Diary of Dimitrios Kirlis

The VANA

Name Dimitrios Karlis
Grade Dimitrios Karlis
School GREECE AUSTRALIA
Approved by the Education Department


EXERCISE BOOK


26 April 1954 (1)
The big adventure from Greece to Australia
From long ago we did make the big and tremendous and decisive plan with my father and in the beginning we faced difficulties from the mother, but after many difficulties we were able to convince her to let us go to Thessaloniki to get registered. Finally the day we wished for to go and register came. One morning we got up we set the cart for my father and mother and my brother and I went by train because my cousin Lefteris from Livadia was in the village. We went travelled together until Thessaloniki since my cousin left for Livadia together with my friend and neighbor Stergionis and he had the accordion with him. After he left we had no work and we went to register. We couldn’t get to the front that day because of the number of people. We stayed for five days and after many difficulties we managed to get to the front. We got registered together with Christoforidis Georgios and Grantzoulis. Because Georgios was illiterate he could not come to Australia. We got registered we attended the doctors, doctors again, x-rays everything for free without us paying half a drachma. Then we went to the village. It was early October of the year 1953. In the month of February 1954 the paper came to go to the Consul and the Australian doctor. We went but that year in February on the 8th of the month there was thick snowfall and very cold that you could slip in every step. The bus stopped at our house and the whole family sat together with cousin Grammata (illegible).
(2)
We went to Thessaloniki again and went to the Consul and the Australian doctor there they separated me from my family and they made me a separate passport. The next day we returned to the village. A long time passed until one day where I was sitting in the morning I see Panagiotis the postman and another postman named Kostas on their bicycles they entered the yard of family home. When I saw them I understood that something is happening, I asked them but they didn’t tell me they asked me where is my father I didn’t know but I rode my bicycle and immediately after five minutes I found him he was at uncle Zafiris’s house. We went to our home and then the secret came out Mr. postman Panagiotis took out of his big bag the envelope with the first indications that we would do the long trip. We read them thoroughly and we saw that we didn’t have many days. It was Thursday and eight of the month of April. On Sunday the 11th of the month of April of the year 1954 we had the last party with all my friends, my neighbors and girlfriends and generally all the villagers that were my age. I had slaughtered a lamp and uncle Dimos put it in the oven. We had good time, we danced, we jumped, we sung that night until 2 after midnight. Then we scattered and each went to his house the next day we sold our flock of lamps, our horses and our cart. The party continued until Thursday night that was the last night that I was to be in Aspros after we drunk at the coffee shop

(3)
Until 9 in the evening we got out and serenaded in the village. We went to houses we went to level floors where there were barrels and finally since we couldn’t stand we sat inside Stergios’s level floor in Profitis Ilias some were drinking retsina others were dancing others were singing and others were sleeping. The time got to two in the night we all got up singing we left half stayed behind at Takis house and the other half we went to my friend’s Giannis Penditis house there we slept until five. We got up again we washed and prepared Giannis’s mule. We, dancing, went to our house where they were all ready I found all our friends and neighbors all gathered we danced for a long time in our yard and I in the street many people gathered and my friend Giannis’s father came with the cart and we put the suitcases on it and the chests and took them to the station. The time to leave was nearing we departed our home that was a separation that we were abandoning our home but with no tears we passed the village square and turned to the street towards the station the we bid goodbye to those who wouldn’t come to the station. We were moving towards the station with Georgakis and the accordion in the street my cousin Christos was filming with his camera. We arrived at the station the train was late we started dancing again we danced for some time and my cousin Christos brought a bottle of brandy and dancing we took the bottle of brandy in turns and it was finished.

(4)
After finishing the bottle were danced some European dances and then every dance for me was the last one. The train arrived and bid good bye to all the relatives, friends, girl friends, neighbors and generally all the villagers and lastly when I was to bid goodbye to my cousins and my old grandfather I got emotional and I started crying. I got on the train with tears on my eyes this was the second separation the bigger since I was leaving all the friends that we grew up together, all the girls, all my uncles and aunties and cousins and generally all our villagers, we started and all the hands were closing on our separation the handkerchiefs were full with tears and I was holding twenty handkerchiefs in my hands that the villagers had given to me I was waving them in the air and I was saying goodbye to all. Since we were travelling together with my friend Giannis the son of our neighbor Stamatis the friend Georgakis and my cousin Christos he got emotional in a corner of the train and started crying as he wasn’t going to see me again. I was telling him not to cry and that we were going to meet again. My aunt Despinio was with us also and Drakakis Dimitrios with his fiancé Kitsa, We were moving towards Thessalonki and after one hour we arrived. There we went to the hotel Pantheon. And then all together we went to the circus. We went around together and at night we went to a restaurant and ate drunk retsina with my friend Giannis for the last time.

