The establishment of the Refugee Care Fund in November 1922 reflected the necessity of finding a substantial solution to the issue of refugee housing at a central political level. One of the first projects of the Refugee Care Fund was, at the beginning of 1923, the carrying out of a topographic study in the northern boundaries of the Municipality of Piraeus, in the area along the Kanapitsi stream. In the area that a few years later would form the southernmost part of the later Municipality of Nea Kokkinia, next to the stream.
The Agios Nikolaos Square, one of the three squares of the original refugee settlement and perhaps the most central one, might appear to the casual observer like a typical example of the squares commonly found in the refugee neighbourhoods of Piraeus. However, a more discerning eye can identify a mosaic of successive population movements that took place through this square over the course of a century.
Tens of makeshift residential clusters were created around the centre of Piraeus in the first weeks after the arrival of the refugees in September 1922. Some of them evolved into actual neighbourhoods. One of these makeshift residential enclaves was created on the northern border of the Municipality of Piraeus, on the banks of the Kanapitseri stream, and it quickly evolved into the Nea Kokkinia settlement. The originally erected tents and shacks soon became an entire city, whose core was the residential cluster designed by the Refugee Relief Fund and the Refugee Settlement Commission as part of a central housing scheme.
When we think about the population movements of the past century, we mostly think about mass displacements due to persecution, war or poverty. But recent history also includes tragic stories of forcible transfers. One of these took place in Kokkinia during the Nazi occupation.
The American Women’s Hospitals Organisation (AWH) was one of the largest and more long-lasting charity organisations that operated in the settlement.
The official designation of the Nea Kokkinia settlement as an independent municipality was published in issue 109 of the Government Gazette, dated May 7, 1933.
Okto Street used to be the main thoroughfare of the refugee settlement, the city’s main commercial road, but also a meeting spot, a place for strolling and recreation. The residents spent their free time there, visiting its cafés and wine taverns in the evenings, on Sundays, and holidays.
Walking around Nikaia today, among the courtyards of the refugee houses, the ‘laundries’ as the residents call them, you get the sense that you’ve found yourself in two different neighbourhoods simultaneously.
During the school year 1924-1925, the first rudimentary school units started operating in the settlement. Marianthi Skala, the first teacher of the Nea Kokkinia refugee settlement, used her own resources to create these first makeshift schools, assisted by many of the settlement’s residents.
The first phase of the housing rehabilitation programme designed by the Refugee Settlement Commission encompassed approximately 750,000 square metres of land, which was mentally divided into three neighbourhoods known by the names of their churches, Agios Nikolaos, Osia Xeni and Agios Georgios.
The refugees’ new living conditions in the Greek society created an urgent need for collective organisation. The refugees soon established associations, unions and clubs initially aimed at providing aid and assisting with bureaucratic procedures, such as issuing the identification certificates necessary for the naturalisation process.
One of the first tasks undertaken by the Refugee Relief Fund at the beginning of 1923 was to conduct a topographic survey of the northern boundaries of the Municipality of Piraeus, in the area along the Kanapitseri stream. A few years later this area would constitute the southern part of what eventually became the Municipality of Nea Kokkinia.
The history of the refugee arrival of 1922-1924 is interlinked with the industrial sector. The refugees found work in the large factories of the time and, in turn, their labour helped establish Piraeus as a major industrial hub.
The Armenian refugees who arrived in Greece also found refuge on the banks of the Kanapitseri stream and created their own community in Nea Kokkinia.
The ‘Asia Minor’ Hammam was constructed at the same time as the refugee settlement, but was not part of the original layout designed by the Refugee Settlement Commission.
