From Refugees to Guardians of the Borders

Abstract This chapter brings to the forefront descendants of refugees from Asia Minor, Pontus, and Eastern Thrace in the region of Central Macedonia in northern Greece, elucidating the breadth and the heterogeneity of the refugee history, memory, and identity. It focuses on ninety-two oral testimonies, in addition to familial, associational, and archival evidence derived from various regions ranging from metropolitan cities to border-crossing villages. It explores the heterogeneity of the Asia Minor forced displacement, the varying intensities of the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories as well as their imprint on identities. In the case of Central Macedonia, competing claimants emerge between the various Asia Minor groups, as well as between them, and the native population, and subsequent migrants. Geography comes to the forefront, and in the borderland villages of Central Macedonia, Asia Minor descendants become guardians of Greece’s northern borders, and their identification is transmuted from refugees to settlers.