak in the river for 8-10 days. Once dried in the sun, it was grinded into flour.”
When the Civil War broke out Ioannis, the eldest brother, wanted to join the police to escape hunger and poverty.
“He left home at midnight with another villager. After training in Lamia, he returned a year later to visit.”
Despite her father’s pleas for him to stay, her brother left again to fight the rebels in Vamvakou in Laconia.
Only a few days later when the village was celebrating the feast of St Nicholas (Vounenos), Nikoleta was sent to church, to offer an oblation (tama) for the protection of her brother.
“My cousins were inside the church when I got there, and I overheard them talk about my brother’s death… I ran back home, took off my festive red dress and put on an old one, but didn’t say anything.”
Soon relatives and villagers came to the house to announce the sad news.
Kyria Nikoleta is in tears as she remembers her parents, anxiously searching for the place where their child was buried, so they could bring him back home and mourn him, but it was not possible to locate his body.
It was 56 years later, that she finally discovered where he lay.
“On January 7, 2004, I received a call from my nephews that my brother, Argyris, had suffered a stroke.”
“I got on a plane the very next day… He died in my arms 1-1.5 months later.”
As she sat next to her dying brother, her nephew Giorgos told her that travelling from Tripoli to Sparta he saw a marble memorial with 29 names. Ioannis’s name was there too.
“It weighs heavy on my soul… I don’t know if I have enough money to exhume his remains, to test for his DNA. It’s tragic. I cry every day for my brother. That he didn’t get to live.”
Her father, passed away a few years after Ioannis, in July 1957. “Our family was never the same after the loss of my brother. It was as if my dad had given up too… ” she said.
“Before my father died he called me to him. ‘My dear Nicky, I didn’t have time to arrange your marriage. Now that I’m going to die, be good’, he told me at noon and in the evening, he was gone.”
Three years later she was still wearing black. “I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. At home I helped with the housework and also in the fields… But it was time I got married.”
It was during the feast of Prophet Elias, July 20, that Nikoleta first saw her future husband.
“Some young people from Athens were dancing outside the church… with the man I was matched to marry leading the dance. He lived in Athens, but he was from my sister-in-law’s village.”
The courtship lasted a week, to save the expense of the groom travelling back and forth.
A few hours before the wedding, despite not wanting a dowry at first, her father-in-law demanded 60,000 drachmas. “We didn’t have a penny… ‘Let’s go’ he told the groom and started to leave.”
The groom also got on the horse and Nikoleta thought he had left her too. “I took off my wedding dress, and was ready to set it on fire…
But the groom returned with the best man… and we were wed.”
It was summer and very hot, when the newly-weds settled in Athens.
“We lived in Kolonaki, 57 Marasli Street, near the Evangelismos Hospital. The city was developing rapidly. My husband worked in a restaurant in Klathmonos Square and on the weekends in Drosia. When I fell pregnant with Anastasia we moved to Psiri and later to Bournazi in Peristeri, where we lived in two different homes.”
Only a month after they had moved out of the first house in Peristeri, there was a terrible flood -probably the deadly flood of November 6, 1961- which killed their landlady.
Their daughter, Anastasia, was born that same year in June. Not yet 40-days-old she fell ill and nearly died.
“She needed surgery but they wouldn’t do it.” It took Panagioti’s boss to intervene for the operation to take place.
One day, in 1962, sitting outside her house in Bournazi she learned of a couple who found work in Germany.
They decided to apply and a few weeks later, they were set to leave for Germany. But they couldn’t take their daughter, who was left at the village with her brother.
To reach Germany, they took a boat from Piraeus to Patras. From there they travelled north to Igoumenitsa, then to Corfu and from there to Italy. They arrived in Brindisi to songs of Kazantzidis. They took a train to Munich, from where they were escorted to the factory in Zezelhast, near Hanover. Next door to the factory was a restaurant.
“Everyone there was Greek, but only men. It was a foundry. The women were in other factories. I was the only wife there and I worked in the restaurant, cooking for 40-50 people every day.”
