Voices of the Lost Children of Greeceis a collection of essays from Greek-born adoptees in the 1950s after two consecutive wars. Their stories highlight the experience of international adoption, whose impact has been lifelong but has not been properly measured or acknowledged.
The book is edited by Mary Cardaras, with the foreword by Gabrielle Glaser and introduction by Professor Gonda Van Steen, Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s.
Professor Gonda Van Steen’s research on the children adopted from Greece to the USA and the Netherlands in the 1950s-60S has changed lives- she recounts reconnecting ‘a biological mother with her adult daughter, who was taken from her as a forty-day-old child some fifty-nine years ago’.
The now-adult adoptees often find Professor Van Steen through social media and she assists them in finding their biological roots. Professor Van Steen has also published, Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo? . This book carefully documents her study and for the first time established the Greek adoption movement as a historic phenomenon. Greek-born adoptees have used this study and its practical information to connect with their origins, their families, and each other.