Artemis Accords

 

My address at the Artemis Accords Signing Ceremony at the Department of State, Washington, DC, yesterday

https://www.c-span.org/video/?533498-1/secretary-blinken-greek-foreign-minister-participate-artemis-accords-signing-ceremony

The video of the ceremony

Your excellencies, Secretary Blinken and Minister Gerapetritis, 

Administrator Nelson, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, 

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our esteemed hosts for organizing this momentous signing ceremony, which marks the accession of Greece to the Artemis Accords. Here in the illustrious Treaty Room, we gather to celebrate a new chapter in international space cooperation.

On a personal note, please allow me to add that I was delighted to discover the existence of the Benjamin Franklin Room, named after the revered American scientist whose legacy has inspired me since childhood.

The Artemis Accords stand as a beacon of collaboration, offering a roadmap for a future where humanity unites in space exploration, fostering peace and progress. Named after Artemis, the ancient Greek goddess symbolizing the Moon, the Artemis program embodies our collective aspiration to expand the horizons of human exploration and knowledge.

As we embark on this bold endeavor to return astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a sustainable human presence, Greece stands ready to contribute its expertise in space science and engineering. Our vibrant community, with its deep knowledge in space physics, remote sensing, robotics, and space software, eagerly anticipates the opportunity to enrich the Artemis program.

In joining the Artemis Accords, we affirm our commitment to advancing scientific discovery, driving technological innovation, and inspiring future generations of scientists and engineers. Greece is honored to be a part of this international endeavor, and we eagerly anticipate the journey ahead.

Thank you!

Εξοχότατοι κύριοι Υπουργοί, Διοικητή Νέλσον, κυρίες και κύριοι, 

 

    Εκφράζω την ειλικρινή μου ευγνωμοσύνη στους αξιότιμους οικοδεσπότες μας για τη διοργάνωση αυτής της σημαντικής τελετής υπογραφής, η οποία σηματοδοτεί την προσχώρηση της Ελλάδας στις Συμφωνίες Άρτεμις. Εδώ, στην περίφημη Αίθουσα Συνθηκών, συγκεντρωθήκαμε για να γιορτάσουμε ένα νέο κεφάλαιο στη διεθνή διαστημική συνεργασία.

Ως προσωπικό σχόλιο, επιτρέψτε μου να προσθέσω ότι με μεγάλη χαρά ανακάλυψα την ύπαρξη της Αίθουσας Βενιαμίν Φραγκλίνου, που πήρε το όνομά της από τον σεβαστό Αμερικανό επιστήμονα, η κληρονομιά του οποίου με ενέπνευσε από την παιδική μου ηλικία.

Οι Συμφωνίες Άρτεμις στέκουν σαν φάρος συνεργασίας, προσφέροντας ένα οδικό χάρτη για ένα μέλλον όπου η ανθρωπότητα θα είναι ενωμένη στην εξερεύνηση του διαστήματος, προωθώντας την ειρήνη και την πρόοδο. Το πρόγραμμα Άρτεμις, που πήρε το όνομά του από την Άρτεμη, την αρχαιοελληνική θεά που συμβόλιζε τη Σελήνη, ενσαρκώνει τη συλλογική μας φιλοδοξία να διευρύνουμε τους ορίζοντες της ανθρώπινης εξερεύνησης και γνώσης.

Καθώς ξεκινάμε αυτό το τολμηρό εγχείρημα της επιστροφής αστροναυτών στην επιφάνεια της Σελήνης και τη δημιουργία μιας βιώσιμης ανθρώπινης παρουσίας, η Ελλάδα είναι έτοιμη να συνεισφέρει την τεχνογνωσία της στη διαστημική επιστήμη και μηχανική. Η δραστήρια επιστημονική μας κοινότητα, με τις βαθιές γνώσεις της στη διαστημική φυσική, την τηλεπισκόπηση, τη ρομποτική και το διαστημικό λογισμικό, αναμένει με ανυπομονησία την ευκαιρία να συνεισφέρει το πρόγραμμα Άρτεμις.

Με την προσχώρησή μας στη Συμφωνία Artemis, επιβεβαιώνουμε τη δέσμευσή μας να προωθήσουμε τις επιστημονικές ανακαλύψεις, να προωθήσουμε την τεχνολογική καινοτομία και να εμπνεύσουμε τις μελλοντικές γενιές επιστημόνων και μηχανικών. 

Είναι τιμή για την Ελλάδα η συμμετοχή σε αυτό το διεθνές εγχείρημα και αναμένουμε με ανυπομονησία το επικείμενο ταξίδι.

 

Σας ευχαριστώ!

