Greeks in Hungary : from the Orthodox Greek merchants to the refugees of the Greek Civil War

(cid:761) e current face of the Greek community in Hungary was undoubtedly shaped by the political refugees who arrived in Hungary due to the Greek Civil War and their descendants. However, this Greek community recognises the legacy of the Greek merchant diaspora of the 18 ᵗ h and 19 ᵗ h centuries, which played a (cid:4) decisive role in the modernisation of Hungary as its own heritage. (cid:761) erefore, I will brie ﬂ y describe what this heritage consists of and how contemporary Greeks relate to it. I will then review the history of the resettlement of Greek political refugees in Hungary, with a particular focus on Greek children who arrived in Hungary without parental care. I will present their forced departure from Greece, their arrival in Hungary, their settlement, and their integration, partly based on archival materials and mainly on life history interviews.


Greek diaspora in Hungary during the 18ᵗh and 19ᵗh centuries
It is widely recognised that when discussing Greeks in Hungary, we should think of two communities that were separated in time and have very diff erent social characteristics.e current face of the Greek community in Hungary was largely shaped by the refugees who arrived in Hungary a er the Greek Civil War and their descendants.is Greek community maintains local self--governments throughout the country, operates schools, cultural associations, and various other collective institutions, and publishes books and magazines.However, another Greek diaspora played a decisive role in Hungary during the 18ᵗh and 19ᵗh centuries, namely the orthodox Greek merchants of that period.Furthermore, we can distinguish two subgroups of this Greek merchant diaspora in Central Europe, particularly in Hungary.
e fi rst and larger group appeared in Transylvania and the eastern regions of Hungary in the 16ᵗh century, when these areas were still under Ottoman administration.ey primarily resided in the mountain settlements of Macedonia and race but expanded their activities further north following the routes of the itinerant trade.eir mass settlement in Transylvania can be traced to the beginning of the 17ᵗh century and in Hungary at the turn of the 17ᵗh and 18ᵗh centuries (cf. Figure 1).¹ey settled primarily in regions where they could rely on existing local markets, for example, in agricultural trading centres such as Nagyvárad (Oradea, now in Romania) or Kecskemét, and the wine-producing areas of Gyöngyös, Eger, Miskolc, and Tokaj.ey were also the fi rst source of the Greek merchant diaspora in Pest.² eir resettlement and the settlement of the newcomers in Pest was closely linked to the development of the second Greek merchant diaspora from the mid-18ᵗh century on, thanks to the customs privileges granted by the Treaty of Požarevac.ey were mainly engaged in wholesale activities, the framework for which was not defi ned by treaties with local authorities but by imperial conventions.At the end of the 18ᵗh century, the Greek community in Pest was still in regular contact with those who remained in the Ottoman Empire due to trade and family relations.e secret Society of Friends was also established in Pest, which was closely related to the movement of Velestinlis Rigas's followers in Vienna.
Undoubtedly, today's Greeks in Hungary are not direct descendants of this diaspora.Nevertheless, since the 1990s, today's Greeks in Hungary recognise this diaspora of Greek merchants as their ancestors.For this reason, they organised various events related to the role of the Greek Orthodox merchants of the 18ᵗh-19ᵗh century in Austria-Hungary.In 2005, for example, a conference entitled "Bridge of Chains -e role of Greek merchants in Austria-Hungary" was organised on the prominent role played by the diaspora of the Greek merchants of Vienna and Budapest in the 19ᵗh century in the development of Hungary.e choice of the conference's title was symbolic as the Hellenic banker of Vienna, Baron George Sina, played a key role in the creation of this bridge.Baron George Sina also fi nanced the construction of the Athens Observatory, which is still home to a number of research centres in Athens.³e building of the "Bridge of Chains" started in 1839, with Count István Széchenyi, a descendant of a noble family, as the originator and George Sina as the head of the project.e "Chain Bridge", the fi rst permanent bridge between Buda and Pest, contributed in a decisive way to the urban unifi cation of the two cities and eventually to the formalisation of the city as the capital of Hungary (cf. Figure 2).Over time, this bridge has undoubtedly emerged as one of the most important symbols among the monuments representing Hungary.
3 Asimakopoulou (2006).5 Kerényi (2006).6 Cf.Sasvári -Diószegi (2010), Pampas (2012). is is obviously a rich heritage that the current Greek minority in Hungary has incorporated into its ethno-cultural identity as its own tradition.However, of course, its identity is still fundamentally defi ned by the fact that it is a community that emerged a er arriving in Hungary due to the Greek Civil War.Next, I will present some characteristic details of this community.is phase of the presentation consists of three parts.First, I discuss the main facts of the arrival and reception.ese are well-known and well-researched stories in the case of all Central European countries, and I have not discovered any new facts.⁸I merely intend to present and interpret these phenomena somewhat diff erently, namely, within a preliminary -Czech-Romanian-Hungariancomparative framework.Second, I present the main facts of the reception and placement of children arriving in Hungary.Finally, based on three life story interviews, I will present some cases of the Greek children's grand journey in Eastern European societies from the initial trauma to solace.Fokas (2020).9 Tsivos (2019).10 Králová -Tsivos (eds.)(2015).the villages vacated by expelled Sudeten Germans were chosen for the resettlement of the Greeks.¹¹A similar method was also followed in Poland but not in Hungary.Germans were also expelled from Hungary but were replaced mainly by Hungarians expelled from Slovakia.

