Our family › The Ikarian refugees: sources
Last modified: 11 October 2026
Where to read, watch and listen to the story of the Ikarians who fled famine and occupation in small boats to Turkey, and on to the camps of the Middle East and Africa: among them my mother's cousin, Antigoni Romiliou.
Between 1941 and 1944 some 30,000 Greeks, most of them islanders from the eastern Aegean, escaped across the narrow sea to the Turkish coast. From there they were sent on to refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Cyprus and East Africa. About 2,000 or more came from Ikaria, which was devastated by the famine of 1941–42. From Antigoni's own village of Arethousa, some 120 of its 364 people left, almost a third.
The sources are almost all in Greek. For each one I give the title in Greek and in English, and a short account of what it contains. The Greek words that recur are explained in the glossary at the end.
Antigoni Romiliou: “How I became a war refugee in 1942: the journey to the Middle East”
Α. Ρωμυλίου: «Πώς έγινα πρόσφυγας πολέμου το 1942 – το ταξίδι στη Μ. Ανατολή»
Interview by Nasos Bratsos, ertnews.gr (ERT, the Greek state broadcaster), 3 September 2016. Her escape from Arethousa by rowing boat from the cove of Avlakas, the landing at Vromolimniona, then Çeşme, Aleppo, Haifa, Moses Wells, Gaza, and service as a nurse with the Greek army until 1945. English text on this site.
Ioannis Th. Tsantes: “The teacher of the refugee children in the Middle East, 1944–1945”
Ι. Τσαντές: «Ο δάσκαλος των προσφυγόπουλων στη Μέση Ανατολή το 1944–1945»
Extracts presented by Nasos Bratsos, ertnews.gr, 7 September 2016, from Tsantes’s book Chronicle of the Occupation of Ikaria 1940–1944 (Χρονικό κατοχής της Ικαρίας 1940–1944, published by Mavridis). Tsantes (1903–1977), a schoolmaster from Karavostamo, describes the height of the famine in 1942, the night walks to the hidden coves, his own landing near Alatsata, and “our boatmen”. He tells how the boatman Petros Fantaoutsos of Plomari, the man who rowed Antigoni across, escaped the Italians disguised as a woman. He taught refugee children at Nuseirat in Gaza and at Moses Wells.
Makis Kavouriaris: “A war refugee at the age of four: the ‘odyssey’ of 1942”
«Πρόσφυγας πολέμου σε ηλικία 4 ετών: Ο πανεπιστημιακός Μάκης Καβουριάρης περιγράφει την ‘οδύσσεια’ του 1942»
Interview by Nasos Bratsos, ertnews.gr, 6 September 2016. His uncle Stefanos Kavouriaris brought the Allied call to escape, landing from a submarine, as Antigoni remembered. The family crossed from the cove of Voudokokalo to Çeşme and Smyrna, then went on to Moses Wells, where his little brother Stathis died.
Ilias Kaiafas: “From Ikaria to Tanganyika in 1942”
«Το προσφυγικό ταξίδι του Ηλία Καϊάφα – Από την Ικαρία στη Ταγκανίκα το 1942»
Interview by Nasos Bratsos, republished by Ikariaki Radio, 5 May 2025. A seven-year-old from Karavostamo, rowed across in March 1942 by the boatman Raptis under fire from an Italian post. He spent months at Çeşme, then four years in camps in Tanganyika, East Africa, and came home at Easter 1946.
“Ikarian refugees in the Middle East: refugee flows, escape, settlement”
«Ικαριώτες πρόσφυγες στη Μέση Ανατολή: Προσφυγικά ρεύματα, φυγάδευση, εγκατάσταση»
From The Arethousa (Η Αρέθουσα), the history and folklore bulletin of Arethousa, no. 21, December 2024, republished by Ikariaki Radio, 22 January 2025; material supplied by Vasilis Tsapaliaris. The fullest short account:
Nasos Bratsos, Aegean Island Refugees in the Second World War (Turkey – Middle East – Africa – Cyprus)
Νάσος Μπράτσος, Αιγαιοπελαγίτες πρόσφυγες στο Β′ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο (Τουρκία – Μέση Ανατολή – Αφρική – Κύπρος), 2017; second, enlarged edition by 2019. The standard work, drawing on hundreds of testimonies. Notice of the book.
Ioannis Th. Tsantes, Chronicle of the Occupation of Ikaria 1940–1944
Ιωάννης Θ. Τσαντές, Χρονικό κατοχής της Ικαρίας 1940–1944, Mavridis (date to be confirmed). An eyewitness chronicle by an Ikarian schoolmaster who was himself a refugee. Extracts are on ertnews.gr (above).
Antigoni Romiliou, Taram-Boura: The Birth of a Hero
Αντιγόνη Ρωμυλίου, Ταράμ-Μπουρά: Η γέννηση ενός ήρωα, Notios Anemos (South Wind). A novel about a young Ikarian who escapes through Turkey to the Middle East and joins the Foreign Legion. Review by Elena Chousni, Ikariaki Radio, 2012. Her second book is Sofia (Σοφία).
