Last week, we met the Greeks of the Congo – people who live away from home but carry Greece inside them. Elli Kasoli with the Prime Time camera continues the trek to Africa. Following are the cosmopolitan Greeks who escaped the beaten and rooted in a fertile but strange land: in Johannesburg – the metropolis of contradictions, opportunities, miners, the races against apartheid and the success stories.

They talk about the difficult years of adaptation, the struggle for mines survival, the worship customs that maintain unchanged, the habits they have transported with them and spread to their new homeland. They remember the agitated 50 years of apartheid and their contribution of compatriots, such as Nelson Mandela’s lawyer and personal friend George Bizos. They describe how starting from scratch they were able to create small and large blue -white businesses, living with respect to the Africans, white and black, surpassing deep rooted prejudices.

Johannesburg is the largest and most densely populated city in South Africa. Its population exceeds 5.5 million. Among them are tens of thousands of Greeks now living. Others went alone. Others with families.

For example, Savvas Englezakis, a businessman, went to Africa on New Year’s Eve 1957. And he has stayed there for 68 years.

Tragic stories in gold mines

The first Greek immigrants arrived in South Africa when gold fever began.

In Johannesburg Gold was discovered in 1886. One of the first and older gold mines on the south side of the capital stopped operating in 1977. It has more than 47 levels and reaches 1000 meters below Earth. There the conditions were very difficult and the stories of the Greeks are tragic. Many of them lost their lives there.

Not everyone left their homeland for a better life. Some left because they had no choice. Because they were chasing them for their ideas. For resistance. For their faith in freedom. In 1956, in Cyprus, Savvas Englezakis was a member of EOKA. He was arrested by the British and escaped from death at the last minute. He had to leave. And he found refuge there in South Africa.

When he arrived, he didn’t expect anything easy. The first Greeks found themselves in South Africa in a cruel society who was considered a “second -class” citizens. And somewhere there begins the first major test of Greek presence.

Savvas Englezakis responded with work and managed to build an empire.

Second mass wave of immigration

After the mines, the 2nd and mass wave of immigration was followed in the early 20th century. The first Greek businessmen began to arrive in South Africa. With small canteens, small shops, they sold coffee, tea, local produce. They set their lives from scratch. And so the foundations came in. The future generations grew up on them. Some, such as the family of Panagiotis Baladakis, continued and went even further.

Bouzouki in Africa

While early generations fought for a place in the sun, today, in school classes, the roots are growing again. Small voices, old tunes, and the Greek soul that still sings. Children who choose from all the musical instruments they could, the bouzouki. And not just Greeks.

At school children do not only learn letters. They learn who they are. It is hope, it is the sequel – it is the place where the Greek heart continues to hit, a generation with the generation, in South Africa.

The largest Greek school in South Africa is in Saheti and was founded in 1974 in order to continue learning the children of Greek immigrants the Greek language. Over the years it has expanded and now there are thousands of children not only of Greek descent and Greek is a compulsory lesson. Every day he becomes a Greek language lesson for 45 minutes.

When, Mrs Anastasia Krystalidou, she first went to South Africa in 1974, they didn’t even want her for a kindergarten teacher. But it didn’t bend. With perseverance, faith and passion, he began to build something that then seemed unlikely. And so, the woman who once did not find a place in a classroom arrived to run the whole school. A true success story of a Greek woman who never gave up.

And it wasn’t just her career at school that left history. It was also her decisions. At a difficult time – with apartheid still present – he opened the door to a student who didn’t look like him. He was the first black student in Saheti. And the beginning of something bigger. The Greek school has shown what it means to open the way. To see ahead – and to give all children a place in history.

The apartheid regime

South Africa has not always been as we see it today. For decades, it was under the regime of apartheid – a harsh system of institutional racism, which separated people based on the color of their skin. Black South Africans were deprived of basic rights. It was a period of deep injustice that marked the history of the country.

One of the bright examples was George Bizos, one of the most important lawyers in South Africa, who fought against Apartheid. But also Nelson Mandela’s lawyer who managed to escape the execution.

And in the darkest period of apartheid, one of the most controversial forms appears. Dimitris Tsafendas – the man who murdered apartheid architect, South African Prime Minister Hendrick Fervourd.

Fences, power cables and security

Johannesburg is the capital of contrasts. Wealth and poverty are not only separated from the streets but also by the electrophone. In Sentrigud, in one of the most expensive neighborhoods, where many Greeks stay, the houses are surrounded by very tall walls, fences, power cords and security. In the same city, however, a few kilometers away, in the Soweto area, there is another reality. There, no one will find an expensive alarm system. There the inhabitants live in shacks and fight to find food and clean water.

Greek church built in 1912

The Orthodox Church of Saints Constantine and Helen, built in 1912, is a place that functions as a “refuge”, not only religious but also cultural.