Main facts of arrival and reception of political refugees
According to Tsivos, in Czechoslovakia, a signifi cant number of 24 villages were selected and prepared for Greek refugees.However, this approach did not work, mainly because the Greek refugees could not fi nd enough job opportunities locally.As a result, the refugees began to disperse as early as the spring of 1950, fi rst to villages and small towns in the surrounding area but soon beyond the county borders.Finally, in 1952, the Communist Party of Greece took the initiative to resettle political refugees in towns where heavy industry was strong.

Summary -the case of Romania
Very early, between June and October 1949, the Romanian authorities built 32 wooden houses, each with a capacity for 120-150 people, in the village of Florica, now known as Ștefănești, located 150 km northwest of Bucharest by car.According to Apostolos Patelakis, author of a monograph on the history of Greek political refugees in Romania and himself a descendant of Florica settlers, the fi rst ship carrying refugees -the Romanian Transylvania cargo ship -sailed from Durres in Albania in August 1949 with 3,500 Greek refugees hidden on board.¹²e encounter with reality was traumatic.A Greek individual involved in the preparation of the settlement and present at the reception of the new arrivals reported that the refugees cried and wailed with despair upon seeing the barracks and mass housing that awaited them.However, step by step, the settlement improved.Between 1951 and 1953, the refugees gradually moved to newly erected three-story urban-style buildings.Despite the improvements, the authorities unexpectedly decided to dissolve the settlement.During 1953During -1954, its inhabitants were relocated to various industrial towns in Romania.It can be said that Florica (renamed Partizani a er the execution of Nikos Belogiannis) missed the opportunity to become a second Greek settlement in Central Europe a er the village of Beloiannisz in Hungary.

Housing and employment of Greek refugees in Hungary
In Hungary, Greek refugees were initially resettled in holiday homes at Lake Balaton.However, this was obviously only a temporary solution.A proposal for housing and employment for Greek refugees was discussed at the highest level by the Organising Committee of the ruling party in April 1950.¹³A strictly confi dential proposal -produced only in 11 copies -on housing and employment for Greek refugees reveals: ere are around 7,000 Greek refugees in Hungary.ey arrived in two larger groups: about 3,000 children earlier and, during 1949, about 4,000 political refugees of various ages.
e care and education of the 3,000 children who previously arrived without parents is satisfactory.Of the 4,000 or so Greek refugees who arrived in the second group, 3,400 are accommodated in various holiday homes (3,000 in holiday homes at Lake Balaton).
In addressing the theoretical aspects of the issue, the authorities decided that:

Refugees able to work should be put to work as soon as possible to earn enough to support themselves and their families.
To achieve this: Of the adults of working age, 1,500 have to be placed in industry and 900 in agriculture.

