How the trauma of Greek survivors of the late Ottoman Empire have been passed on to their descendants living in modern Australia is the subject of a study by historian Dr Themistocles Kritikakos, who focuses on intergenerational memory and efforts to recognise the genocide of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in Australia.
Speaking to the SBS Greek, Dr. Kritikakos discusses the trauma of the survivors, particularly the Greeks of Asia Minor, Pontus and Eastern Thrace, and how these trauma affect the efforts of their descendants to recognise the genocide.
"I have always been interested in history, how we remember the past and how it affects us today. I was also interested in genocide studies, learning about the Holocaust in high school and the Armenian Genocide. As a child, I heard stories about my grandfather's experiences on my father's side of the family, who fought in World War II. I also heard about the experiences of my grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side, who were from Livisi and Kalamaki, in southwestern Asia Minor. It was difficult to find details of their experiences. They had lost family members. They were uprooted as children and settled in Kastellorizo.
When I studied the Armenian genocide, Greeks and Assyrians were usually omitted from the story or not mentioned in the same way. Research on Greeks and Assyrians had just begun in the field of genocide scholarship in English. I also followed efforts to recognise the genocide, particularly among Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in Australia. They succeeded in getting genocide recognised by the South Australian Parliament in 2009 and by the New South Wales Parliament in 2013. That's how I became interested in this issue," he said.
Dr. Themistocles Kritikakos is a Greek-Australian historian. He graduated with a PhD in history from the University of Melbourne in December 2021. Dr. Kritikakos has taught at the University of Melbourne and worked as a Research Assistant at the Australian Catholic University. His PhD thesis focused on intergenerational memory and the genocide recognition efforts of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians in Australia.
Dr. Kritikakos is currently completing his first book, titled "Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocide Recognition in Twenty-First Century Australia: Memory, Identity, and Cooperation," which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their History of Genocide series.
