WEBVTT

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Τhe first shot is fired at 8 in the evening.

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Huge flames rise from the centre of the town.

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Among the wounded, 80-year-old women, shot by rifles.

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A 70 year-old lies on the street
paralysed from the beatings she's received.

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All these houses here were Greek.

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They left their clay pots behind.

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Behind one of those clay pots,
my mom found a dozen or so bracelets.

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They threw them away whilst fleeing.

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Faced with these strategically placed enemies
(our ungrateful minorities
who served evil, foreign interests)

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one could not speak of real independence
unless the agents of betrayal were nullified.

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During those tumultuous, difficult, and bloody years,

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my grandfather sheltered thirty Greeks,
mostly vulnerable women and children,

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inside the top of his own house.

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My grandfather used to say they got along
with the Turks. They had no problems.

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Only when things got rough "at the top"
would things turn nasty on the ground too.

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They were friendly with the Turks.
They lived side by side.

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My dad had friends who were Greek.
They weren't neighbours, but they were friends.

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They used to wrestle down in the fields.
They had a good friendship.

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But then some sort of conflict happened here,
by the İngiliz Burnu promontory,

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and Greeks and Turks were at each other's throats.

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In 1992 we set out (for Foça),
filled with fear.

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But thankfully Nihat Dirim picked up the phone
on the Turkish side

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and said "Hoş Geldiniz!",
please come!

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They threw banquets for us, the older Turks
sang with the Greeks old Turkish songs,

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songs they sang in the old days...

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What we experienced from this new generation of Turks,

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is what my grandmother used to describe too.

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We've the same culture, the same food,
the same songs, the same coasts.

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I hope one day we'll learn to live together.