Doc shines light on the overlooked Greek female Gastarbeiter
In post-civil war Greece of the 1950s and 1960s, poverty plagued the populace and migration seemed like the only path to a better life for many Greeks. Among the destinations was Germany, which had entered into an agreement with Greece to import migrant workers for its factories. These were the so-called Gastarbeiter, or guest workers from other countries, with uncertain durations of stay, as most of them intended to stay for short amounts of time to earn money and then return to their homeland.
Within these migratory waves there existed a group that remained largely invisible: that of the female Gastarbeiter. These were women mainly from northern Greece (but not exclusively), where agricultural jobs were scarce. In the early 1960s, these women found themselves embarking on a long journey from northern Greece to West Germany; they traveled by bus to Piraeus; there, they boarded the Kolokotronis, which took them to Italy, from where they then boarded a train with Stuttgart or other German cities as their final destination. Designated individuals awaited them at each station to guide them to the surrounding towns and villages in housing, the ‘heim,’ near the factories, where five or six women would live together.
Due to their small and delicate hands, women were preferred for jobs in factories involving stockings, porcelain, electronics and so forth. Despite being a significant labor force, history has somewhat overlooked them under the trifecta of woman-immigrant-illiterate. Some Gasterbeiter left for Germany of their own accord, but not all. Most of them had heartbreaking stories of being forced to leave on their own because their spouses were held back due to political affiliations. Others left their children behind, and some took only one of their children, leaving the other/s with grandparents and relatives. They all lived between two realities, two countries, two languages, existing in the void between the life they left behind and the one they built there.
Director Kostoula Tomadaki traces the Greek female Gastarbeiter in her documentary “Mother of the Station” by delving into oral history where conventional history falls short. She searched and found the women themselves, their children and even the later generations who migrated to Germany, up to the last migration wave that started in 2010 during the deep financial crisis.
It all started with a memory from her childhood years. Back then, when Tomadaki used to spend summers at her mother’s village just outside Kalavryta, in the northern Peloponnese, she had observed that many children stayed with their grandparents as their parents loaded their cars to leave for Germany. “I couldn’t understand with my childish mind how mothers could leave their children until the next summer and I struggled even more to understand how mothers left for a country with which we had a war just a few years back,” Tomadaki remembers.
Several decades later, around 2011, against the backdrop of the financial crisis, she came across an advertisement by a Munich hospital seeking Greek doctors. She contacted the hospital to find out that there was already a high demand from Greek doctors who wished to immigrate and work in the German city. The director then began to search for archival material, such as films and television shows about migration in the 1960s. And while she found many stories about men, she found little information on Greek immigrant women.
‘These women wanted to tell their stories. They want the world to know what happened in Germany during those years and how their children grew up’
Thus began five years of research during which the director engaged in conversations with close to 100 women, including migrants from the first, second and third generations who relocated to Germany, as well as their children. Tomadaki visited these women in their current Greek hometowns, aiming to establish a rapport and encourage them to share their often traumatic experiences. She then selected the most representative stories which comprise the narrative for “Mother of the Station.”
“What I found was that these women wanted to tell their stories,” Tomadaki added. “They want the world to know what happened in Germany during those years and how their children grew up.”
Alongside the stories of the mothers, the Gastarbeiter, stand those of their children, often called the “suitcase children,” who endured a continuous back-and-forth between Germany and Greece. Their stories are often as powerful as those of their mothers.
Some embarked on a journey from Istanbul to Munich, without a ticket, in their mothers’ wombs. Some were parted from their siblings, while others remained in Greece and spoke with their parents over the village payphone, where their conversations were overheard by everyone, leaving them devoid of any privacy. Some were so young that they had not yet grasped the concepts of time or borders, only becoming aware of their return to Greece when they could no longer see Volkswagen Beetles on the streets.
Among the dozens of women whom Tomadaki spoke to, among the mothers and the daughters of different generations and migration backgrounds, she found a common thread: “They embody immense strength and they all wanted a better world for their children.” As their stories unfold in the documentary, their strength and resilience become increasingly evident. Throughout her research, engaging in face-to-face conversations, Tomadaki was profoundly moved, inevitably fostering empathy toward their experiences.
“It is so important to acknowledge that even in modern times, entire nations are uprooted, and those who manage to survive often seek to immigrate,” she remarks. Perhaps that’s why the documentary resonates not only with the poignant Greek narrative of exile but also transcends borders. Besides its screening at the 25th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival last year, it has featured in festivals worldwide, spanning from the US to India and from Australia to Colombia.
Amid the entire odyssey of the Greek Gastarbeiter, it could very well have been the power of song that sustained them.
Despina Bamiatzi reminisces about the bus ride from Serres to Athens, the first stage of their journey to Germany, where she and her sister sang incessantly. During challenging moments, they found solace in their bouzouki and gatherings, even after being thousands of kilometers away from their homeland. Agapi Artzanidou recalls the dances, laughter and friends. “But now, we cannot sing,” she laments. “I sing alone, but who hears me? Nobody,” she adds, her voice trembling, before softly beginning to sing “Sinnefiasmeni Kyriaki” (Cloudy Sunday).
“Mother of the Station” will be screened at 8.30 p.m. on the first day of a festival organized by Community Filmmakers and Reporters United dedicated to women in documentary filmmaking in Greece, on May 16 & 17, at Romantso (3 Anaxagora) in downtown Athens.
