3o Μονοπάτι.

Acquaintance (區域)

Mimis and Anna were two of the four heroes that were included in the 1955 First Grade Primer. It was the longest lasting textbook in Greek education (1955-1978) which characteristically depicted the childhood of an era that seemed to last.

(地點)

Map of tribes (區域)

We are at the MoE, in front of the map of the “tribes” and the installation with the life vests, from where the threads of our journey end and begin. What could the rods tied with the belts mean?

(地點)

Towards the collecti... ... (區域)

On our educational path we will visit two schools in Rethymnon that welcomed refugees during the interwar period. Initially, we will visit the "Ahrweiler Collection" dedicated to the well-known Byzantinologist and former Chancellor of Sorbonne University, Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler. Signposts on this route will be objects and snapshots of her life associated with this particular historical period.

(地點)

Collection of helene... ... (區域)

We are in the building, which was given by the Municipality of Rethymnon to the University of Crete, where the collection of archival material of Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler is hosted. The collection includes personal items, books, manuscripts and photographic-audiovisual material about her personal and academic life. This archival material comes from her home in the former refugee settlement of Byron. Ahrweiler was the only one of six children of the family that was born in Greece when the family was forced to flee there after the destruction of Asia Minor and the exchange of populations. The "Asia Minors" square, behind this building, reminds us of the Catastrophe of Asia Minor itself.

(地點)

The 600+1 pencils of... ... (區域)

Helene Glykatzi Ahrweiler was 10th in admission to the Archeology Department of the Philosophical School of the University of Athens at the age of thirteen, at a time when women's access to higher education was very difficult. This is confirmed by Ahrweiler herself. When a professor asked her why she chose to study in this department, since girls did not have access to archaeological services, she replied: "Listen, Professor, Sir. I in life will do what I like and what I want. Now, on how to make the money I need to live, I assure you that I will sell lemons in the center of Athens! "(From the biography of H G Ahrweiler, A. Grimman, The 600 Pencils).

(地點)

Ahrweiler life route... ... (區域)

The 1930s were marked by the massive entry of Greek refugees from Asia Minor into Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Crete, as well as the areas of Athens and Piraeus. At that time the refugee settlements of Kokkinias were created in Piraeus and Nea Ionia, Kesariani and Vyronas in Athens. In 1942, Helene Glykatzi Ahrweiler was born in Vyronas. Ahrweiler’s notebook when she was a pupil  (1940s) Ahrweiler’s French notebook when she was a university student (1948)   AHRWEILER’S NOTEBOOKS Living the history of her age which was marked by the Catastrophe of Asia Minor and the attempt to integrate the refugees in a devastated Greece, she tries, even from her school years, through great deprivation, to distinguish herself in literacy and to make carve her own path. In her notebooks, one depicts her insistence on detail, the aesthetics, her systematicity in the writing, elements that she later on developed and they distinguished her as a scientist.   AHRWEILER ΙΝ THE RESISTANCE As a student, Ahrweiler actively participates in the Resistance against the occupants as she was a member of EPON (1941-1944). She had been trained not to write down whatever it was she was trying to say, for fear of being captured by the enemy. She says in her autobiography: "I learned to condense my thoughts and keep it essential. I believe the only scientific virtue is to distinguish essence from the unsubstantial, just so that you can then say it and show it. "(A. Grimani, The 600 Pencils). She studies during a period where no certificate of correct social conduct where necessary to enter University. Ahrweiler struggles against the established perceptions of a woman's role. The students at that time dreamed of changing the world for the better and with this perception young Glykatzi graduates in 1950.   AHRWEILER ABROAD Ahrweiler’s life carves a “bow” which starts at Asia Minor, passes through the refugee world of Vyronas and from there extends to Paris where she excelled. She resorted to Paris in 1953 with a scholarship to continue her studies with other fellow students and graduated in 1957. She will devote herself to Byzantine studies and research and will lay the foundations for a brilliant academic career in France. E.G. Ahrweiler Chancellor of the University of Sorbonne   During this period many Greeks, scientists and artists, resorted to Paris with the “Mataroa” boat to study and distinguish themselves in their fields of expertise and shared their creative spirits with the rest of Greece.  Mataroa: the boat of great flight

(地點)

A pencil full of col... ... (區域)