(5)
We went and took family pictures my cousin Christos, Giannis and I. Then we went and took a picture in front of Saint Dimitrios Church and then we went for a stroll at the port. It got dark and we went to the hotel and we laid down and slept and in the morning at six o’clock we were to start moving at day break we were get ready to leave the hotel uncle Kaltos and aunt Kokoni came in and we left all together my parents, my brother, my aunt Despinio, my cousin Christos my friend Giannis my neighbor Stamatis, Georgakis and uncle Kaltsios and aunt Kokoni and Nikolas (illegible) we went to the station and bought tickets and we sat at automotrice. The time had come to move that was the Third separation with the few friends and relatives that were there, we bade goodbye to them and we left Thessaloniki we travelled and travelled and went through many stations and finally it stopped in Larisa the automotrice stayed there for one quarter I alighted and ran to the military barracks were the wingmen were staying and I searched for my neighbor Simos Athanasiou but I didn’t find him I returned to automotrice and we departed we were moving towards Athens we were seeing flat earth, mountains, valleys, rivers we went through cliffs bridges and many tunnels. The biggest tunnel that we went through lasted three minutes on the automotrice.


(6)
We arrived in Athens there when the automotrice stopped I saw my relatives waiting for us my aunt Vasiliki, my aunt Efhari, Mata and Rena from there we took a taxi and went to aunt Vasiliki’s house. The trip from Thessaloniki to Athens took 11 hours we travelled during the day. The next day was Palm Sunday we went for a long walk with Mata and Takis and Rena. It got dark. The next day was good Monday we went to the office at Agioou Konstantinou 18. But because there were many people we couldn’t sort things out and we went back the next day good Tuesday and we finalized all the papers with all the difficulties. They had listed me on another trip. By then my legs were getting weak I was to return to the village. And I was thinking how I was going to go back. The next day good Wednesday we went to do disinfection and a bath. There they placed me to travel with my family again. Then I took a taxi and went to uncle Panos’s house and took my suitcase and returned to the disinfection room. We got inside we undressed and had a bath they took all our clothes and disinfected them. We stayed at the lounge for four hours we were nude 150 single lads after the bath we were free to return to Athens from a tram to another tram and from a bus to another bus we travelled around Athens. Then after it got dark we went to aunt Vasiliki’s house we and Mata went to Rena’s house and we went to take a picture but because it was night time they were closed and our goal wasn’t achieved. We left to go to sleep. The next day we were to start the big trip.
(7)
At dawn we bade goodbye to uncles and aunts and cousins and left for the port. There Mr. Angelopoulos spoke and told us not to forget Greece because we were Greeks our second mother is Greece. Then we took our passports and our clothes and one by one we passed the inspection and entered the ship KYRENIA. There we met uncle Pashalis Ntounousis and two other lads from Drimo. We boarded the ship. I like any other who has not been on a ship think that the ship as seen from the outside has nothing inside. However whatever your heart desires you will find it in it. First of all the ship was 180 metres long and 30 metres wide and height 16 metres above the water and in the water the height was 8 metres. It was very good and exceptional. It was old design. Each anchor was weighing 15 thousand kilos, it had four anchors. The total weight of the ship was 18 thousand tons. It had a huge spotlights on its masts. It had two engines three thousand horsepower each. It had 150 staff. In it it had kitchens three restaurants that one thousand people could dine. We were 650 Greeks 200 Maltese and 150 ship staff. All together 1000 people. The bigger captain was Dimitrios Votsis it also had two chief mates. When we entered the bell rung immediately for lunch in the evening at 5 we ate again then we all got out and we started the long trip to Australia. It was the last separation we did in Greece.


(8)
The handkerchiefs were waving and they were all saying goodbye to Kyrenia. Finally we left Greece it was getting dark and we all went to sleep. We had four beds the four in the room that we were we had a tap with hot water and cold fan and all that is needed wardrobe for the cloths table to write ink and all that is needed we found it. Finally after we left Piraeus on the 22 of the month of April good Thursday it was nearing Easter of 1954. We slept and all night I was daydreaming because it was the first I was sleeping on the ship in my whole life. In the morning after we ate we got out and saw the island of Crete as we passed very near almost and now we were getting out of the waters of Greece and the Aegean Sea we entered foreign waters. We arrived at Port Said on good Saturday in April 24/1954 we got there at midday for my first time I saw this strange land and the strange black people, when the ship stopped all the blacks with some strange small boats were circling the ship and were yelling what money we had English Australia and we were laughing their calls seemed funny. We stayed outside we didn’t enter the ladder we stopped four hours and the ship got food supplies water and petrol for the ship, we departed and entered the artificial port of Suez. It took us 15 hours to pass the straits the straits is 160 kilometres.


