The contribution of the Australian women, who have provided invaluable services to Greek refugees from Pontos and Asia Minor, but also to victims of the civil war, was recognized at a special event held in Melbourne from the bodies “Return to Anatolia”, “Whittlesea Women Matter 2”, in collaboration with the Library of Lalor.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Panayiotis Diamantis, lecturer on Genocide Studies at the University of Technology in Sydney, who referred during his speech to some of the great Australian women and particularly to the story of the couple Sydney and Joyce Nankivell Locke.
As pointed out by Dr. Diamandis, from 1922 until the end of their life, they were both devoted to consolidating and developing a refugee settlement in Macedonia and in Ouranoupoli, Chalkidiki.
Dr. Diamandis said that there were many Australians who have helped the victims of Asia Minor, and later those of the Second World War and Civil War.
We have to bear in mind here that in the Catastrophe of Asia Minor, the High Commissioner for the Refugees of the League of Nations was the Australian Colonel, Mr. Treloar, who saved around 108,000 Greek refugees’ survivors from hunger and disease.
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