Municipal Park of Unforgettable Homelands

The Asia Minor Catastrophe was a Greek tragedy perhaps unique in the history of the Greek nation. The black page of the disaster was written with the collapse of the Asia Minor Front, the burning of Smyrna, the massacres, looting and other atrocities against the Greeks, the martyrdom marches of prisoners and hostages, the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Armenians and the refugee of 1.500.000 people who came to Greece as refugees. 400,000 came from Asia Minor, 250,000 from Eastern Thrace and the rest from Western Asia Minor and Cappadocia. In the following years after the post-colonization, an intense activity of the refugee associations is observed, with the most active of the Pontiacs who are organizing, the second generation is now stepping on its feet and creating the conditions for the preservation of memory. In 1994, the Greek state recognized by law the Genocide of the Greeks of Pontus and the establishment of May 19 as a day of remembrance, as well as the corresponding recognition of September 14 as a national day of remembrance of the Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turkish state are the first great victories of collective memory. The refugee world of Greece and the diaspora, with its organizations and associations, functions as a rescue ark of historical memory. The lost homelands are and will remain unforgettable.