Rita Petratos of Niles says she’s worried about how her uncle in Greece is faring during the country’s debt crisis, which has rattled global financial markets. Despite the much-publicized bank closures and the necessity of using cash, her parents and many other north suburban Greek Americans are heading to Greece this month.
Her cousin, brother and fellow teachers from St. Haralambos Greek Orthodox Church in Niles, where Petratos teaches preschool, are also en route to Greece.
“Yes, it’s a dire time,” she acknowledged. “Greeks need people to come there and spend money.”
Tom Kanelos, chair of the Niles Zoning Board and Planning Commission, also knows local Greek Americans who are leaving for Greece this week.
“They were having trepidation about [being able] to use credit cards,” he said.
He estimated that 25 to 40 percent of St. Haralambos parishioners return to visit Greece at least every third year, and many return annually.
“Many Greek Americans have family there, so once they get to the village or the house [of the relatives], they can get a little money every day,” he said.
Petratos said her parents, who live here but also have a house in Greece, can get money through an American bank.
Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council, said his organization hasn’t heard of any Americans getting stranded in Greece, but has heard of Greek tourists getting stranded in the U.S. because they couldn’t use their bank cards.
Zemenides, who lives in Chicago near Lincolnwood, said many Greek Americans worry that their older relatives, like Petratos’ uncle, might not be able to get medicines and other necessities.
“Pensioners who were squeezed before are squeezed even more now,” Zemenides said. “Greece’s dive over the past five years has been worse than the Great Depression in the U.S.”
George Alpogianis, a Niles trustee, agreed. “The rich get richer in these situations, the poor get poorer and the middle class gets squeezed,” he said.
Petratos, whose uncle is retired and on a pension, wants people to know it’s not easy.
“My uncle was a hard worker,” she said. “The myth is that they retire at 40 and go to fiesta—it’s untrue.”
Dispelling such myths, and the debt crisis in general, have been the main topics of conversation lately whenever Greek Americans get together, Kanelos said.
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He feels that part of the reason 60 percent of Greeks voted no on the bailout on July 5 was that they harbor pent-up anger at the way Germany is handling the situation—and remember the brutal way in which the Nazi Germany of the 1940s treated both the Greek people and Greek economy.
“There are still people alive who remember the harshness of the German occupation during World War II,” he said. “Germany was supposed to pay Greece reparations, and it paid some, but not all.”
As for whether Greece could have agreed to the deal Germany and other European nations were proposing at the time of the July 5 vote, Kanelos said, “It’s not that Greeks feel that they shouldn’t pay the money back, but austerity can only go so far.”
Pam DeFiglio is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.