Resettlement and employment of Greek political refugees in industry
Based on the accepted proposal for a solution, the 1,500 refugees to be employed in industry (1,900 including family members) have to be housed in Budapest, in the former Tobacco Factory site, a er appropriate rebuilding (cf. Figure 4).
What was life like in the "Tobacco Factory"?Below are some related stories:¹⁴ Well, life was good, but what the living conditions were like, you can't imagine.Rooms were like a corridor, one and a half meters wide and six meters long.It used to be a long building, I don't know, three hundred meters, a tobacco factory.And that was blown up during the war, bombed, and cleaned up, and they were big workshops, divided into compartments.e fi rst apartment we got in the Tobacco factory... it was a 4 × 3-meter apartment, a 4 × 3-meter room, two beds, where I slept in one bed with my sister, and my father slept in the other bed with my mother.
One fl oor with 14 apartments all of which were one room.ere was nothing more.[...] Well, it had 8 gas stoves, a common kitchen for 14 families... Inside the apartment, there wasn't even a tap to turn on and say, "I'm going to have a glass of water".ose were times when I imagine it must have been very hard for our parents.We as children, because we grew up in that environment, we never once felt that we were deprived of anything, in the sense that we were all Greek children -all the time.It was not easy.e Greek temperament, I think, is completely diff erent... it's completely diff erent from other people's.But there in the Tobacco Factory where we were, I think it was 1,500-2,000, we don't know exactly how many people were there, how many families were there, but there we were really a small village, a small Greek village.Where we were children, we played, we lived together.But we didn't care about that, the good thing was that we had a good time, we were treated very well by the Hungarians.

Resettlement and employment of Greek political refugees in agriculture
For the housing and employment of Greek agricultural workers, the authorities opted in April 1950:

[...] the construction of a new village, about 400 village dwellings, usually built with local materials, will be needed to house all the agricultural workers (1,700 including family members). [...] e new village should be built in such a way that the refugees participate in the construction of the houses.¹⁵
In Figure 5, there is a letter from the GKP's Deputy General Secretary Ioannides, dated 3 May 1950, asking the Hungarian authorities to grant visas to comrades 15 Fokas (ed.) (2017).Petridis and Fokas, who were in Poland.Petridis was a mechanical engineer, and Fokas was an architect; so that they could participate in constructing a Greek village.e construction of the village began in May 1950 (cf. Figure 6).e fi rst inhabitants of the Greek village -as it was called then -moved in in November 1950. is village, named the village of Beloiannisz a er the execution of the communist martyr, still exists today, and Greeks, even though they are minority, still play a dominant role in the life of the village.

Reception and placement of children arriving in Hungary without parental care
It is well-known that on 4 March 1948, the so-called Radio Free Greece, then based in Belgrade, announced that due to the immediate emergency caused by bombings by the Greek Royal Air Force, the Provisional Democratic Government had called on the People's Democratic countries to take in the children from the bombed villages.In Hungary, a report dated 10 April 1948 (cf. Figure 7) revealed that the National Centre for National Relief in Budapest was informed on 3 April 1948 that it has to accommodate 2,000 Greek children.Based on this offi cial report on the arrival and resettlement of the Greek children, we learned that the authorities have decided: 1/ Upon their arrival, we will keep the children in quarantine for 10-12 days.A er disinfection, antiparasitic treatment, a fi rst clothing supply, various medical examinations and recording the children's details, we will start settling them.2/ During the 10 days of quarantine, we set up and equip institutions suitable for mass reception.
-On 7 April 1948, the fi rst train arrived with 860 children and 14 adults.
-On the morning of 9 April 1948, the second train arrived with 720 children and 18 adults.while -In the a ernoon of the same day, the third train arrived with 607 children and 5 adults.[...] Upon arrival, they received a rich soup prepared at the Jewish Hospital, and cocoa, tea, a sweet bun, and loaves of bread.e children and their Greek adult attendants were taken by Red Cross trucks in groups of about 50 to the Váci Street Disinfection Foundation, where, a er disinfection, they received new clothing.From there, they were taken by bus to accommodations in the three camps.
According to an offi cial report on 20 April 1948, the population of the various institutions was as follows:  Children are generally in good health, although there was an increased occurrence of colds in the fi rst days, with 109 children being partially hospitalised and under hospital supervision.Seven cases of typhoid fever, 4 cases of dysentery, and 7 cases of pneumonia were reported as serious illnesses, but none led to major complications.
Petros Kokkalis, the Minister of Education of the Provisional Democratic Government, proposed the establishment of Greek schools for the 2,684 Greek children living in Hungary as early as the summer of 1949.According to the proposal, these schools would teach the children's native languages, Greek or Slavo--Macedonian, Greek history, geography, and political knowledge.ese subjects would be taught by Greek teachers.In primary school, Hungarian language was also taught along with arithmetic, science, and technical knowledge.¹⁶e children were placed in fi ve orphanages or children's homes at Dég, Balatonalmádi, Fehérvárcsurgó, Balatonkenese, and Hőgyész.According to an 16 Bontila (2000).
offi cial report, the total number of children in 1951 was 1,750, with the following distribution: Dég 320 Balatonalmádi 412 Fehérvárcsurgó 376 Balatonkenese 379 Hőgyész 321 In Czechoslovakia, the children were placed in around fi y orphanages/children's homes.Romania, a er Yugoslavia, took the largest number of children in twelve children's homes.¹⁷

