AEK means refugee and refugee means untold pain, but also infinite strength. Power for life and creation. The 100th anniversary of the Istanbul Athletic Union is not just a celebration, it is a universal message to the people who are forced to be uprooted to this day. Because the most optimistic messages are born out of absolute sorrow...
«The mother hid her face in her hands and cried. Then she lifted the little one from the cradle, made a bogo and as soon as it was quiet, she took me and we left. Wall by wall, door by door, we reached with myriad precautions the cemetery hiding-place - made for such hours.
Once we were in the half-dark wet catacomb, which had a family tomb for an entrance, we saw many people kneeling and praying quietly. No one was speaking, no one was breathing. They made some space for us to stand. Our baby moaned in pain and soon began to cry loudly. The mother rocked him, gave him her empty breast to suckle, kissed his little eyes, forehead, hair, put her woolen shawl on his tummy, rubbed his little feet to warm them. «My splash! My little heart, my child!» she would say to him and look around at the furious world as if asking for help. «We'll be betrayed for a baby!» some cried. «Aphonies, hasn't anyone got aphonies to water it?» Then there was a hoarse voice: «Drown it! Drown it! What are you waiting for?»
The mother backpedaled, terrified, and went and got stuck against the wall. The eyes rolled up and became terrible. She threw the child on her chest, covered him with the blanket. But he was writhing, kicking, shrieking. Then... many hands reached out together to seize it. An old woman in the glen covered his head with a pillow. ’Squeeze it, poor thing,« she said to my mother, ’squeeze it hard so that the crying may be silent. Louder. Still! Still! Still. There... uh... like that!’ She put her own hand on the child and when she pulled it away, the baby's crying stopped forever.» (Excerpt from the book Bloody Bodies by Rev. Sotiriou).
This is how those who managed to escape from the Turks arrived. Today, we honour the memory of these people and celebrate the association they created and through which they found the strength, the mental reserves and the solidarity to rebuild their lives from scratch.