(9)
Travelling in the straits we saw camels with young camels and a strange thing the blacks who were carrying the stones and the soil on their backs and every so often we saw police officers who were guarding the narrow public road and the railway line that was next to the strait. The strait was 100 metres wide and it was all made of concrete and stone. When the time got to 12 of good Saturday all the ships stopped and they all celebrated the Christ has Risen. We got up and celebrated the Christ has Risen on the ship because we had a church and a priest Archimandrite Vasilios from Athens. After he finished the Christ has Risen we got out on the ship’s deck and on the bow and with the sunrise at five in the morning we started and passing and finishing the big and historic and unforgettable for me which it was the first time in my life that I saw it. We exited the strait at /9/ o’clock in the morning on Easter day of the month of April of the year /1954/. We exited the strait which is the key to the Pacific Ocean and the separation of Asia and Africa this strait is the border. There at night before we exited the strait we saw the lights of the city of Alexandria and Ismailia.




(10)
And finishing the strait we exited to the open sea and the shakings of the ship and the sea the storm we were travelling 5 days and nights where we saw nothing but only the sky and the sea and finally we arrived on Thursday 29 of April during the dawn very early in the morning. There we git very near the port the small boats again the same started coming to sell very cheap and many good things. When it dawned we got out on the bow and after we ate we sat on the boats and in five minutes we got out in the famous port of Aden. There many strange things getting out and walking outside in Aden I posted two letters to Aspros. We got out together with my father and my brother Thanasis and uncle Pashalis Dounousis and two other lads from Drymo and Stathis Agapidis from Giahali. There it seemed strange to me to see the black men in dresses and barefoot the women wrapped up with some white headscarves. There it is all summer and it is very hot we walked a lot in the city the city of Aden is very good and much looked after even though it has all blacks. I saw the trees that we learnt in the Primary School. We walked for a long time in the city and then we got out of the city and went to the port we sat on the boat we went to the ship again and at night on Thursday we departed for Colombo.


(11)
There we came across a storm and travelling in the sea we didn’t see anything but sky and sea and some strange fish dolphins in schools they came behind the ship and others on the front edge of the ship they swam together with the ship as they did it on purpose. The next Thursday on six of May we arrived in India Colombo. There when we arrived at 3 in the middle of the night since 10 the lights had appeared. We didn’t lay down all night from 12 midnight when we neared the ship’s spotlights started giving signals and from the port of Colombo the same. It stopped outside because it had many thousands of ships and it couldn’t get a turn to get into the port. It waited outside for long time until the pilot came got into the ship and entered the port. At night when the pilot came what spotlights the ship had it was the same light that the pilot the boat that had the pilot in it. After we arrived at the port at /3/ in the night on the six of May of 1954/. Before dawn the ship was ready to depart for the first port of Australia Freemantle. When the sun rose a little we left and we didn’t have time to see Colombo . And in Colombo they are all black. But different blacks in three places there blacks but in every place different blacks. We left Colombo and now we had 10 days to arrive in Australia. Now we were entering the biggest sea the Pacific Ocean.


(12)
Finally Friday morning came and the same again nothing but sky and blue sea only with big and terrible waves and the famous dolphins that swam in big groups around the ship that day also passed and Saturday came 8 May that we celebrated the festival in the village in the morning when we got up we ate in the ship’s restaurant we got out and the time was nine in the morning eight of May and at that time we came across three dry islands stone only. And on top of them lighthouses that light only at night without getting electricity from anywhere. We came across many of them in the Pacific Ocean. I was sitting on the front of the ship on the bow and was thinking of the festival that was taking place in Aspros. There we saw many strange animals of the sea dolphins sharks and others that I don’t know what they call them. There we came across a lot of storm. From there my father and my brother got seasick and until Melbourne they didn’t lift their head from vomiting. It took us 10 days until we reached the first port of Australia. Freemantle. Here it was the longest trip we did and comparatively we did very well they were telling us. On Sunday 9 May we passed the Equator. There was a mass of thanksgiving to God that we passed the Equator well without any damage. There it was very hot two days only one in shorts we were at the ship’s bow all day and in the big pool we swam.


(13)
There on the day of Sunday midday on 9 of May they filled the pool with water they made a citizen priest and four others, that they got hold of women girls men children all and as they were in fresh clothes they were throwing them in the pool and after they were getting wet they were getting out and they threw others in almost half the ship’s people fell in the big pool Equator Baptism that’s what is called. We were moving to the first port of Australia, Freemantle. But because we had such a long trip every night on the ship they were organizing a cinema and every midday dance with the ship’s radio to forget that we were on the sea and to also forget the storm. We were always moving towards Australia and after 10 days we finally got to Freemantle. There we arrived on 16 May Sunday morning. There we stayed out of the ship until 10 o’clock. The Australian Police came and examined the ship its cleanliness, the passengers inspected the staff. The Australian doctors also came and examined us all and then the ship proceeded to the port and stopped near the ladder and stopped until the night. The port of Freemantle is the most beautiful port from all the ones I had seen with big luxury. We got out and walked for about three hours in the city. We went to the grocery stores cafes. We got grapes and ate since the time was nearing for the ship to leave we returned to the ship and in a short time it left Freemantle.


