Nick Voutsakis

Nick Voutsakis

This photograph was taken of my family in Mytilini, Greece in April, 1926, just days before my grandparent’s wedding. My great grandparents Vasilios and Aspasia Narlis are sitting while my paternal grandparents Fotios (with the bow-tie) and Kokoni Narlis Voutsakis are standing along with her siblings. Everyone hailed from the Asia Minor city of Maditos, where my great grandfather ran a successful furniture manufacturing business in the late 1800’s. Like many Greeks, my paternal and maternal grandparents fled Asia Minor under duress from the Turks. My great grandparents and their children fled Maditos for Mytilini in 1908. Forced to serve in the Turkish Army, my grandfather Fotios escaped from Asia Minor in 1913 to live in Alexandria, Egypt before coming to The Bronx, New York for a better life in 1922. This photograph was taken 4 years later when he returned to Mytilini for an arranged marriage to my grandmother. They were believed to be fourth cousins. Upon returning to Greece in 1935, my grandmother was ultimately stranded alone with my Father in Athens where in 1940-41 during the Nazi occupation of World War II approximately 300,000 Greeks died of starvation. They survived and returned to reunite with my grandfather in New York. This and many other photographs, as well as interviews I’ve conducted with my parents, are a treasure. They have spawned my curiosity and extensive genealogical research over the years. At the same time, this photograph haunts me, leaving so many unanswered questions about who these people were and the hard life they experienced.

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