For more than 90 years in Brisbane, Australia, there has been a neighborhood, Small Alatsata, located in the West End and retains its Asia Minor character.
The first refugees arrived there from the town of Alatsata, a purely Greek town of Asia Minor, which was an economically and culturally blooming Greek community, but was violently extinguished in September 1922, lamenting many victims during the days of their persecution.
The information concerning Brisbane’s West End refugees are referred in a new book, which was recently released in English with the title, 90 years from the Catastrophe of Smyrna. The refugees who made a new start in West End, South Brisbane.
The book was published by the Asia Minor Greek Historical Society that operates in Queensland. The author is Despina Drakos, Vice-President of the AMGHS, whose father was a refugee.
“My father inspired me to write this book”, she said. “He was only ten years old, he survived the Catastrophe of Smyrna and he moved to Brisbane with his family immediately after 1922”.
Drakos mentioned that the survivors of the Catastrophe of Smyrna are very few, but their descendants live in Brisbane and keep the memory alive.
She mentions in her book specific incidents, names, actions along with rare photos. As she notes, many families from Asia Minor in Brisbane have started the process of recording their family history.
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