Christos Giogos, Approaches to the History of Ikaria, 1941–1949
Χρήστος Γιώγος, Προσεγγίσεις της ιστορίας της Ικαρίας 1941–1949, doctoral thesis, Panteion University, Athens, 2020. Free to read online after registering: didaktorika.gr.
Ikarian Refugees in the Second World War
Ικαριώτες πρόσφυγες στον Β′ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο, ERT1, 2019. Research and presentation by Nasos Bratsos; directed by Petros Toumpis. Part 1 (shown 10 August 2019) includes Antigoni among its nine witnesses, as a “war refugee and military nurse in the Middle East”. Part 2 was withdrawn from the schedule in October 2019. ERT press release; Part 1 is reported to be on YouTube.
Visit of King of Greece to Greek Refugee Camp. Imperial War Museum film of King George II at Moses Wells, 30 April 1943: the tents, the hospital, and the children. IWM record.
North Aegean Modern History: Ikaria (in English): the famine under Italian occupation, with starvation deaths village by village, including 38 at Arethousa.
Middle East Relief and Refugee Administration (Wikipedia): the Allied body that ran the camps, including Aleppo, Moses Wells and Nuseirat.
“The Greek refugees who fled to the Middle East in WW2” (ekalexandria.org, after the BBC).
“What it's like inside a refugee camp for Europeans who fled to Syria, Egypt and Palestine” (The World, 2016).
“When European refugees fled to Egypt, 1944”: photographs, from the Library of Congress.
Greek refugees from Moses Wells landing on Samos: photograph, United Nations Archives.
“A Greek Refugee Family from Samos at Moses Wells Encampment”: wartime painting, on Art UK.
| Ικαρία, Ikaria | the island, also spelt Icaria; in the eastern Aegean, west of Samos |
| Αρέθουσα, Arethousa | Antigoni’s village, on the north side of Ikaria; named after a nymph of Greek myth |
| Καραβόσταμο, Karavostamo | neighbouring coastal village; the name means “ship’s stopping place” |
| Χωριούδια, Chorioudia | “the little villages”: the hamlets of Monokambi, Plomari and Miliopo |
| Αύλακας, Avlakas | “the furrow” or “channel”: the hidden cove Antigoni left from |
| Βρωμολιμνιώνας, Vromolimniona | literally “the foul (smelly) sheltered cove” (a limnionas is a small natural harbour): where her boat landed in Turkey |
| Τσεσμές, Tsesmes | Çeşme, the Turkish port opposite Chios, where refugees were registered |
| Αγριλιά / Αγρελιά, Agrilia / Agrelia | “the wild olive”: a landing place in Turkey with a British base |
| Αλάτσατα, Alatsata | Alaçatı, a town on the Çeşme peninsula |
| Σμύρνη, Smyrni | Smyrna, now İzmir |
| Χαλέπι, Chalepi | Aleppo, in Syria |
| Πηγές του Μωυσή, Piges tou Moysi | “the Springs of Moses”: Moses Wells (’Ayun Musa), the refugee camp near Suez |
| Νουσεϊράτ, Nouseirat | Nuseirat, a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip |
| λεμβούχος, lemvouchos | boatman, one who owns or rows a small boat |
| καΐκι, kaiki | caique, a wooden sailing or motor boat |
| φυγάδευση, fygadefsi | smuggling people out, helping them escape |
| προσφυγιά, prosfygia | exile; the state of being a refugee |
| πρόσφυγας πολέμου, prosfygas polemou | war refugee |
| προσφυγόπουλα, prosfygopoula | refugee children |
| προσφυγικό βιβλιάριο, prosfygiko vivliario | refugee booklet, the identity papers each refugee carried |
| Κατοχή, Katochi | the Occupation of Greece, 1941–1944 |
| λιμός, limos | famine |
| γκρα, gra | the old Gras rifle, French-made, of the 1870s |
| ατσίδα, atsida | the local name on Ikaria for the stone marten |
| μπρίκι, briki | small long-handled pot for coffee |
| μπρε, bre | a blunt “hey, you!”, common to Greek and Turkish |
| σύρματα, syrmata | “the wires”: British internment camps for Greek soldiers after the mutinies of 1943–44 |
| Τουρκοκρητικοί, Tourkokritikoi | Turkish Cretans: Muslim Cretans resettled in Turkey in 1923, many of whom still spoke Greek |
| Ταράμ-Μπουρά, Taram-Boura | a meaning to be confirmed: the title of Antigoni’s novel |
| Νότιος Άνεμος, Notios Anemos | “South Wind”, the publisher of her novel |
| ΕΡΤ, ERT | Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi, Greek public radio and television |
Spellings of Greek place names vary between sources, and the transliterations here follow the commonest English forms. The meanings given for place names are their literal sense, not necessarily their origin.
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