In the meantime the kafeneio in her village acquired a telephone, and they would call daily to hear news of their child.
Her husband went back to get Anastasia without saying anything, and his bosses were not happy that he planned to bring back the child.
“They sent a telegram, but Panagiotis pretended he never received it. He even paid to get it sent back.”
They were due to travel back when a huge earthquake hit Skopje, and Nikoleta heard that the railway station΄s ceiling collapsed on a train killing some people.
Luckily for them, they were delayed, and had missed that train.
When father and daughter arrived in Germany, the family was asked to move into a hotel.
“We refused. Eventually they found a German couple who wanted to adopt a child. Ellie and Kuhti. We were clear that we just wanted them to watch our little one and pay them for it.” But the couple wanted to keep Anastasia.”They wanted my husband to sign some papers.”
Their second child, George, was born in 1965 in Bad Harzburg, and by this time, her brother, Argyris, was also in Germany.
They returned to Greece for six month and though they planned to go back it didn’t eventuate. They considered moving to Canada, but the immigration officer advised them against this due to the cold. “If you want to go somewhere, go to Australia…”.
Everything was arranged through the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM/ΔΕΜΕ), and in October 1967 they left Piraeus aboard the Patris.
On board, there were activities for children where they could leave them for a few hours.
“When we went to pick up Anastasia she wasn’t there. I thought she fell off the boat, that we lost her. Panagiotis and I spent five hours looking for her. We fought… We went to the captain. He put out an announcement. Anastasia had followed another child into their cabin. The child’s mother did not realise this until she heard the announcement. They sent Anastasia out of the cabin, and she was found wandering.”
From the sturdy houses in Germany, they arrived in Port Melbourne, 40 days later, where they were met with homes of metal sheets.
“We were shocked… We arrived at night, and they took us straight to the train headed for Bonegila.”
“During the day it was close to 40 degrees, but at night it was very cold. We wanted to go to Melbourne. My husband had cousins there.
“After 11 days we were sent to Maribyrnong. ‘Go find your cousins,’ I told Panagiotis. He had the address. He walked, took the tram and found a German who offered him a lift to his cousins in Hawthorn…”
“We stayed at their house, and paid them rent. Panagiotis was making $36 a week, working alongside his cousin, at the Vulcan factory, making heaters, in Dandenong.”
In the new year of 1968, Nikoleta also started work, at a dry cleaner’s. She had to give this up to remove a kidney stone. “The next time I worked, I picked up the sewing machine, making corsets in Hawthorn, for $24 a week.”
Within 11 months of arriving in Australia they bought a house in Flemington with a deposit of $500 which they paid off by giving the owners $15 a week. After another kidney operation in 1971, the couple bought a shop advertised in Neos Kosmos, a cafe/restaurant in Moonee Pods. “But we were robbed 6-7 times, and decided to sell.”
In 1974 they bought the house in Ascot Vale where she still lives today. “It was also through Neos Kosmos that we found it for $28,000, and a short time later, we bought another house in Footscray.”
Vassilis, the youngest was born in 1976 and eight years later, the couple parted ways, though to this day are on good terms.
“After the divorce I also sewed at home. I had loans to pay and food to put on the table,” Nikoleta said.
“I went to church every Sunday, I’ve always had religion in my life.”
It was 19 years later, in 1986, that she returned to Greece for the first time after emigrating to Australia. Her mother was ill. She flew with Olympic with her youngest son Vassilis.
“When I was a little girl, in our village, we saw the planes fly overhead and they looked like little crosses…”
She couldn’t have imagined then, that her life would take her across the world on ships, trains and planes.
Though she has had her fair share of difficulties, kyria Nikoleta confesses that despite everything, she is happy.
“God put me through many trials, but he also gave me my health, and the strength to overcome them. As they used to say: ‘Move, so I can shake you!’ (Σείσου να σε σείσω) I succeeded and I am satisfied with my life.”
*If you wish to publish your own migration/life story, (with emphasis on the role of mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers who helped -and continue to help- their families), you may email editor@neoskosmos.com.au