“What do you mean ‘a system’?” Anetta Karathanasi was amused that I thought someone was managing the refugees pouring out of the morning ferries arriving at the port of Piraeus from the Greek isles. I had arrived early last Saturday morning as refugees disembarked from the Lesbos ferry. In the predawn darkness, hundreds of people stood in the rain, groggy and confused, as a few young Greeks handed out pink ponchos. Other refugees trudged toward Passenger Terminal No. 5 — but sleeping refugees already filled the room.
Last summer, Ms. Karathanasi went on vacation on the island of Samos and was startled to find refugees sleeping outdoors. She started a Facebook page, Help Samos Refugees, and money and volunteers unexpectedly followed. She joined other Greek volunteers at Piraeus to become, more or less, the refugee greeting committee. “We were running from terminal to terminal with milk and tea,” she said. Different aid organizations now deliver meals, though sometimes there are scheduling breakdowns. “Then we are calling 10 mothers and 10 grandmothers,” Ms. Karathanasi said.
Just as many ordinary Germans rallied to help refugees in Germany last year (even as their arrival also set off a backlash), ordinary Greeks have also responded. In Idomeni, an elderly man parked his car and handed out candy, food and diapers. A pro-refugee rally in Athens brought a deluge of donations in a city where many people have lost their jobs. An occupational therapist, Ms. Karathanasi said her hardest job was persuading refugees to forget about Idomeni and instead take shelter in one of the government camps proliferating across Greece.
“They think the camps are detention centers,” Ms. Karathanasi said. “They get out of the camps and come back to the port.”
At not yet 7 a.m., I followed Ms. Karathanasi to Passenger Terminal 3. Families were sprawled on the floor as the police took two refugees to the station. They were filing a complaint against a travel agency that had sold them bus tickets to Idomeni, even though the bus did not exist. Inside, a grandmother in a head scarf rocked a crying toddler as children played with a donated dollhouse. I stepped between people on the floor, and a man looked up. “Doctor?” he asked, showing me his leg, wrapped sloppily in gauze. Another man displayed his grossly swollen ankle. A young woman with red-rimmed eyes held a baby beneath a blanket.
“Where is the doctor?” she asked. Dazed, I sat on the floor beside a woman in a burqa as she carefully folded her children’s clothes. She had fled the devastated Syrian city of Aleppo with her husband and six children. She knew the Macedonian border was closed. She did not care. “I go to Germany,” she said in broken English, “to save my children.”
Just as many ordinary Germans rallied to help refugees in Germany last year (even as their arrival also set off a backlash), ordinary Greeks have also responded. In Idomeni, an elderly man parked his car and handed out candy, food and diapers. A pro-refugee rally in Athens brought a deluge of donations in a city where many people have lost their jobs. An occupational therapist, Ms. Karathanasi said her hardest job was persuading refugees to forget about Idomeni and instead take shelter in one of the government camps proliferating across Greece.
“They think the camps are detention centers,” Ms. Karathanasi said. “They get out of the camps and come back to the port.”
At not yet 7 a.m., I followed Ms. Karathanasi to Passenger Terminal 3. Families were sprawled on the floor as the police took two refugees to the station. They were filing a complaint against a travel agency that had sold them bus tickets to Idomeni, even though the bus did not exist. Inside, a grandmother in a head scarf rocked a crying toddler as children played with a donated dollhouse. I stepped between people on the floor, and a man looked up. “Doctor?” he asked, showing me his leg, wrapped sloppily in gauze. Another man displayed his grossly swollen ankle. A young woman with red-rimmed eyes held a baby beneath a blanket.
“Where is the doctor?” she asked. Dazed, I sat on the floor beside a woman in a burqa as she carefully folded her children’s clothes. She had fled the devastated Syrian city of Aleppo with her husband and six children. She knew the Macedonian border was closed. She did not care. “I go to Germany,” she said in broken English, “to save my children.”
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