Doc shines light on the overlooked Greek female Gastarbeiter

In post-civil war Greece of the 1950s and 1960s, poverty plagued the populace and migration seemed like the only path to a better life for many Greeks. Among the destinations was Germany, which had entered into an agreement with Greece to import migrant workers for its factories. These were the so-called Gastarbeiter, or guest workers from other countries, with uncertain durations of stay, as most of them intended to stay for short amounts of time to earn money and then return to their homeland.

Within these migratory waves there existed a group that remained largely invisible: that of the female Gastarbeiter. These were women mainly from northern Greece (but not exclusively), where agricultural jobs were scarce. In the early 1960s, these women found themselves embarking on a long journey from northern Greece to West Germany; they traveled by bus to Piraeus; there, they...