Greece has granted citizenship to 60 people who were adopted from Greek orphanages by American families during the Cold ...

Greece has granted citizenship to 60 people who were adopted from Greek orphanages by American families during the Cold War, with around 500 more now seeking to reclaim the same right. The milestone follows a ministerial decree issued in early 2025, roughly six months after Prime Minister Mitsotakis met with researcher Gonda Van Steen and adoptee Mary Cardaras. Mitsotakis described the situation as a historical injustice that needed to be corrected. Van Steen, who holds the Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History at King's College London and authored a book titled "Children Wanted from Greece," spoke at a lecture in Thessaloniki last week. She has spent years documenting how approximately 4,000 Greek children were sent to families in the United States between 1950 and 1975, with another 600 going to the Netherlands and 50 to Sweden. She said the Greek state has moved from exclusion to inclusion of what she calls the "adopted diaspora." Three institutions in Greece that housed these children before their adoptions are now opening their records to help adoptees trace their origins, though Van Steen stressed that all archives need to be made fully accessible and that research must continue. A separate researcher, Aigli Brouskou, presented findings from the registry of the Agios Stylianos orphanage in Thessaloniki that challenge a widespread belief. Of the 2,000 children placed for adoption from that institution throughout the 20th century, only 85 went to families in the United States. Family law attorney Mina Filipoulou noted that the adoptions of that era were carried out under court order and were technically legal, but added that legal formality alone does not answer the deeper question of whether each child's best interests were actually protected. #Greece #GreekDiaspora #ColdWarHistory