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11/1/1999
THE ARMENIANS OF GREECE: REMEMBERING THE PAST AND PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
Greece
by David Zenian

Krikor Khatchadourian finds it difficult to hold back his tears when he speaks about his father's ordeal as an Armenian refugee in Greece and the turbulent years that followed the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1915.

He remembers his father coming home one night saying he had found his sister after more than 11 years of separation, and how she died only a few years later from tuberculosis.

Khatchadourian, a successful industrialist, born in Greece and now 71 years old and semi-retired, has devoted much of his life to community service, helping the poor, guiding the youth and repeating the story of his aunt at every opportunity.

"As Armenians we have to remember our past and energize our youth. We have to strengthen our community and our faith," he said in a recent interview at his downtown Athens factory looking at his son who has taken over the family's textile business.

"How did it happen. How did your father find his sister," the son asks, as if he has not heard the story many times before.

Khatchadourian, wiping his tears and forcing a smile, begins, "My father was 30 years old and his sister 17 when the remaining Armenian population in Turkey was forced out of their homes and deported. The family was separated in the confusion, and my father and grandmother arrived in Greece by boat in the early 1920's-I think it was 1922."

Penniless, and without a profession, his father married the daughter of an Armenian family who helped him get a job as a bus conductor, working on a route in suburban Athens.

"It has been a long time, but as a young boy I can still remember my grandmother crying every night, wondering where her daughter was. She never got over it. She always hoped her daughter was alive somewhere," Khatchadourian said.

The family was separated when Armenians fled Turkey, along with the Greeks living in the Izmir region, to escape persecution. They transported on board Greek freighters to not only the port of Piraeus near Athens, but also to a number of small Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

"My father came on one of those boats, and his sister on another. They lost each other in the confusion," Khatchadourian said.

Almost 11 years later, luck brought them back together.

"It was my father's last day on the job when a woman boarded his bus. She recognized her brother, but hesitated to approach him. Maybe she was not sure," Khatchadourian said.

"The next day, she went back to the bus station to see if she could find my father again, but he was gone...lost again," he said.

Months later, however, as luck would have it the two siblings came face to face again.

"My father was now working as a butcher in an open market when a lady approached him and asked what his name was. My father could not believe his eyes. It was his long-lost sister," Khatchadourian said with tears in his eyes.

Returning home that night, he broke the news to his grieving mother.

"At first, she did not believe him, but my father explained that his sister was living in Athens and married to a Greek and already had a family of her own," he said.

A few days later, the family was united again, but the joy of the reunion was short-lived. His sister developed tuberculosis and died a few years later.

Khatchadourian's story and the ordeal of his family is not unique. Similar scenes played out over the years involved many Armenian families who had fled Turkey.

Garabed Moralian will be celebrating his 100th birthday later this year. He survived the Genocide and stayed in Istanbul, his birthplace until 1922.

"It was impossible to stay longer, there was so much persecution and fear...; I had to leave," he said.

He settled in the northeastern Greek city of Xánthi. There were only four Armenian families there when he arrived.

"Xánthi was a very small town, but there were other Armenians in the region. They were well established because most had lived there for generations since the region was once part of the Ottoman Empire," he said in an interview.

Now partially paralyzed from the waist down, but still very alert and lucid, Moralian saw Xánthi grow and the community prosper. But he also saw the exodus.

"Up until 1946, we had more than 700 Armenian families living here. We had our school, and other community structures. Now only 22 Armenian families have remained. They left for Armenia and Latin America," he said.

Those who stayed have integrated into the Greek society, but, Moralian says, never assimilated "unlike some of the new Armenian immigrants we have seen in recent years."

"I get very upset when I see the new immigrants isolating themselves from other Armenians. I get even more upset when I see their children speak Greek at home. My generation and that of our children have kept their identity, the newcomers are losing theirs," he said.

Among the first generation Greek-Armenians are Hagop Jelalian, an antique and rug dealer, Hampig Maroukian, a professor of geomorphology at Athens University, Hagop Fesjian, a prominent lawyer, Tzeni (Jenni) Gumushian, a community activist, Haygouhi Portukalian, a prominent foreign language teacher , and many others who have made an impact on the Armenian community life in recent years..

Jelalian, now in his early 60's, has devoted his adult life to the collection of Armenian-related books, artifacts, and memorabilia not only from Greece but also from countries across Europe and the Middle East.

"For me, collecting anything Armenian is my contribution to keeping our heritage and history alive for future generations," Jelalian said,

He has already sent a vast collection of items to Armenia and has begun work on establishing a museum to house his remaining collection which includes hundreds of items relating to the Armenian presence in the Mediterranean region, especially Turkey.

Today, Jelalian's collection includes old photos, postcards, historical documents, poetry and songs written about Armenians by Greek authors and musicians, carpets, and other memorabilia which he hopes to display in a small museum in the center of Athens.

Miles away from Athens, a similar endeavor is in progress in Komotini, in northeastern Greece, by Tzeni Gumushian who heads the Armenian Cultural Association.