Many refugees, many stories
Where did the children who arrived in Hungary come from, why did they come, and how did they get there?e general pattern of the stories is known, so in the following, I will present some micro-historical variations based on some characteristic details quoted from three life-story interviews.I intend to present a coherent story of " e Great Journey" of the Greek children, from the initial trauma of uprooting to the consolation of integration into Hungarian society.
In the following paragraphs, these witnesses speak for themselves.
e war has arrived -Early memories?In the forties, I was already four -testifi ed our fi rst interviewee, who was born in 1936 in the Epirian village Distrato (Δίστρατο) -and have very vivid memories of the Italian occupation.
-e men were collected one by one and taken to the school, where they were beaten and tortured to hand over their weapons.e image is vivid in my mind: my mother and my father's sister bringing home my father, wrapped in a blanket, who had been beaten so badly that he was unable to walk.-Chionato had very few inhabitants.In fact, when the Greeks of Asia Minor were expelled from Turkey, many of them were settled here and they were given land.
-As the village was only a few kilometres from the Grammos Mountains, the main theatre of fi ghting, there were several larger and smaller clashes nearby.e locals had learned that taping newspaper to windowpanes prevents them from shattering from the resonance of the bombs.
-However, as the fi ghting was getting closer, my mother, [...] and my aunt decided to move [...] further north, away from the fi ghting.
-We wandered around a lot, but only at night.By the end, we were hiding in the caves at the eastern foot of Grammos.
-We learned, for example, to distinguish airplanes by their sound, by which we knew which was a reconnaissance plane, the "Galatas" (" e milkman") as we called it, that came early in the morning, like the milkman, or the bombers that followed.
-We lived in a huge cave, big enough to accommodate two villagers.ere were about 600-700 of us in all.We lived there and, before that, we wandered around a lot, but only at night.
-[...] my father [...] went to the partisans -highlighted a key element of his life story the third witness from the village Le i (Λεύκη Καστοριάς).
-We had constant house searches; they were always looking for my father.Once they even tried to burn down our house.ey had my mother bring in straw, which they put under the wooden stairs and lit it.My grandmother tried to put out the fi re.en they hit my grandmother with a gun.-As a nine-year-old, of course I was scared.Later, two armed government soldiers took me behind a neighbour's house and asked: -Where is your father?-He went up the mountain!-Where did he go?-I don't know!-en an elderly man came from the neighbourhood [...].What are you doing with this child, aren't you ashamed of yourselves?[...] So, they took me by the ear to the end of the village.To the chapel of St. Demeter.And there again: -Where's your father?Where did he go?-I said, -that way!And I pointed at the mountain.-en they fi red a shot into the air and le me there.I ran back to the village, back to our house and saw everyone crying.But they weren't crying because they had been beaten, but because they thought I had been killed, that I was fi nished.e departure -My father's message arrived a er these antecedents.[...] going to Yugoslavia or Albania until the end of the civil war.When the war is over, we'll return anyway.So, my mother agreed.
According to our fi rst interviewee: -[...] the news came -that the village would be bombed in three days.
-My mother was in a dilemma whether or not to send the children when the news came that the Albanians were taking in the children for three months.Now what?She can't ask my father, he was imprisoned but she, my aunt and grandmother fi nally decided to send three of us.My two sisters and me, but they didn't dare to send my four-year-old sister.
-Soon a messenger came -stated the second interviewee -bringing the news that we had to leave quickly because it had been discovered -the huge cave, where they lived -and there would be bombing.It was quite a mess.We le at dawn and were well away when the reconnaissance plane, the Galatas, came and then the bombers appeared.Nothing was le intact.
-Suddenly, my father -he had already gone to the partisans -appeared and said that we had to cross the border now.e order came and we crossed at Erseka into Albania.
-We all spoke Albanian in the family.My maternal grandfather was from Korça in Albania.Many people came from Albania, anyway, serving in the houses.People were moving in and out, in fact, with Albania we were already a European Union of sorts.
-Slavomacedonian was spoken in the family, and Greek, too.e language of everyday communication was primarily Greek.
-e next day, trucks came for the children, and my sister and I were taken to Elbasan. at was when I was separated from my parents.I couldn't even say goodbye to my father because he was on some sort of mission.
-About 75 children were gathered in the village -said the third witnesswith three caretakers, we were divided into groups of 25 and set off for Dendrochori.at's about eight kilometres away, and we did it all on foot.-I was nine, there were some sixteen-year-olds, but there were also three--year-olds, and there was one half a year old.He was carried by the older girls [...].
-We got there, waited for someone to come, and escort us on.So, we always had a partisan with us who knew the way.He took us all the way to Gavros.
at was also about 5-6 km away.More children joined us in Gavros, so we were a group of 98 with 4 escorts.-Sometimes planes came, so we had to go in the evening.A er Gavros, we went to Andartiko, which is near the Prespa Lakes on the Yugoslavian now North Macedonian border.From Andartiko we climbed over a mountain in the evening.
-In Yugoslavia (North Macedonia) we were placed with families.I remember they were very poor.ey had almost nothing.
-We could communicate because the majority of our village was Slavic--speaking.In our family, three languages were spoken, Slavic and Greek, in addition to Vlach.
-We stayed in this village for about a week.[...] we boarded a freight train [...] my sister said they were very smelly; they must have been used to transport animals.en we arrived in Belgrade.
-My mother accompanied us all the way to the Albanian border -reported the fi rst witness -for fi ve days we walked from village to village.Of course, the partisans arranged for us to sleep somewhere.ere were places where we could cross one by one because they were already shooting from the front.Usually, we walked during the day, but there were times when we had to go at night.Because the partisans knew what to keep an eye on.
-My mother came with us all the way to the border.Here is the last village.Farewell to my mother.I can still see her.It stays with me as she walks away down the hillside through a jungle path.See you in three months!And she's gone.She's gone for me.I had no idea it was the last time we'd see her.

