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Obituary: Sano Themia Halo (1909-2014)
Sano Themia Halo, (1909-2014) one of the last survivors of the Pontic Greek Genocide in Ottoman Turkey, died peacefully at home in her sleep on April 28, 2014, just two weeks shy of her 105th birthday.
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Sano was taken in and supported by my great uncle Hagop Maybalian and his family in Dikranagerd. She moved to Aleppo with them and lived with the family until her marriage and immigration to the US.
May she rest in peace.
Hello Ani,
If you get this message, please email me. I am Sano Halo’s granddaughter, and would love to get any information of pictures you may have from when your great uncle and his family took in my grandmother in Turkey.
I wish Greek Americans had the same motivation to recover their homeland as Armenians do, but they do not. That is why they are not politically very active in the U.S. They have Greece, and Greece is weak and friendly with Turkey, and so they are not motivated. It’s a shame. We could be strong allies. They care only about Cyprus, but barely.
The Greeks have always wanted to recover their homelands. It is the megali idea. The Greeks fought hard to take back what is rightfully theirs in the wake of the first world war. The English promised assistance to Greece to entice it to join the allies in the war, which Greece did. But then, along with the French, the English abandoned Greece when its campaign reached deep into Anatolia with a foothold in Ankara. Greece was a small country, it could not win the campaign on its own, but the great powers abandoned their cradle of western civilisation. Likewise, in 1974, when Turkey invaded Cyprus and violated international law by populating the occupied land, England stood by when it had a right under treaty to intervene to protect Cyprus from the invaders.
The end result of the allies abandoning Greece in 1922 and following is that Turkey is founded on a stolen inheritance: Constantinople (among the holiest cities in orthodox christendom), Smyrna, Nicaea, Cappadocia, Amisos, Ankita, Trapezounta, Hierapolis, all are Greek cities; the Hagia Sofia (the greatest church of christendom) has been desecrated and defiled by the infidels; the ecumenical patriarch suffers in silence under the oppressive rule of muslims who interfere in the affairs of the Orthodox Church in a way that the Catholics could never imagine.
Surely Turkey, which persists in its denial of the Greek, Armenian and Assyrian genocides, has a lot of karma owing to it; it has inflicted unfathomable destruction and suffering on innocent christians with impunity for centuries.
Although Themia/Sano Halo endured much pain during persecution, she didn’t hate anyone. Very kind hearted woman. Very hospitable. She loved everyone in life.
May she rest in peace…..I had the pleasure of meeting her and her daughter when they visited our Parish…St Gregory in White Plains….she was a sweet and lovely woman.
Her daughter and biographer was understandably upset that we don’t support their cause for Genocide recognition. She hot into an argument w Dadtian about this.
As much as the Nazi dreadfully inhuman holocaust against millions of Hebrew victims was universally and historically recognised even by Germany itself, equally the Turkish genocide against millions of Hellenes, Armenians, Assyrians, and non-turkic populations, likewise constitutes inhuman holocaust. Actually that was a prelude to the nazi holocaust. Turkey does not stop there; it continued with further barbarities of the: – burning of Smyrna; – murderous pogrom in Constantinople (Sep 1955); – subsequent persecutions against its indigenous Hellenes; – murderous aggression on Cyprus; – ongoing murderous connivance against Syria. As with Germany the nations should demand that Turkey too apologise for its crimes and stop pursuing belligerent hegemony over other peoples, when also seeking accession in the EU
Thank you all for your kind words for the passing of my Grandmother.
Grandma would say “I love all people..people are people, they just want to live, like you and I, and raise their families wheather they live in America or on the other side(across Atlantic)…” “but it’s the governments…or a few rotten apples..”
God Bless here, may she rest in peace.
Ani, hello! I would enjoy speaking with you.
I am part Greek, and and have Greek ans Armenian friends. My dear friend who is all Greek gave me your book to read. I can’t tell you how much I cried and I’m crying as I write this. Your mother is and was beautiful. Thank you for the gift of sharing her story with us. I feel absolutely the world should know and acknowledge these terrible times and all the nationalities that were murdered. Thank you again. May your beautiful mother rest in peace.
My Sincere Condolences.
Have her book about her incredible life. What an unique special woman who survived so much hardships. She had no ill feelings for the Turks;and others for her tragic upbringing. One of the few Chosen in God’s Heart for Humanity
My friend is actually Sano Halo’s great-grandson and got to meet her. RIP Sano Halo, and God bless.
I just finished the book about this amazing and courageous human being. Thank you to her daughter for sharing her mother’s story of such anguish but, yet, Sano was somehow able to still have so much love in her heart.