Justice and liberality

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

George Washington

Δολοφονία του Λίνκολν

Για τα 150 χρόνια από τη δολοφονία του Λίνκολν

United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated.

Ο Λίνκολν ήταν ίσως ο πιο ταπεινής καταγωγής ηγέτης μεγάλου κράτους. Γόνος αγροτών, γεννήθηκε σε μια καλύβα στα τότε όρια των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών και η εκπαίδευσή του περιορίστηκε σε 18 μήνες μαθημάτων από πλανόδιους δασκάλους και στην κατ' ιδίαν μελέτη. 

Freedom of speech

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

George Washington [first President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and farmer, born 22 February 1732]

Woodstock

Country Joe McDonald - 45 years Woodstock

Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
Yeah, he's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
Gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Yeah, come on Wall Street, don't be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
'Cause the only good commie is the one that's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, and don't hesitate
To send your sons off before it's too late.
You can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Country Joe MacDonald [I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag, 1965]

Quality

Three young women offer berries to visitors to their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River, near the town of Kirillov, Vlogda Oblast (Russia)

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, 1909

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Henry David Thoreau (American writer and philosopher, 1817-1862)

Controlled human flight

The original 1903 Wright flyer at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC (USA)

110 years ago, on 17 December 1903, the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors and aviation pioneers made the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight near Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina (USA).

Boston Tea Party

1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier: "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor"

240 years Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party (initially referred to by John Adams as "the Destruction of the Tea in Boston") was a nonviolent political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on 16 December 1773. Disguised as American Indians, the demonstrators destroyed the entire supply of tea sent by the East India Company in defiance of the American boycott of tea carrying a tax the Americans had not authorized. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor, ruining the tea. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution. The Tea Party became an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.
From Wikipedia

JFK, 22 November 1963

50 years from JFK's assissination

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on November 22, 1963, while on a political trip to Texas to smooth over factions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally. He was shot once in the upper back and was killed with a final shot to the head. He was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any U.S. president to date.

The grave of JFK in Arlington

The Gettysburg Address

150 years Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate… we can not consecrate… we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us: that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

November 19, 1863 

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

born in 1809 in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky

Shenandoah

Oh, Shenandoah,
I long to see you,
Away you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah,
I long to see you,
Away, I'm bound away,
'cross the wide Missouri.
Oh Shenandoah,
I love your daughter,
Away, you rolling river.
For her I'd cross,
Your roaming waters,
Away, I'm bound away,
'Cross the wide Missouri.
'Tis seven years,
since last I've seen you,
And hear your rolling river.
'Tis seven years,
since last I've seen you,
Away, we're bound away,
Across the wide Missouri.
Oh Shenandoah,
I long to see you,
And hear your rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah,
I long to see you,
Away, we're bound away,
Across the wide Missouri.

Traditional American folk song of uncertain origin, dating at least to the early 19th century
On the occasion of the performance of "Mourning becomes Electra" of Eugene O'Neill at the National Theatre of Greece

Με αφορμή το έργο "Το πένθος ταιριάζει στην Ηλέκτρα" του Γιουτζήν Ο’Νηλ στο Εθνικό Θέατρο (εξαιρετικές ερμηνείες από την Καρυοφυλλιά Καραμπέτη και την Μαρία Πρωτόπαππα)

... και με τον Tom Waits ...

Mountain Meadows massacre - an infamous American massacre

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah

The Mountain Meadows massacre was a series of Mormon attacks on the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah. The attacks culminated on September 11, 1857, with the mass slaughter of the emigrant party by the Iron County district of the Utah Territorial Militia and some local Native Americans.
The wagon train—composed almost entirely of families from Arkansas—was bound for California on a route that passed through the Utah Territory during a turbulent period later known as the Utah War. After arriving in Salt Lake City, the Baker–Fancher party made their way south, eventually stopping to rest at Mountain Meadows. While the emigrants were camped at the meadow, nearby militia leaders, including Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee, made plans to attack the wagon train. The militia, officially called the Nauvoo Legion, was composed of Utah's Mormon settlers (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS Church). Intending to give the appearance of Native American aggression, their plan was to arm some Southern Paiute Native Americans and persuade them to join with a larger party of their own militiamen—disguised as Native Americans—in an attack ...  Click here for the full story

Abraham Lincoln and slavery

22 August 1862 (150 years ago): Lincoln's letter to Horace Greely, editor of the influential New York Tribune. Written during the heart of the Civil War, this is one of Abraham Lincoln's most famous letters. 

"... If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange in 1936

Born 117 years ago (on May 26, 1895) Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work. Lange's best-known picture is "Migrant Mother".