At this point I interrupt the witness' recollection and let her former teacher take over:
-A small girl with blue-green eyes and blonde hair.She stole my heart when we fi rst met.Back then, like her peers, she barely spoke Hungarian.[...] -One day she received a letter.She opened the envelope with feverish haste.I can still see it today.She was wearing a light blue dress with a tiny white pattern and a red ribbon in her hair.With one movement, she plucked the red ribbon from her hair and burst into heart-breaking tears.I should have known it was news of death.It was not uncommon in our home.

And at this point, I return to the interviewee's narrative:
-When my mom returned home, she and several other women brought clothes and food for the partisans.She was wounded in a bombing raid and died two months later in Central Hospital.
-We in Albania knew nothing about this.My sisters were informed sooner here in Budapest.-But I was in the children's home in Csurgo.I found out about it only in '51.Imagine, until then I wrote to my parents a letter every month.
-I lost my father in '49 and my mother in '48.I thought they were alive, but no letters.Well, we knew there would be no letters.But we wrote them.
-I learned of their deaths when my aunt, who was in Poland in '51, wrote a letter to my sisters consoling them over my father's death.One day, this letter came to me in Csurgo.How did it come to me when it was addressed to them?! -e next day I received another letter from Czechoslovakia.My father's sister lived there.She was consoling my sisters for my mother's death.
-So, I found out, with a diff erence of one day, that I had lost my father and my mother.
-at defi ned my life.
-In Albania, we were taken straight to Korça.-Ninety children with three adults.My older sister, then 15, was also in charge of a group of children.ere were about thirty children.
-In Korça, we were distributed to various families.[...] We stayed with the family for fi een days.
-en we were transferred to Vlora.We stayed there for nine months.Here they could only teach the fi rst and second graders.In our village, I was already a third grader, but here I said I was a second grader.Just so I could go to school.I think I said that I was born in 1937, but when I went back home 30 years later, I found out that I was born in '36.