A handwritten letter arrives at Ahrweiler in Paris in the 1970s: "... you became remarkable, and I a serious architect ..." It was her classmate, the one that Helene sat next to in the Primary School. The little boy had a pencil with colors. "... I looked at it, again and again ... how I envied this pencil ... until I wanted to steal it. I never stole it, of course, but I never owned on then. Today, I have more than 600 pencils! ... a pencil with colors!", she mentioned many years later in her autobiography, remembering the difficulties of her childhood. Many refugee families have faced similar difficulties, being uprooted from their ancestral homes and trying to start a new life. Let us not forget that the catastrphpe of Asia Minor was one of the most tragic events of modern Greek history. With the mandatory population exchange, some 1.5 million refugees have arrived in desperate conditions to Greece. The close to bankrupt Greek state had to quickly house and care for this enormous population.   THE LIVES OF THOSE WHO WERE UPROOTED A 92 year old grandmother recalls the story of her imposed fate:   "I was born in 1918. We left in 1921, the dawn of the New Year. I was three years old. We left secretly, two o'clock in the morning, with a foal that my uncle had bought. The young foal what could it carry? There were no animals because the army had confiscated them. So we loaded some clothes and started walking to Bursa. I do not know how many miles away our homeland was, Thebes. It is called Thebes in Greek, Soyoud in Turkish meaning "willow," because it had many waters and many willow trees... We were not the only ones that left, there were others. The crowd was afraid, and whoever had the opportunity to leave left. The mother puts food in her mouth and says "sister, we have become refugees"... The next day we arrived at Bursa. We went and stayed in a mosque, along with our other patriots. Where else could we go! After a few days we found a home. My mother and my aunt slowly built a household there. They bought clothes again, mattresses, quilts, whatever they needed... We left Bursa on the 22nd of September, when the battlefront collapsed. A well-known military officer warned us to gather our belongings and go to the beach so he could help us escape. The ships came, the French, the English. The beach was filled with people. A pregnant woman fell on the platform and they passed over her! They delivered her baby, but she died. My mother held me in her arms and sat on the side of the platform near the sea, telling them that if they came to butcher us, she would fall in the sea with her child. And my brother, Zacharias, was nowhere to be found! Where could my mother go in such chaos to look for the child! At some point he came and found her "Where were you?" "I went to swim!" He went swimming in the sea! Can you believe it? The next day, a Greek boat approached. We walked in; we found a seat to sit down. A family set the table to eat. They said to Aunt Helen: you have a bottle of water, let us drink and we will bring you some. From the boat, however, where could they get water? My aunt gave it to them and we were left without water. My mother got dehydrated... We went to Raidestos with the boat, and then we took the train to Adrianople. The people there had gathered to welcome the refugees, but it created trouble with the Turks and we had to get back on the trains. Not everyone fit and some even climbed onto the roofs .... And that is how we came to Greece…» (Testimony: TIME MACHINE)   LIFE IN THE HOSTLAND The odyssey of these people continued after they arrived in Greece. The tiles of their lives compose the image of the place that welcomed them. "The first Asia-minors have arrived days now. Some strange people walk through the Guora Gate. They look around at the people, those shopping in shops, those unloading mules and donkeys, the shopkeepers, the children, the women. They are rarely holding something. As if they are lost, they have no money, they do not buy anything. But they try to learn more about the world around them, the state. The only thing they buy is bread. Some don’t even have enough for that. Some children follow them and walk barefoot in the water and mud.... Always in the state when a person arrived from other states, everyone would stare at him, asking where he’s from, what his name is and where he came from. Once everyone knew each other... Now, they are the Asia Minor people who no one knows and no one greets or speaks to them...Some Asians started selling pumpkin seeds, bagels, sherbets on the streets, but it is a question of whether they can make a living from this trade. They say they will give them houses to live in, but in the meantime they sleep in the churches and in some old uninhabited houses… They have neither beds nor covers… And suddenly the “PATRIS” arrived whistling at the harbor. "It was on Monday morning the Ocean Liner Patris sailed to our port on which 2,800 refugees were brought to our city." "God, what is this?" These people escaped from Kemal's knife, looking westward for their salvation. To the sea, the islands   Days now, on the waterfront beside the stunning sea are three thousand people cluttered together. From the filth and the discomfort, this human reptile has a leaden, gray color that moves and shakes for a moment ... Some faces, many eyes, hands and legs that pop-up from the dirty rags, give the impression of a giant and out of this world being who has fallen from another world, fell to the earth, in this inhospitable embrace, where each day it is depleted, it melts and dies all the way down to the Sand Gate. "(Andrew Nenedakis, Voukefali) Despite the great difficulties, poverty, and social marginalization, refugee families were struggling daily to stand on their feet. They sent their children to school. The testimonies of these pupils sum up the journey, the anxieties and the hopes of all these children who, despite the tribulations they experienced, continued to claim a better tomorrow.   THE WHY’S OF HISTORY In the opened drawer on display, the memories accompanying the pupil’s objects converse with Ahrweiler’s "discourse." Their Asia Minor movements marked the course of their lives. In her own handbooks, Ahrweiler refers to the relationship between "Culture-Hellenism", giving culture a universal dimension that encompasses all the memories and experiences of people. In her poem, "The Why’s of History" Ahrweiler talks about the "poetic" story, that is, a "story" that "highlights" human lives and brings light to the small events of everyday people, alongside historical events that are deliberately silenced so as not to damage our national memory:   "The Why’s of History" "In a katharevousa language our story is written. It is not otherwise explained why only tributes are made. Apart from the Trojan Horse and Helen of Troy, It silences the erotic and all the like, acts of countless rage, anger and fury, crimes, embezzlement, dramatic tragedies.   I ask, therefore: What did the Athenians do in Samo, How and why were the Kolokotronians imprisoned? Who knows, how many Greeks, were victims of the civil war? What were the crimes of Tsimiski and what of Vasileiou? Why from despair did Samuel of Bulgaria die? What did Manuel want with the Turks in Philadelphia? What did Demaratus and so many Greeks want in Susa? When the city was crumbling, why was Mother Mary absent?   Infinite the why’s that I could continue to ask- But for what? I am not supposed to answer any of them... Shall I tell history differently? Maybe someday I’ll try.”

(地點)

Next station (區域)

The tour of the museum of Education and that of Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler has come to an end. Next stop, The Mikrasiaton Square.