Compassion, kindness, generosity of spirit: all three apply to Panayiota Drougas and her husband, Dimitris, as they pace the platform of the train station in Idomeni, Greece.
There is no reason in the world that they should be here. Idomeni, at the best of times, is a godforsaken place: bleak, barren and infused with a melancholy typical of remote border posts. It is a starkness made more haunting still by the thousands of refugees who, following the railway tracks that have led them to this northern corner of Greece, now live in a squalid camp that has sprung up around the Macedonian frontier — which is, of course, why the couple are here.
“We saw their little faces on television, all these children, so hungry, so tired, and just wanted to help,” said Panayiota, a retired headteacher, handing out the 150 chocolate-filled croissants the pair have brought with them.
Illustration: Mountain People
“They are refugees — they don’t want to be here,” she said, eyes streaming in the cold. “We see it as our duty to show them that someone cares. We’re going to spread the word, tell former colleagues and friends to do the same.”
They are not alone. The conviction that compelled the couple to purchase the croissants, get into their car and make the drive from Thessaloniki is one that many appear to share.
Hardship, Greeks have discovered, comes in different shades. For six years they might have been in the eye of the great eurozone storm, buffeted by the depredations of austerity, the byproduct of their worst crisis in modern times.
However, the sight of thousands of refugees stranded on their shores, often with little more than the clothes on their backs, has now taken them somewhere else. As the numbers have grown so, too, have the acts of altruism — some recorded, some never seen — nationwide.
INFLUX
In Idomeni, pensioners struggling to make ends meet buy two loaves of bread, one to share with those who have descended on their tiny community; elsewhere, villagers open their homes. On Aegean islands that have borne the brunt of the influx of refugees, shops — hard hit by plummeting consumption — donate supplies.
In Athens, where passenger terminals, parks and public squares have been turned into chaotic reception centers, Greeks of all backgrounds and ages have rushed to join the relief effort. Everywhere, non-government organizations (NGO) speak of an explosion of giving that has taken them aback.
“I could tell you so many stories,” said Caroline Haga, a Finn seconded for the past four months to the country, with the International Red Cross. “In Samos and Chios, recently, every shopkeeper I met wanted to give something for the children. It’s amazing, considering what they’ve been going through themselves. And more and more, every day, are signing up as volunteers.”
It’s a generosity of spirit that has not been lost on recipients. With Greece’s impoverished state structure stretched to breaking point, refugees have been dependent on the kindness of strangers.
“The Greek police are terrible, but the Greek people are very good,” said Amar Souadi, an Iraqi, standing on the bluff where he has pitched his tent in the mud fields that are now home to the refugees in Idomeni.
“In Kos Island my wife, Selma, gave birth. They did everything for us. Look, here is my boy, Kasum, he is 10 days old. We didn’t want to make this journey, but in Baghdad I worked as a translator for a British oil company and people saw me as a traitor. Look at my arm, look at my stomach, look at these [gun] wounds,” Souadi said.
In the coming months, EU officials predict that as many as 150,000 migrants and refugees could reach Greece. By Friday last week, 42,000 were recorded across Greece. Any hopes of the numbers dropping as a result of the draft deal agreed between the bloc and Turkey to stem the tide have not been borne out.
Reaction to the flows could have gone either way; and with the closure last week of Europe’s Balkan corridor by Macedonia and other states, it could yet change. On the back of economic collapse, the anti-immigrant Golden Dawn has emerged and held sway as the third-biggest political force. The prospect of Greece becoming a permanent base for refugees would not only place extra pressure on society, but inject it with renewed vitality.
“Everything we are seeing has been a pleasant surprise,” said Melia Eleftheriadi, an employee with the Athens prefecture. “The feeling, right now, is we live under the same sun. We fall in love under the same moon. We are all human — we have to help these people.”
From her work cabin outside the former Olympic taekwondo stadium — whose basement storage space has been turned with record speed into an aid distribution center — Eleftheriadi has a bird’s-eye view of those wanting to help. Since the center opened barely seven day earlier, a seemingly endless stream of people have made their way to its doors, some in cars, some on foot, some old, some young, but all in common pursuit: to alleviate the plight of refugees.
“It’s been very moving,” she said, shaking her head almost in disbelief. “There was one man, in his 50s, earlier this week who, not being able to drive, took a bus from Nafplion [in the Peloponnese] just so he could drop off a box with a few things for them.”
Stacks of shoes, sleeping bags, nappies, towels, clothes, water and food supplies are sprawled around the basement — testament, if anything, to the purely organizational nature of the problem now facing authorities.
“Almost every Greek has a family member who has immigrated or been a refugee,” said Eleftheriadi. “My own grandmother fled Turkey during the Asia Minor disaster [following World War I]. So many of us have similar stories, which might explain why donations aren’t the problem. It’s what to do with them all.”
VOLUNTEERS
Where the state has failed, volunteers and NGOs have stepped in. On the islands, in Athens and in the innumerable shelters set up in disused army barracks, hotels, parks and public buildings, they have come deploying crisis management skills and the enthusiasm of people everywhere.
For people such as Nibal Shkirm, a Syrian teacher from Aleppo, who landed in Lesbos with her four children and husband last week, the groups have been a godsend.
“You see these shoes?” she said, brandishing a pair of Timberland sneakers outside her tent on a pier in Piraeus Port. “Some good Greek gave me them. You see her shoes, and his shoes, and her shoes? Some good Greek gave them too. These people, they are very kind, but please write that we don’t want to stay. We want to go to Germany. Maybe you can help?”
With the EU rushing in emergency humanitarian aid in the weeks ahead, the volunteer movement is bound to grow.
Like the crises that have overlapped in the country on the frontline of Europe’s two great dramas, history is being played out in waves. The refugee emergency resonates because Greeks, too, have moved to foreign lands and have also been immigrants and emigres forced, through self-exile, or political and economic need, to seek better lives abroad. After the civil war’s brutal end in 1949, more than one-third of the rural population emigrated to Australia, Germany or the US. Ever since, Greek blues lyricists, poets and filmmakers have been inspired by what is known as xenitia (exile).
“This is an experience that very few other people have. It is dug into our collective consciousness,” said Constantinos Tsoukalas, a sociologist. “Greeks know what it is like to lose everything: homes, friends, memories, pictures, the memorabilia of their lives. The kindness, the compassion can’t go on for ever, of course, but to a great degree it explains what we are seeing today.”
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