e arrival
As the third witness attested: -We were then divided up according to which train we would be on.Some 4-5 children from our village were sent to Romania, the rest, 74 of us, were sent to Hungary.When we got on the train, we fell asleep immediately.We were so tired.
-We arrived in Hungary in daytime, it was 7 April.e Eastern Railway Station.ey were waiting for us there.[...] Since we arrived without papers they gave us a number, and I was number 1966.
-ey took us to Széchenyi Baths in trucks painted white.I guess they were Red Cross vehicles.ere, they disinfected us, gave us a bath, we stank.-[...] I remember we walked like sheep.We watched "Mom" to see where she was going.She kept herding hard us to go here, go there.[...] So, we went.ey took us to the Mátyás barracks and later to the Andrassy barracks.We were in big rooms together.e brothers slept together, next to each other.On beds next to each other, but if there weren't enough beds, we slept in a bed together.
-In the yard of the Mátyás barracks there was a big square with big wooden huts where we played a lot.We felt like we had arrived.Yes.We're no longer on the march.No, no, we're here now.Well, we'll live here then.
-So, it took a month to get from our village to Budapest.Which is a long trip, and we were already homesick.Especially my little sister.She cried a lot: "When are we going home?"We told her that when this whole war is over, we would go back.
e journey of the fi rst witness was a little diff erent: -In Albania, we were taken straight to Korça.[...] we were distributed to various families.[...] We stayed there for fi een days.
-en we were transferred to Vlora.We stayed there for nine months.-I remember, -underlined our third witness -we were standing by the fence, begging.To get money.So, we could go back to Greece.It must have been one of the older kids' ideas.
-We talked about how it would be good to escape and go back.Although we started out with the idea that we should wait until the partisans win.
-But we got to know the Hungarian cuisine.We couldn't really eat it.e soups, the "bean soup" for example, we didn't know any other soups in the village, or I don't remember.e vegetable soup they gave us, who could eat that?We didn't want to eat it.
-So, we'd rather go home.
-I didn't eat the poppy seed pasta for a long time because I said it was minced, sugared ants, and later we found out that someone had washed the poppy seeds off .e cottage cheese pasta was the only thing we really wanted.
And then a contrary opinion of our fi rst interviewee: -What remains of Fehérvárcsurgó in my memory?-e poppy seed pasta was the most amazing.If we bet on anything, it was the poppy seed pasta.Everybody made sure that they went for the end of the bread because it was a bigger piece.It's 49!By then according to the third witness: -We were starting to feel the absence of parents.Especially the younger ones.
-We were always busy, they were taking us somewhere, watching shows.I remember the Lilliput Children's eatre, and they took us to the zoo, which was great fun for the kids.
-at we wouldn't be going back for a long time was something we could see, we could feel.When someone escaped, they brought him back.
-We were also each other's support.[...] We, who were brought up in Dég, to this day we are Dég's people, like the people of Fehérvárcsurgó, or the people of Kenese, and still stick together.It's an interesting thing, like a family, it's formed.
-I was skipping classes, taking two classes a year to catch up.I loved studying because it was drilled into us that we were studying to build a new Greece.ey told us from the beginning that we were studying so that when we went back to Greece, we could build it.e Hungarian and Greek teachers both said this.
-We entered high school in 1952 -reported the fi rst witness -27 of us were the fi rst to fi nish elementary school, and all of us went on to higher education.We lived on-campus college and attended the Anna Koltói high school.
-is was the fi rst place where we were mainly with Hungarians.ere were girls from the countryside, and there were also girls in state care.I still keep in touch with some of them.
-At that time, they could sense that Hungarian was not my mother tongue.Maybe it still can be felt.ey could also feel it at university, but my classmates helped me.
-e children's home at Dég, therefore, has a double image -underlined the third interviewee -on the one hand, I've had a very long, life-long education from my teachers.Many friendships were formed then.
-At the same time, there was this element of homesickness.We already understood that we were not here temporarily and knew that it would be a long stay.
-When it really sank in that I couldn't go back, it really hurt.[...] I couldn't share this with anyone else because the others had the same problem.
-It made it diffi cult to talk to them about it.e common fate just didn't make it any easier.I actually escaped from this fate later on.For example, in the relationship with the girls.
-Everyday life, clearly, was what brought us together -remembered the fi rst witness -that we had the same problems.We sang together, danced together, studied together.We did everything together.ere was a choir that Aunt Irene organised, and then we went from village to village.To perform.I was not in the choir, I recited.I loved to recite.
-I was admitted to the Mechanical Engineering Technical School in Székesfehérvár -reported the third interviewee.
-ere was another Greek boy in the dormitory, the others were Hungarian.e interesting thing is that they loved us.We were very good athletes, so we were involved in all kinds of sports.
-e language diffi culties didn't come up here.ey just always used to make fun of my name, because when we went into class, the teacher would say: - But this life is another story.It is not possible to analyse it in detail here.I will just share two assessments from the witnesses themselves: -at in my life -summarised the fi rst interviewee -the lack of love was the most important thing.For example, when I got my university degree, my biggest pain was that my parents couldn't be there.
-Do you understand? at was my biggest sorrow, because it was such a big thing that, well, I became a doctor.And I couldn't tell them, I couldn't tell them. is thing, the loss of my parents completely defi ned my mood, everything.When I got the news that they had died, I didn't sing for a year.ey almost tried to fail me at school in singing.
-With the death of my parents, it was like they were saying to me: well, here's the life you have ahead of you.e responsibility is yours.
-It was a hard life!-underlined the third witness -Obviously, not an easy life.I always felt like a refugee.Alone, or an orphan, regardless of the fact that I knew I had parents and everything.
-Now, when I meet the pensioners, everyone makes the distinction that I'm Greek.at distinction is actually an honour.
-People talk to me diff erently, I feel.
-My environment makes me feel a bit diff erent.Not in a negative way, I don't feel negative, but it this diff erentiation was more manifest than in case of Swabian or something else.ey don't distinguish so much, they are more accepted, they are Hungarian.
-It's like they always ask, -How can you live with a name like that? -I say: Very well!