Child allegiance

Photo attributed to Dorothea Lange / US Library of Congress

April 1942: First-graders, some of Japanese ancestry, at the Weill public school, San Francisco, California, pledging allegiance to the United States flag. About 110.000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States were interned in camps called "War Relocation Camps" following the authorization from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942.

Fermi, Pasta, Ulam, and a mysterious lady

Mary Tsingou

Born on 14 October 1928 to a Greek family living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mary Tsingou performed the computations for the first-ever numerical experiment: the famous Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) experiment. 

Tsingou earned her BS in 1951 at the University of Wisconsin and her MS in mathematics in 1955 at the University of Michigan. In 1952, following a suggestion by her advanced differential equations professor, a woman, she applied for a position at Los Alamos National Laboratory. At the time, women were not encouraged to pursue mathematics, but the Korean War had created a shortage of young American men, so staff positions were also offered to young women. She was thus hired, along with a group of recent college graduates, to do hand calculations.

She was initially assigned to Los Alamos's T1 division (T for theoretical), which during World War II had been led by Rudolf Peierls and to which the famous spy Klaus Fuchs belonged. But she quickly moved to the T7 division, led by Nicholas Metropolis, to work on the new computer, the MANIAC I, that no one could program. She and Mary Hunt were the first programmers to start exploratory work on it. The computer was used primarily for weapons-related tasks, but from time to time and mostly during the weekend, the researchers could use it to study physics problems and even to play chess. Tsingou and John Pasta were the first ones to create graphics on the computer, when they considered a problem with an explosion and visualized it on an oscilloscope.

In addition to Pasta, she interacted with Stanislaw Ulam, but she had little contact with Enrico Fermi, who was a professor in Chicago and visited Los Alamos only for short periods. However, she knew Fermi's daughter Nella much better because Nella didn't want to stay with her parents during their visits to Los Alamos. The two young women slept in the same dormitory, while Enrico and Laura Fermi were hosted by their good friends Stan and Françoise Ulam...

Thierry Dauxois ["Fermi, Pasta, Ulam, and a mysterious lady", Physics Today, January 2008]

Για τον προπάτορα του MANIAC, τον ENIAC, και άλλη μια ελληνική παρουσία στον χώρο:
«Από τον ENIAC στα laptop και από τον Nicholas Metropolis στον Nicholas Negroponte – 60 χρόνια από την επανάσταση των κομπιούτερ», Γεωτρόπιο, 346, σελ.70-74, 2 Δεκεμβρίου 2006

The algorithm Mary Tsingou used to code the first numerical experiment. 
Note the date of the Los Alamos report, 5-20-55, at the top right of the figure.

 Courtesy of Mary Tsingou Menzel
 

Germany declares war on USA - 70 years ago

The government of the United States of America, having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany, and having continually been guilty of the most severe provocations toward Germany ever since the outbreak of the European war, brought on by the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, has finally resorted to open military acts of aggression. 
On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States of America publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. 
Acting under this order, American naval vessels have systematically attacked German naval forces since early September 1941. Thus, American destroyers, as for instance, the Greer, the Kearny and the Reuben James, have opened fire on German submarines according to plan. The American Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Knox, himself confirmed that the American destroyers attacked German submarines. 
Furthermore, the naval forces of the United States of America, under order of their government and contrary to international law, have treated and seized German merchant ships on the high seas as enemy ships.
The German government therefore establishes the following facts:  
Although Germany on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States of America during every period of the present war, the government of the United States of America from initial violations of neutrality has finally proceeded to open acts of war against Germany. It has thereby virtually created a state of war.
The government of the Reich consequently breaks off diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that under these circumstances brought about by President Roosevelt, Germany too, as from today, considers herself as being in a state of war with the United States of America.
Germany's Formal Declaration of War Against the United States on 11 December 1941

Japanese American Grocer the day after Pearl Harbor

Picture by Dorothea Lange

A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at 13th and Franklin streets, on December 8, 1941 - the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war.

Pearl Harbor anniversary

Photograph from a Japanese plane of Battleship Row at the beginning of the attack

The attack on Pearl Harbor (called Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters) was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States.
The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four being sunk. Of the eight damaged, six were raised, repaired and returned to service later in the war. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,282 wounded. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 65 servicemen killed or wounded. 
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day (December 8) the United States declared war on Japan. 

The Great Fire and Massacre of Smyrna

Smyrna (Greek: Σμύρνη or Σμύρνα) was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern Izmir, Turkey. While the first site rose to prominence during the Archaic Period as one of the principal ancient Greek settlements in western Anatolia, the second, whose foundation is associated with Alexander the Great, reached metropolitan proportions especially during the period of the Roman Empire, from which time most of the present-day remains date.

