Thirty Years in the “Fires” of the Factories

Chrysostomos Antoniadis, of refugee descent, began his long journey in Vatolakkos, Grevena. Carrying memories of the German occupation and the Greek Civil War on his shoulders, the young man climbed aboard the Britanis and set sail for the largely unfamiliar shores of Australia. In his hands, he clutched a piece of paper with the address of relatives who would host him—hands that would soon be scorched, bruised, burned, and wounded during thirty relentless years of factory work. The “antidote” to the pain of exile? Chrysostomos found it in the Greek cafes and cinemas, on the sports fields, and in the churches built by his fellow Greeks abroad.