International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated by AHEPA NSW INC with an event dedicated to ‘The Women of 1922’, held on Sunday 6 March.
With this year marking the centenary of the holocaust of Smyrne – the most violent phase of the Genocide of the Hellenes – honouring the heroines of the Asia Minor Catastrophe felt fitting.
Dr Panayiotis Diamadis who MC’d the event noted that the celebration was dedicated to all the women of Asia Minor, Thrace, Kappadokia and Pontos, who survived the Genocide to reunite families and rebuild households all over the world. AHEPA NSW President Vasilis Skandalakis, congratulated Chapter Antigone No. 27 on organising the celebration, wishing everyone a Happy Lent.
President of Chapter Antigone No. 27 Charoulla Themistocleous, greeted the women in the room and expressed her admiration and respect to all of them.
Melpo Kaimasidou, former President of Chapter Chiron, as a representative of the second generation of survivors, related anecdotal tales from her family’s history during the Genocide period, as well as the consequences of those tragic events.
The final speaker, President of the Pontoxeniteas Association Maria Anthony, as a third generation Greek from a family of Pontian and Thracian survivors shared the stories of her great-grandmother Maria, and her grandfather Sotiris. Mrs Anthony stressed that “all these stories – of survivors of the Genocide, of the migrants, of the Hellenes of Australia, must be recorded and passed on to the next generations”.
Young musician Kostas Papoulidis performed a modern Pontian song titled ‘Mother is like cool water’ on his lyra, a tribute to Mothers and all the women of the Genocide period.