(14)
There it had left 65 single lads. With them was Stathis from Giahali. We started the so much wished for trip to the port of Melbourne we descending for in Australia, it took 5 days. Before we got there though we came across the biggest storm. The ship was shaking to the side and all the tables and chairs were falling down. And in the restaurant where until then they had all the plates on the tables the glasses the cutlery that contained water. That night 19 May of 1954everygthing was shattered. Too many glasses were broken cutlery, chairs, tables. All night no one slept we were all awake because the danger signal had sounded to the people that were on the top. But that night passed and a lot of fear in the heart and impatience we arrived in Melbourne. The big long trip for me was unforgettable for me. It was very good and very historic trip because never in my life until I became 19 years old except from our area I had not been anywhere. The trip from Piraeus that we started until Melbourne took 29 days and one to the centre of Victoria 30 days in total the rip from Greece to Australia. In the ship we mostly had good time from other views. Food though they fed us very well. In the morning they were giving us tea milk and fresh butter and cake quince paste at 7 in the morning. Lunch time at 12 two serves of food with meat and sometimes apples sometimes pears and sometimes oranges.


(15)
In the evening at 7 the same again double serve two options with meat and fruit. We had a Greek kitchen. We had a very good time what food there is we ate it in the ship whatever you wanted and as much as you wanted they were giving it to you. We had good time and with great apprehension we arrived in Melbourne. The same as they did to us in Freemantle, here also they the doctors boarded first they examined us all and then the ship got close to the ladder and then slowly and in turns the people started coming down. Where I was standing and looking at the foreign and far away land with apprehension, I see our co villager Alexiadis Giannakos he was standing down there and he was looking to see us. I called him and he recognized me immediately by my voice even if he couldn’t see me. Then he got out of his pocket two large chocolates and he was throwing them on the ship. He was waiting for us to come down to talk better. And that’s how it happened. There while I was getting ready to come down I hear on the ship’s speaker my name I ran immediately to see what it was and saw that they were calling me to receive a letter I had from Greece. From my cousin Christos And I read it and I was thinking silently that I haven’t now alighted the ship yet and I have a letter after two months from Greece.


(16)
Finally we alighted the ship and Giannakos came we talked one hour after we got in the office we passed an Australian Inspection with our suitcases each. Then we boarded the train and reached the centre of Victoria. We were moving towards Bonegilla. We passed the whole of Melbourne and we got out in its flat lands. We were seeing its flat lands all fenced and in them sheep, cows, horses that were grazing on their own without anyone to tend for them and then in May 22 of 1954 that we were traveling to Bonegilla we were seeing small sheep. Travelling to Bonegilla at some place the train stopped and our escort Mr. Skinas Grigorios sorted out and then we all got out five hundred people we got into a big restaurant and ate our that they brought us milk with cocoa and then an apple to each one and a pear we left there with not paying one drachma also. We arrived ata village (illegible) we all alighted the buses were waiting for us there were 15 buses. We all sat in them in 15 minutes we arrived in Bonegilla the place that we were hearing we would go. We passed the inspection again they gave us some yellow cards and some red ones those we kept for the time we stayed in Bonegilla. When finally we got to the place that we were to sleep in the rooms we saw some cards with each one’s name written on them. Then we got the tray that was on each one’s bed and we all ran to take food. We ate for the first time Australian food. When we finished and we finally went to sleep the time was twelve 22 May. We slept in Bonegilla and I was daydreaming of my relatives that I left in the village.
(17)
Finally that night passed full of terrible nightmares. Sunday morning came 23 May I sent many letters to the village to the relatives friends, co villagers. That Sunday 23 May I sat and thought of the very long trip we made. But I was very satisfied of the long trip we made. The time we got to Bonegilla it was autumn it was a little cold with dew in the morning sun during the day and rain at night. In Bonegilla we stayed for 25 days every day we went hunting hares that were plentiful that time. With games with laughter with dances the days in the centre of Bonegilla were not passing quick because we were sitting all day only for food sleep and sitting. From 16 April of the year 1954 that we left our home until 24 June that I got a job two and a half months approximately we only ate ready food and sat. We had good time in Bonegilla centre Block (5). We used to go to all the blocks. There were many blocks with many apartments. We used to go to the dance that was being held every Monday night. There were all the races of the world from all backgrounds. We had 25 days in Bonegilla with many young people that we came together. Then we went to Melbourne on the 16 of June and on the 24 of June I got a job in the factory Standard. And from them we started work in Australia.