"To give you an idea of how much the Greeks desire to return home: my father was dying for a long time. I don't like remembering it because he was very ill; he couldn't walk later on and was bedridden. He dreaed of someone taking him to Greece. He said, 'To kiss the ground and die.' Such is the bond."
"Vidnava was really a the place for disabled Greeks, with most people who were blind, without arms, without legs. I saw a man who was in a wheelchair; he was legless, missing one arm, and blind. And he was singing. I heard him sing. I said to myself, 'What can't I do in this life if I have everything?'"
"I said, 'Grandma, can you tell me something about the times they drove you out?' She said, 'Yes, but it's just memories now. I was four years old when the Turks came to shoot us, and I survived thanks to my grandmother who was shot and collapsed onto me. Then the war came and my son died, and then the civil war came and another son died.' I look at her and say, 'Grandma, how can you sing when you've been through so much?' She says, 'See, and why do you sing and play when you live so far away? Do you get it? That's the pain you have, and that's also the one thing that nobody will ever take away from us.' I remember this grandmother fondly, I hold her in my heart as 'the' grandmother; they wrote to me later that she died. And I think this we've been given this. This is what you want to talk about. That's the pain that my parents had. I say, and my wife says it too, she says, 'You took on that pain, unfortunately.'"
Alexander Papageorgiou was born on 27 May 1958 in Vidnava in the Jeseník area to Greek parents who had fled to Czechoslovakia after the lost Greek Civil War. His father Panayotis Papageorgiou was a senior officer in the Democratic Army of Greece and suffered severe injuries. His mother Sofia was also involved in guerrilla warfare. The parents suffered from health issues and homesickness. Alexander trained as an electrician and worked in various businesses. He became involved in the Velvet Revolution in 1989 as a member of the Civic Forum. It was not until the early 1990s that he first visited Greece where his relatives were living. At the time of the filming in 2025, he was living in Javorník, being active within the Greek community and maintaining the traditions of his ancestors. He tries to pass on Greek culture to his children and grandchildren, for example playing the bagpipes and performing with the Evros dance troupe.
