Thea Halo -- ‘Not Even My Name’ Alison Kenny , Antalya Today's Zaman - 27 December 2010, Monday “It was difficult to reconcile the incredible brutality of a country’s history                                                                                        with the seeming gentleness one finds in its people.”   Two days into her visit to Turkey, this was Thea Halo’s first impression of the country she had brought her 80-year-old mother, Sano, back to. A Pontic Greek from the mountains near the Black Sea, Sano had been taken out of her home at the tender age of 10 and, along with countless other Christians, forced to leave then-Ottoman Anatolia by joining a long march south into exile. For the last 70 years she had suppressed her past, but had finally agreed to make the journey with her daughter, Thea, in search of a village in the mountains, the name and position of which was only a vague memory. “Not Even My Name” is a powerful, emotive, thoughtful and informative account of an ordinary but remarkably resilient individual whose life was turned upside down by the vagaries of history. Although the expulsion of the Pontic Greeks in the early 20th century can be an uncomfortable topic for many Turks, anything which sheds light on the forces that have helped form the character of the Turkish people has to be of interest to those of us who have chosen to settle here. Thea Halo The author, Thea Halo, was born in New York in 1942. She was the eighth of 10 children born to Sano and Abraham. Sano was Greek and Abraham an Assyrian. Both were exiles from their countries of origin. Thea grew up in America in a close family environment with an awareness of her family history but without the knowledge or understanding that she began to realize was necessary in order to achieve a sense of belonging. She became firstly a painter, with several exhibitions to her name, and then a writer of essays, poetry and finally her book “Not Even My Name,” published in 2000 when her mother was 90. Since the publication of this book, she has gone on to campaign through research, talks and conferences for recognition of the plight of the Pontic Greeks. The Kingdom of Pontus The independent Kingdom of Pontus was firmly established after Alexander’s death by Mithridates as a successful commercial and educational center. Christianity was embraced from around A.D. 312 and the city of Byzantium became the Christian Roman Empire. The area continued to be ruled by Greek feudal lords and over the years survived attacks from Selçuk Turks, Tamerlane and the Ottoman Turks. From 1840, Hellenism flourished in the area, as is evident from the large number of Greek schools and churches built during this period. ‘Not Even My Name’ The title refers to the loss Thea’s mother experienced -- of her family, her home, her culture, her way of life, her history and even her name. It also, Thea came to realize, epitomizes the loss of the name “Pontic Greeks.” The family to whom she was given by her mother when she was 10 years old was unable to pronounce her real name, Themia, and therefore renamed her Sano. All she carried with her over the years were her memories. Memories were Thea’s entrance to her own and her mother’s past. Her journey from village girl to teenage bride to mother of 10 children living in New York is both remarkable and heartwarming. The book starts with Thea and her mother’s arrival in Ankara. Although an experienced traveler, she had never before been to Turkey. For her mother it was the first time back to her birth country in nearly 70 years. They travelled by bus through Turkey towards their presumed destination, stopping first in Amasya. Here they met Harry, another exiled Pontic Greek hoping to find his childhood village, and Ali, the owner of a pension. Both joined the mother and daughter on their quest. Their first impressions of Turkey seem to be of the depth of beauty and history to be found everywhere they looked and of the incredible hospitality and kindness from the people they encounter. Thea and Sano had already tried unsuccessfully to find the tiny Greek village of her past on maps but were prepared to set off to the area in the hope of using local knowledge to help their search. However, Harry, it turns out, had also been researching the location of Greek villages in the area and was able to show the position on his map of three crosses indicating the three villages her mother remembered. He pointed out that the real name for the village Sano called Iondone was in fact, Ayios Antonius -- hence their confusion. The book then tells Sano’s story from her childhood until the present day. Her transition from Turkey to America and the juxtaposition of rural to city life are extraordinary. Her story encapsulates the huge change from pastoral and primitive mountain village to living in apartments in downtown New York. The memories are real but the story is embellished with just enough imaginary detail to engage the reader and make the story accessible without slipping into the realms of sentimentality. The picture of rural life includes examples of Turks and Greeks living and working side by side. But gradually the idyllic charm of village life changed and in 1917 “strangers began to inhabit the fields and forests, always watching from a distance like birds of prey.” Her father was taken to a slave labor camp but managed to escape. Finally, in 1920, Turkish soldiers announced the orders of Mustafa Kemal -- “You are to leave this place. You are to take with you only what you can carry.” They were given just three days to prepare for their exile. So began an enforced march towards Syria of somewhere between 200,000 and 1 million Pontic Greeks from an area they had inhabited for some 2,500 years. The book vividly captures the horror, starvation and cruelty experienced by the Greeks. Sano’s younger twin sisters, like so many others, died en route, and, with no time allowed for proper burials, their bodies were unceremoniously abandoned by the roadside. The family eventually escaped from the march and joined other Greeks hiding in a church in Karabahçe. From here, desperation drove Sano’s mother to give Sano to an Assyrian family, which spoke Arabic, living in a nearby village. While Sano was living here, both her mother and elder sister died and she lost contact with her father and brother. The cruelty of the mother of this family eventually drove Sano to run away to Diyarbakır in search of an Armenian family she knew. Together with this family she escaped to Syria, where, aged 15, she was sold as a bride to an American Assyrian three times her age. From here she moved to New York and Sano became the mother firstly of an 11-year-old step-son and later 10 of her own children. Throughout her life she displayed amazing powers of resilience in the face of more adversity than most of us can scarcely imagine. Understanding Turkey’s past What thoughts does it provoke in the reader and what significance does it have for those of us living in Turkey? For a foreigner to live in this country has many positive aspects and many challenges, but to even begin to feel integrated requires a considerable understanding of the language, culture and history. This book explores and exposes a part of  history not generally made public. Thea’s investigations into the Pontic Greeks did not stop after the publication of this book. She continues to research the subject and frequently takes her mother to conferences. Thea advocates the need for a clear understanding of the events surrounding the “death marches,” but this is not in order to propagate and continue feelings of hatred. Instead, it is to come to terms with the past. Her mother’s view was that “you must put blame where blame belongs, on the Turkish government. If you begin to single out the people of a country, and forget that whatever they did was instigated or sanctioned by the government, you will then never get rid of the hatred.” Both Thea and her mother felt a sense of completion and release with their visit to her homeland and their investigation into the events that led to her exile. The events before, during and just after World War I, in which many thousands of “non Turkish” people were killed or exiled, are an important part of Turkey’s history and one which remains topical and crucial to Turkey’s place in Europe and the rest of the world. This book along with many others, for example Louis de Bernieres’ “Birds Without Wings,” is therefore a small but significant step towards this process. The need for a mutual understanding of different “tribes” of both nationality and religion to co-exist and interact positively is as relevant today as in Sano’s time. Sano’s memories provide a personal account of the horrors of forced migration and exile, free from a political angle and one which allows us to come to our own conclusions. The book provides an excellent balance of one woman’s story interspersed with historical detail.