Born in 1960, Mrs. Gumushian, and her husband Nishan, a successful dentist, is the driving force behind the Association which she helped establish with a group of like-minded people in 1980 to promote Armenian culture and heritage.

"It was a meeting of minds between intellectuals, but we have evolved into a very active group ...; a diverse group of people whose ages range from anywhere between 25 and 85," she said.

"We have no political affiliations and our main objective is to introduce our Armenian heritage to the Greek population at large by organizing dozens of lectures, art shows, musical festivals, and publishing books and other materials," she said.

The Association has a vast collection of photos relating to Armenian life in Greece spanning a period of almost 100 years, which are on permanent display in its downtown Komotini center.

But there is more than art and culture.

In the legal profession, Hagop Fesjian was the first Armenian lawyer to graduate from the University of Athens and has practiced law since 1962. Since then, only a handful of other Armenians have entered the legal profession, mainly because of the circumstances that prevented them from getting an education.

"We have to remember one thing," Fesjian explains. "Up until the late 1960's, the vast majority of Armenians were not even Greek citizens. They all had refugee status, and nothing more than travel documents."

This, Fesjian said, meant that the children of the Armenian refugees who settled in Greece in the early 1920's did not have the opportunity-and even the right-to enter institutions of higher learning.

"And this, in return, meant that all of them had to go into private business. Many became small shop owners, artisans, mechanics, and other such professions. The situation only began changing after the early 1970's when the Armenians became Greek citizens.

"The picture is very different now. The young generation is educated. But still, it needs a long time for the picture to change. Even now, there are no more than 10 medical doctors in the Armenian community, just a handful of lawyers, engineers, and academic people," he said.

Fesjian's nephew, Stepan who is 32 years old, was recently appointed as a judge in a key district of Athens. He was one of 50 new judges who were chosen from a list of 500 who applied for the position.

In academia, at least in the Greek higher education system, the Armenian presence is also negligible.

Hampig Maroukian, who is in his 40's, was born in Greece and received his early education in a Greek school in Thessaloniki before heading to AGBU's Melkonian Institution in Cyprus and then to Haigazian College and the American University in Beirut where he received his BA in Geography.

He completed his Master's degree in Louisiana in 1975, returned to Greece and began teaching at Athens University.

Over the years he was promoted to Lecturer, then Assistant Professor and in 1999 he became an Associate Professor - the only Armenian to hold such a high position in Greece.

"My parents were not educated, but believed in giving me something which they did not have. Most other Armenian parents took their children into their family business, and that's why we don't see too many professionals today," he said.

Like Fesjian, he too is convinced that the tide is slowly shifting away from the family business to a number of different professions.

"But while the trend is there, it is still very slow. I can say that not more than 10 Armenian students enter the State University every year .And that's not much for a community of about 12,000," he said.
One of the early exceptions in academia has been Ms. Haigouhi Portukalian, the present chairwoman of the Armenian General Benevolent Union chapter in Thessaloniki.

Ms. Portukalian, who speaks 10 languages, including French, English, German, Italian, Turkish and Hebrew along with her native Armenian and Greek, is the founder of the only foreign language school in Thessaloniki which she opened in 1979 and handed over to the local municipality in 1987 as a gift.

The daughter of an Armenian immigrant who made a fortune manufacturing shoe moldings, she studied in Italy and took a special interest in foreign languages which she continued to study over the years.

Now in her 60's, Ms. Portukalian is still involved in her late father's business but devotes more time to community service.

"It was not easy for my generation. I was lucky to have an opportunity to study and get an education, and now it's time for me to help others," she said.

As the chairwoman of the AGBU, Ms. Portukalian has helped organize a dance group composed of the children of the new Armenian immigrants who have settled in northern Greece over the past ten years.

"These children need an Armenian club where they can get together and stay within the Armenian society. Otherwise, they will go outside the Armenian circles and assimilate," she said.

"I did not have that problem while growing up, but these young kids will get lost if we don't pay attention and try to keep them involved. I am all for integration, but total assimilation is something else," she said.

The Portukalian Language Center is still open, and more than 600 students are enrolled. The street where the Center is located was named after her family and Ms. Portukalian still looks at the institution as "my baby."

Her new project is to expand the AGBU Center in Thessaloniki, adding more activities to attract the youth.

"They are our future, and if we are to wipe out the trauma of the early refugee mentality, we need to energize our young generation in order to maintain a healthy and vibrant community in the years to come," Ms. Portukalian said.

The Armenian community has come a long way since Krikor Khatchadourian's father set foot on Greek soil in the early 1920's. The old generation is gone and old wounds have healed.

The community has matured and settled down in a country it calls home. The old tragic days of the refugee era are fading and a new generation of Armenians is looking ahead.

In Athens, three Armenian day schools have close to 300 students. There are Armenian churches and centers in almost every major city where Armenians live, along with two newspapers which keep the community abreast with developments not only in Greece, but also Armenia and the Diaspora at large.

"The new generation is lucky," Khatchadourian says. "I hope they will not experience our pain and suffering.

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