To conclude and summarise
It is obvious that the current Greek minority in Hungary has a rich heritage, going back into the distant historical past.However, its identity is still fundamentally defi ned by the fact that it is a community that emerged a er arriving in Hungary due to the Greek Civil War. is is why I presented some characteristic details of this community.First, I discussed the main facts of their arrival and reception.Finally, based on three life story interviews, I presented some case

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Greek communities (see the dots) in the Kingdom of Hungary during the 17ᵗh and 18ᵗh centuries.© Nikos Fokas

Figure 7
Figure 7. e header of the offi cial report.© National Archives of Hungary, MOL_FOND, 10/4/1948 [...] -Well, a er nine months [...] back in the cars and then on the train.[...] Cross ing Yugoslavia we came to Hungary, arriving at the Eastern Railway Station.First, they took us to the disinfection centre.And then to the Mátyás barracks.[...] Because it was Christmas, a nurse went around with sweets and gave to everyone.By the time it was over, the fi rst ones went up to the second fl oor to queue up there.-You mustn't!-I remember the cleaning lady, loudly, almost singing, always saying that in the hallway.When she was mopping.It was the fi rst Hungarian sentence we learned.It's not allowed!e doctor assigned to receive the children at the Mátyás barracks in April 1948 wrote in his diary:In April 1948, I could see the eff ects of the traumas of the experience and memory of the war, the sudden and forced separation from family and home on the children.[...] When I entered the courtyard of the barracks and looked around at all the children bustling about, I must admit that I was startled at fi rst.A frightening image of deprivation, neglect, and misery appeared before me, seeing the many children in ragged clothes.ey chased each other, crawled, howled around me and fi lled the whole yard.

