ADOPTION, MEMORY, AND COLD WAR GREECE:  Kid pro quo? by Gonda Van Steen Published November 2019 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 questions: How did these adoptions from Greece happen? Was there any money involved? Humanitarian rescue or  kid pro quo ? Or both? With s...

ADOPTED WOMAN FINDS HER GREEK FAMILY by TNH Staff Published in The National Herald, January 5, 2019 ------------------------------ I am excited that  The National Herald  has given Hellenic Genealogy Geek the right to reprint articles that may be of interest to our group.  ------------------------------ NINE MILE FALLS, WA – Though Karen Williams knew she was adopted, arriving in the United States with her new family when she was 13 months, she did not know that her biological family in Greece had been searching for her for years, KXLY.com reported.  The Nine Mile Falls resident told KXLY, “I was born in Katerini, Greece and then taken to Athens, and then to San Diego,” adding that she “had no idea,” her family was searching for her and “it’s thrilling to know that they have actually thought about me all these years, I had no idea.”  The family reconnected just two days before Christmas, KXLY reported, noting Williams’ respon...

THE CHILDREN OF ADOPTION IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE ARE LOOKING FOR THEIR ROOTS Interview by Justin Frangoulis-Argyris, Journalist and Writer, with Gonda Van Steen.  Published in the Greek Huffington Post on October 3, 2018. English translation ----- A whole generation of children born in Greece in the 50s, 60s and 70s abandoned on steps of homes, nurseries and orphanages, children given to American and European families for adoption, replacing the social welfare of post-war Greece, today seeks to find its roots . Dr. Gonda Van Steen , Professor of Hellenic Studies at Florida University, has explored this research by trying to find the case files but also to find a methodological correlation of the Cold War era with the influence of America and Europe on the social fabric of Greece. The massive adoption wave from Greece to America proved to be the most compact example of Greece's dependence on the United States. Adopted Greek children retain the experiences ...