Some educational material to add:
The day my family fled Famagusta: How life changed for ever when Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 By VICTORIA HISLOP FOR YOU
October 2014
It was one of the most glamorous resorts in the Mediterranean, a favourite of stars such as Burton and Taylor. But in 1974 Famagusta in Cyprus became a ghost town overnight when its inhabitants fled from the invading Turkish army. Forty years on, lawyer Maria Hadjivasili, who escaped with her family, revisits her home town with author Victoria Hislop
Now the resort remains as it was when the population escaped the Turkish advance in 1974
In its heyday in the 1960s and 70s Famagusta drew thousands of tourists
Maria Hadjivasili has the easy, relaxed glamour of a successful professional woman in her 50s. Divorced with a grown-up daughter, she runs her own law practice in Nicosia. Our paths first crossed earlier this year when I was on a research trip to Cyprus and I was captivated by her story of an idyllic childhood cut short. Her life followed a completely different path than the one she had imagined in 1974 at the age of 17, before conflict divided her island.
‘I thought I was going to become an artist, get married, have children and have a calm, easy life, going to the beach every day,’ she reflects. ‘But what happened in 1974 totally altered the course of my family’s life.’
Maria grew up in 1960s Famagusta, then one of the most glamorous and sophisticated seaside resorts in the Mediterranean. The beach, with its famously pale sand and turquoise sea, was lined with luxury hotels that attracted millionaires and celebrities such as Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot and Paul Newman. Nearly half of the island’s hotel rooms were in the town, which was also home to Cyprus’s main port.
What happened in 1974 totally altered the course of my family's life
Today, however, glamour and wealth have given way to decay and the main tourist area – a quarter known as Varosha – is an uninhabited ghost town, its port a Turkish military zone, a no-go area fiercely guarded by the Turkish army.
Forty years ago Maria’s home was abandoned when the family fled the invading Turkish forces – sewing was left half-finished on the kitchen table, food abandoned to rot in cupboards, jewellery to languish in drawers and clothes in wardrobes, gardens to overgrow. It was a state of affairs repeated thousands of times over in Famagusta as 40,000 Greek Cypriot residents were forced to flee with only the clothes on their backs.
In the summer of 1974, Maria was a teenage schoolgirl preoccupied with boys, pop music and dreams of being an artist. Her parents Eleni and George were both independently wealthy and the family lived in a beautiful home with orange groves tended by gardeners. Her mother owned several properties and her father had a job in a bank in addition to being a prominent orange grower. Greek and Turkish Cypriots worked alongside each other in the many hotels and businesses in Famagusta; there were very good relations between the two communities, with mutual respect for each other’s customs and religions.
For three months every year, Maria and her two elder brothers, Giannis and Costas, spent every day on the beach. The boys went to the local discos and had plenty of girlfriends and every Sunday there was a family outing, often to the Ancient Greek city of Salamis. Famagusta is an eerily abandoned ghost town in Cyprus
Photo of: Maria today with Victoria Hislop in Famagusta
Maria leafs through her photograph album, full of pictures of carefree summer days on the sands of Famagusta and of the grand school parades that were a typical part of town life. ‘I had a lovely life as a teenager. I was always protected. I was innocent and naive, but I went out to discos and parties, mostly with Costas as my chaperone,’ she recalls.
Politics abruptly shattered the peace of island life. On 15 July, the Greek military junta staged a coup in Cyprus, deposing President Makarios. Within days the Turkish government responded by sending troops to the island to ‘protect’ Turkish Cypriots. They landed at Kyrenia, 50 miles north of Famagusta. Maria watched the invasion on television. ‘It seemed far away, as though it was in another country,’ she recalls. Soon people who had fled from Kyrenia began to arrive in the capital Nicosia, and word spread of what they had witnessed. ‘We heard that civilians had been killed and women raped. People were anxious for their daughters. I heard that one of my schoolfriends was raped and killed.’
