A popular image of modern Greece is of glittering, blue seas dotted with islands of idyllic beauty. Another is of the ancient Acropolis towering above Athens, cradle of Western civilisation. But when I think of Greece, I also think of its violent and traumatic history, in particular the series of wars and conflicts throughout the first half of the 20th century that left the country in ruins.
In quick succession, events such as the Greek Genocide, the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the second world war and the Greek Civil War inflicted untold damage on the country, decimating the population through death and mass migration. Amongst those who fled their homeland were my parents. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Greeks, they migrated to Australia in the wake of this relentless turmoil.
