Turbulent 20th Century – Immigrant Experiences Before and After the War

Emmanuel (Manolis) Lisgos

Emmanuel Lisgos was born in the small town of Istrios on the island of Rhodes in 1912 and grew up at a time when the Dodecanese islands were under Italian occupation.

With the rise of Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism, active resistance became more pronounced throughout the Dodecanese after 1926.

It was during this period that Manoli became part of an underground organization dedicated to the national liberation of his homeland and union with Greece.

Press censorship, secret police, the exclusion of Greek labor from public works, and land uncultivated for three years or more were given to settlers from Italy. Schools were required to teach Italian and the Greek Orthodox faith of most of the inhabitants was strongly discouraged in order to bring them under greater Italian control.

These policies caused a good part of the Greek emigration from the islands. In the mid-1930s, Manoli’s situation became extremely dangerous and he was left with no choice but to leave his homeland, his wife and his two children to emigrate to Adelaide, South Australia.

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Manoli served as a cook in the Australian Army in Darwin. With the end of the Second World War in 1945, he returned to Adelaide and in 1949 his family was able to join him and they settled in the working-class suburb of Thebarton. Shortly after, his son Philip and his daughter Stamatia were born in the new country.

Manoli found work at the former South Australian Hotel on North Terrace and worked his way up to becoming a head chef in charge of food service preparation and overseeing kitchen operations. In his position, he was able to help many other recently arrived immigrants, especially those from southern Rhodes, get jobs as kitchen help.

Stamatis (Stan) Itsines

Stan Itsines was born in 1938 on the island of Kos in the Dodecanese, at a time when the devastating effects of World War II and the Nazis were sweeping across Europe. Countless thousands of people across Eastern Europe and the Balkans were displaced and forced to seek refuge in refugee camps in the Middle East.

At the time, Stan’s father ran a traditional mixed farming business outside Kos town and during one such German bombing raid on the island, Stan’s mother and sister were killed and the family home was completely destroyed. The family took refuge in the town of Kos, while other Greek inhabitants of the Dodecanese found British protection in Cyprus.

In 1944, the Germans drove residents from their homes on Kos and turned the area into a base forcing many to flee to Turkey. Stan’s father decided to leave his youngest son John with his wife’s sister in Kos and then took Stan and his other brother Con by boat to the Turkish city of Bodrum (ancient Greek city of Halicarnassus).

The Turks then transferred them, along with thousands of other refugees, to the Gaza Strip in Palestine, where the Greeks were placed in three refugee camps.

When World War II ended in 1945, the British government helped Greek refugees return to the island of Rhodes and from there to Kos. While in Rhodes, Stan’s father placed him in an orphanage and from there a relative brought him into his home. Stan and his family were reunited on their home island of Kos a year later.

In 1964, he emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia, where he met and married his wife Anna Stiliano, who was born in the cotton-growing town of Biloela, Queensland, Australia, to immigrant parents from Mesanagros and Lahania on the island of Rhodes, Greece.

Triantaphyllos Psaras

It is difficult to emigrate and leave your family behind to help improve the economic situation. There is the trauma of having to leave your family behind, move from rural life to suburban life and work and endure on the farms and factories of Adelaide, South Australia.

World War II and its aftermath resulted in large-scale migrations and more debilitating changes to come. Triantafilos Psaras was one such young man who was subjected to these life-changing forces. To ensure his family’s financial security and secure the future of his children, he emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia, while his wife Despina remained in Lahania, Southern Rhodes to continue working in the fields and raising her own children. to her little children.

Triantafilo is a role model of the traditional, hard-working and dedicated father who wanted to give his children a good education and the best in life so that they would be free from limited opportunities. He wanted them to do something for themselves so they wouldn’t have to endure the same hardships he had.

Throughout the many hard and lonely years without her family by her side, she continued to work hard and save to send money to help pay for her children’s education and help make her world a happy place.

After twenty years, Triantafilo returned to the Island of Rhodes and to his family. His hard work and sacrifice have reaped the rewards he set out to achieve and opened the door of opportunity for his children to realize his dreams.