The refugees from Kyrenia needed clothes and blankets. Eleni gave most of her daughter’s clothes away. ‘We were wealthy – we were in a good position. I had never realised how fortunate we were until we became refugees ourselves.’
Photo of: Maria at the heavily graffiti'd border wall near her home in Nicosia
Famagusta’s hotels were evacuated and by the end of July all tourists had left. The Famagustians still believed it was just a matter of time before life went back to normal. A visit from her brother Costas, who was serving in the Greek army, made Maria decidedly uneasy for the first time. ‘He asked my mother to change the buttons on his uniform. He was worried that the Turkish troops would see him in the dark because of their shine and shoot him, so she painted them black. Later, Costas and I went for a walk along the main street of Famagusta and he turned to me and said, “Maybe it’s the last time I’ll be here.” Then he left.’
Hope for an end to the conflict came in the form of a brief ceasefire in early August, but when negotiations between the two sides broke down, the Turks stepped up their offensive, pushing south – this time with Famagusta in their sights.
One day in early August, Maria heard the sound of Turkish bombers overhead. ‘I was at home with my mother and my aunt was sewing – she would often make me pretty dresses. We had no basement of our own, so we ran to the end of the garden where there was a house with a cellar. We hadn’t quite made it when more planes came overhead. They were very low – shooting and dropping bombs. We ran and lay under the trees and eventually managed to get to the basement.’
The planes came back many times over the next few days but Maria’s mother kept a normal routine going to keep their minds off the situation.
On 14 August, however, events took a dramatic turn. ‘It was three o’clock in the afternoon and I was at home with my parents when the phone rang. A neighbour had heard that Turkish tanks were only four miles away and told us to leave immediately. My mother, always decisive, understood the danger and shouted: “The tanks are coming – we have to go. Get in the car. Now!”
Photo of: Restricted areas of the 'Green Line'
‘We climbed into my father’s blue Volvo with just the clothes we were wearing and headed for Agia Napia. The streets were surprisingly quiet.’
They found refuge in a house owned by an acquaintance of George’s, spending the night on the floor. The following morning, George announced he was going to drive back to Famagusta to retrieve some of their belongings. ‘It was supposed to be supplies for the few days we imagined we would be away,’ says Maria. ‘I wrote a long list of what I wanted him to bring. He made me choose the four things I wanted most, in case the bombing started again and it wasn’t safe for him to stay.’
I never realised how fortunate we were until we became refugees
She chose some clothes, the family photo albums (‘so I could be back in Famagusta in my mind’), the diary of Dostoyevsky that she was midway through reading and her tape recorder ‘so I could listen to music’.
Her father’s visit was brief – the continued bombing made it too dangerous to linger. He did manage to bring back Maria’s favourite things as well as her shoes (some of them odd, as he hurriedly grabbed what he could), some clothes for them all and thin mattresses to sleep on.
After two nights, they drove 15 miles further west to Ormidia. ‘A kind, rich man had opened up his house and large garden to 250 refugees. We slept outside under the orange trees while women with babies and small children stayed in the house. My father and a few others organised everyone; there was a rota for the shower and rations of bread and other food. I helped the women with children. We were like frightened birds. Our happiness had been snatched away.
‘All the time, my mother was worrying about my brother. She hardly ate and kept her emotions hidden. She sat in the car and listened to the radio as names were read out of people searching for each other, but there was no word of Costas. Whenever a Greek Cypriot army truck passed through the village she and the other women would ask the soldiers for news of their sons.’ Their eldest son Giannis was out of danger as he was finishing his master’s degree in Czechoslovakia.
Photo of: Maria aged four and her brother Costas with their father George; right, aged 14 with Costas and Giannis
‘Eventually we received news that Costas had been in touch with a cousin in Limassol. He was alive!’ Maria and her parents were taken in by the cousin and her family, sharing a room with Maria’s nephew. They still believed that they would return home soon; but after five months it dawned on them it was going to take longer.
The fighting had lasted only for three days. But the Turks had created a front (known as the Green Line) across the middle of the island, separating north from south. Famagusta was behind barbed wire; Maria’s home was now unreachable.