The Great Fire of Smyrna is the name commonly given to the fire that ravaged Smyrna starting 13 September 1922 and lasting until 17 September 1922. It occurred four days after the Turkish army regained control of the city on 9 September 1922. Turks systematically burned the city and killed Greek and Armenian inhabitants. There is extensive relevant eyewitness evidence from Western troops sent to Smyrna during the evacuation, foreign diplomats/relief workers based at Smyrna and Turkish sources. The fire mainly affected the Greek quarters of the city, taking many lives. Ethnic cleansing soon followed, resulting in the expulsion of most of the Greeks from the city, ending their 3000 years presence in Smyrna.

George Horton was the U.S. Consul General  of Smyrna who was compelled to evacuate Smyrna on September 13, arriving in Athens on September 14. He published his own account, in 1926, of what happened in Smyrna and included testimony from a number of eye-witnesses and additionally quoted a number of contemporary scholars. Horton noted that it was not till after the Armenian quarter had been cleared by Turkish soldiers that the Turkish soldiers torched a number of houses simultaneously, on September 13, behind the American Inter-Collegiate Institute. Moreover, they waited for the wind to blow in the right direction, away from the homes of the Muslim population, before starting the fire. This is backed up by the eye-witness report of Miss Minnie Mills, the dean of the Inter-Collegiate Institute:
"I could plainly see the Turks carrying the tins of petroleum into the houses, from which, in each instance, fire burst forth immediately afterward. There was not an Armenian in sight, the only persons visible being Turkish soldiers of the regular army in smart uniforms." This was also confirmed by the eye-witness report of Mrs King Birge the wife of an American missionary, who viewed events from the tower of the American College at Paradise.

Here is an abridged summary of notable events in the destruction of Smyrna described in Horton's account:
    * Turkish soldiers cordoned off the Armenian quarter during the massacre. Armed Turks massacred Armenians and looted the Armenian quarter.
    * After their systemic massacre Turkish soldiers, in smart uniforms, set fire to Armenian buildings using tins of petroleum, and other flammables, with flaming rags soaked in those flammable liquids.
    * To supplement the devastation, small bombs were planted by the soldiers, under paving slabs around the christian parts of the city to take down walls. One of the bombs was planted near the American Consulate and another at the American Girl's School.
    * The fire was started on September 13. The last Greek soldiers had evacuated Smyrna on September 8. The Turkish Army was in full control of Smyrna from September 9. All Christians remaining in the city who evaded massacre stayed within their homes fearing for their lives. The burning of the homes forced Christians in to the streets. This was personally witnessed by Horton.
    * The fire was initiated at one edge of the Armenian quarter when a strong wind was blowing toward the christian part of town and away from the Muslim part of town. Citizens of the Muslim quarter were not involved in the catastrophe. However, the Muslim quarter did celebrate the arrival of the Turkish Army.
    * Turkish soldiers guided the fire through the modern Greek and European section of Smyrna by pouring flammable liquids in to the streets for the fire to consume. These were poured in front of the American Consulate to guide the fire there and this was witnessed by C. Clafun David, the Chairman of the Disaster Relief Committee of the Red Cross (Constantinople Chapter) and others who were standing at the door of the Consulate. Mr Davis testified that he put his hands in the mud where the flammable liquid was poured and indicated that it smelled like mixed petroleum and gasoline. The soldiers that were observed doing this had started from the quay and proceeded towards the fire thus ensuring the rapid and controlled spread of the fire.
    * Dr Alexander Maclachlan, the president of the American College, together with a sergeant of the American Marines were stripped and then beaten by Turkish soldiers with clubs. In addition, a squad of American Marines was fired on.

Aristotle Onassis  who was born in Smyrna, and who later became the richest man in the world, was one of the Greek survivors of Smyrna. The various biographies of his life document notable and quite sensitive aspects of his experiences during the Smyrna Catastrophe. His life experiences were recreated in the movie called Onassis, The Richest Man in the World and includes Onassis' personal relationship with a Turkish officer.
During the Smyrna Catastrophe the Onassis family lost their substantial property holdings which were either taken or given to Turks as bribes to secure their safety and freedom. They became refugees fleeing to Greece after the fire. However, Aristotle Onassis stayed behind to save his father who had been placed in a Turkish concentration camp. He was successful in saving his father's life. During this period Onassis lost three uncles and one aunt with her husband Chrysostomos Konialidis and their daughter, who were burned to death when Turkish soldiers set fire to a church in Thyatira where 500 Christians had found shelter to avoid Turkish soldiers and the Great Fire of Smyrna