2.1. Summary -the case of Czechoslovakia
e recent monograph by Konstantinos Tsivos⁹ makes it clear that the reception of Greek political refugees in Czechoslovakia had some peculiarities.e ere the Tobacco Factory was a closed quarter, a closed quarter, a big gate, I think it closed at 8 o'clock, nobody could get in there.Of course.I think it was 8 o'clock, or 10 o'clock, I think it was 8 o'clock, at night.ey closed the gate, nobody could get in, it was a Greek quarter.It was very diffi cult for the Hungarians to get in.So, we only had contact with Greeks.
is Tobacco Factory is a symbol for me.[...] e truth is that we were in a foreign place.[...] It was not easy for us to grow up there and live in Hungary.
e news spread from village to village that they were coming.ewomenburied what they wanted to save.e Germans dug everything up.e villagers fl ed up the hill.A few old people, unable to walk, perished in the village.-From up there, we watched, the adults in despair, the children in great amazement, as the whole village burned.Out of two hundred houses, barely twenty remained intact.-encame the great famine.We had already eaten every green thing there was -even the clover.I still remember it vividly: my mother would mix a little fl our with it; her tears were falling as she watched my sister and me chipping at fl our stains.
e German occupation -e next major image to leave its mark is the German occupation.I was already 7 years old.--eSecondWorldWar was barely over, and before we could even sigh with relief, new horrors began.-Myfatherhelped the partisans in his own way.[...] One of his colleagues betrayed him in the village.[...] ey sent people to his workplace to kill my father.[...] ey changed their minds and took him to Janina instead.So, they brought him fi rst to our village.atwas in '47.He was kept in the cellar of a house in the village with several other prisoners for 9 days.My mother and I went every day and took water.[...] One day I didn't recognise my father.He looked out of the basement with a swollen, blue head.During the night, he was tortured by the cruellest interrogator, who beat the prisoners so hard the whole village resounded with their cries.-Ninedayslater,my father was sent to prison in Janina with another man.at was the last time we saw him.I was born in April 1942 in the Macedonian village of Chionato (Χιονάτο)reported the second witness.
were going back to Greece, and Greece needs doctors.Because we are a er the war, and we need doctors.-e group set up a very good team.So, they accepted us.eyhelpedus when we needed it.Apart from university trips, we didn't have any other activities.Even now, when I'm retired and I don't go to their club, they miss me.We have a hangout in a restaurant, 15-20 of us used to get together there.enwe'realwaysjustreminiscing,drinking,and talking.Well, we're happy to see each other.-In1963,Igotmypassport,and, with my sister and her little boy, we took the train to my parents' house near Skopje in Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia).-We were there for a month.It was good.My father tried everything to get me to stay.He also took me to the police and there they assured me that I could stay and that they would get me a job.ey would get me an apartment, too.-Itoldmyfather that I could not leave Hungary.I have my friends there, my job, everything.I was so homesick arriving in Hungary that I don't want to experience that again.[...] I have a lot of ties to Hungary.e workplace, people, colleagues, and then of course my friends from the village who were in Hungary and whom I can't leave.I felt like I was letting them down.-Ialreadyhave a job, I'm married, but I really started to feel at home in[70][71].By then, the homesickness had faded.In '84, when I went to Greece for the fi rst time, all I wanted was to go to my home village.-It's a strange thing.When my grandchildren ask me and I start telling them my life story, I realise, whoops, here's something interesting.-Igot involved in something.e dri .So, I have dri ed in my life.[...] Until I got married, until I had a family, I was actually dri ing.
-She wanted to see me as a teacher, and I wrote on the application form that I was going to go to ELTÉ university.And then Ikonomu Michalis, you know who he was, the "grandpa", came and said "No!" Greece, because we were going home, we -And on 8 August 1959, -said the third witness -I started to work at the Csepel car factory.I was received by the head of the engine plant.I wanted to learn to work on all the machines in order to go back to Greece well prepared.So, this motivation was still in me.-ey loved me!Being Greek may have had something to do with it.Everyone wanted to be friend with me, so I had lots of friends.