George sold all his shares in the Cyprus Bank. Costas went to Germany to study and the family decided to rent a place of their own.
‘We had nothing: no furniture, no clothes, and my father along with thousands of others queued up at the Red Cross to get us tins of food.
‘It was my last academic year and I enrolled in a local school in Limassol, which had been untouched by the war. In my class, only three of us were refugees. Most of my classmates were very kind to us. However, for them life still went on as if nothing had happened.’
Photo of: Turkish troops on the road to Famagusta
With no money to buy a uniform, Maria had to make do with clothes sent by the Red Cross. ‘Of course my uniform was different from everyone else’s. I’ll never forget that winter; I had one pair of ankle socks and one day they were still wet from being washed so my mother gave me her stockings. The teacher was very mean and asked me why. She ordered me to go to the Red Cross to get another pair of socks. I felt so humiliated.’
From being a prominent member of the business community in Famagusta, Maria’s father now had to start from scratch. ‘As refugees, we felt we were outsiders in our country. We didn’t have any of the things that other people had. Until the invasion, my father was so happy. He would say, “Our grandchildren can live from this property.” Now he was working as a gardener.’
George had always supported Maria’s desire to go to the UK to study art. But now the family faced a different future. ‘He said to me, “You have to study something so that you can stand on your own feet. We don’t have money for you. Law is a good idea.” I made sure that I passed all my exams and went to Thessaloniki to study law. My mother, who had never had to work before, took a job in a children’s clothing factory so that she could send me money.’
Photo of: Greek refugees heading South
The events of 1974 have had a deep and lasting influence on Maria. In August this year on the 40th anniversary, she took me back to the beach where the crumbling hotels behind the rusting barbed wire still cast their shadows across the sand. Nature has reclaimed the area; plants have taken root in cracks in the walls.
The whole of Famagusta is occupied by the Turkish army and a part has been sealed off so nobody may enter. Since 2003, when the Turks opened up the barricades, people like Maria have been permitted to cross in order to see their homes, but the experience is a painful one. Maria’s family home has been taken over by Turkish settlers and all the trees in the family’s orange grove cut down.
In spite of the 1984 UN Security Council resolution calling for the return of Famagusta to its lawful inhabitants, the Turkish army and successive Turkish governments have refused to do so. The Security Council has also declared attempts to resettle any part of Varosha inadmissible and the once vibrant tourist area remains entirely sealed off.
As we walk along the white sand close to the wire that keeps us out of Varosha, Turkish soldiers watch us suspiciously from a sentry box, shouting aggressively at us to stop taking photographs.
Photo of: Maria and Victoria in Famagusta, among derelict hotels. Despite four decades of UN-monitored partition, Maria is an optimist
It’s the place of so many of Maria’s childhood memories and I can see that her emotions are taking her over. ‘I feel like a teenager here,’ she says. The air, the water, the sand beneath her feet are the same, but the sight of derelict buildings is almost incomprehensible. ‘There is a huge conflict between what I see and what I feel. The land where I was brought up is my land and I want to stay.’
I feel like a teenager here. This is where I was brought up and I want to stay
Still, Maria does not dwell on the negative: ‘It’s in my nature to be optimistic.’ Like Maria, her brothers have built successful lives; Costas is a neurologist and psychiatrist and Giannis runs an international business. Her father died seven years ago and her mother lives alone in Limassol. Their lives were never the same again.
‘In my life I have had periods with lots of money and periods with nothing. I see that material things don’t bring happiness. Happiness for me depends on other things: to have freedom of thinking, to be near to nature, to the sea and the beach, to be with very good friends, to feel kindness, to see life with a sense of humour and to have a balance between work and pleasure. Art and culture are very important to me. They can lift your heart and mind to a different level. Being with my daughter gives me great joy too, as if I see another planet system full of bright stars. My family gives me great strength. But I will only be filled with happiness if the two divided parts of my country and my life were reunited.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/art ... -1974.html
I'm going to get a copy!
