Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo?

by Gonda Van Steen

This book presents a committed quest to unravel and document the postwar adoption networks that placed more than 3,000 Greek children in the United States, in a movement accelerated by the aftermath of the Greek Civil War and by the new conditions of the global Cold War. Greek-to-American adoptions and, regrettably, also their transactions and transgressions, provided the blueprint for the first large-scale international adoptions, well before these became a mass phenomenon typically associated with Asian children. The story of these Greek postwar and Cold War adoptions, whose procedures ranged from legal to highly irregular, has never been told or analyzed before.  Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece  answers the important How did these adoptions from Greece happen? Was there any money involved? Humanitarian rescue or kid pro quo ? Or both? With sympathy and perseverance, Gonda Van Steen has filled a decades-long gap in our understanding, and provided essential information to the hundreds of adoptees and their descendants whose lives are still affected today.
 

350 pages, Hardcover

First published November 21, 2019

About the author

Gonda Aline Hector Van Steen (born 8 April 1964 in Aalst, Belgium) is a Belgian-American classical scholar and linguist, who specialises in ancient and modern Greek language and literature. Since 2018, she has been Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature, the first woman to hold this position, and Director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College London. She previously held the Cassas Chair in Greek Studies at the University of Florida, and taught at the University of Arizona and at Cornell University. She has also served as the President of the Modern Greek Studies Association (2012–2014).

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was not easy to read. Not because it is a scientific research embedded in cultural studies’ favourite subjects of memory and post-memory (a fascinating field in itself) full of data and technical descriptions of processes but because of its subject matter: Adoption and the rights of children. It treats the particular case of adoption of Greek children in the aftermath of WWII and the civil war during the 50s and beginning of 60s in Greece and focuses on the transnational adoption of minors in the frame of Cold War politics from Greece to USA. The author is very strong on her opinions however firmly grounded on research and accepted ethical principles. From the beginning she declares to be on the side of the children and this permeates her whole narrative. Her final point should be a signal to be alert: such practices are probably still going on regarding the belligerence still dominating the world today.

[Marina Leonidhopoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πολύ ενδιαφέρον θέμα, πολύ «τεχνικό» βιβλίο με εξαντλητική λεπτομέρεια (και ξεκάθαρο bias σε πάρα πολλά σημεία). Το σώζει η μετάφραση της Αριάδνης Λουκάκου που προσπαθεί να το κάνει όσο λιγότερο στριφνό γίνεται χωρίς να χάνει την «επιστημοσύνη» του, ώστε να μπορεί να διαβαστεί και από τον μη εξειδικευμένο αναγνώστη.

[Suntsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

It always amazes me how kids are used as pawns, merchandise, like just another business deal, under the pretext of ideology. This book deals only with the kids sent for adoption to the USA and to a lesser extent Holland and Sweden. It does not talk about the ones that were sent to European countries that were under Communist rule.
It is sad to realize that your country's history can be so cruel. Reading this book a reader can understand in part the hatred that existed (and unfortunately still exists) between the left and the right.