This Thursday, May 19, is the official Pontic Greek Genocide Remembrance Day, ratified by the Greek Parliament in 1994 as a permanent annual day to remember the uprooting and massacre of the Pontic Greeks.
The Pontius Genocide of the Greeks refers to the mass slaughter and violent executions that took place between 1913 and 1922 during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
In memory of this national catastrophe, Pontians in Australia have organized many events across the country to remember the massacres, forced deportations, death marches, expulsions, executions and the attempt to destroy their cultural, historical and orthodox religious. The events are also a symbol of strength that despite the tragedies that took place on the shores of Asia Minor, the Pontians can never be enslaved or erased from history.
On Sunday May 15, the Melbourne Coordination Memorial Committee of the Pontian Genocide, under the auspices of the Australian Pontian Federation Associations, organized a service at St. Euftathios in South Melbourne, followed by a ceremony of laying down flowers at the Greco-Australian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. .
On Thursday, May 19, commemoration day, neos cosmos will produce a special feature in its print edition in memory of this dark, world-changing event.
On the same day, the Greek Center on Lonsdale Street in the heart of Melbourne will be illuminated in red to honor the victims of the Genocide. The gesture was financed by anonymous donors.