The HHF Presents is back with Season 6!

PRESS RELEASE

The Hellenic Heritage Foundation (HHF) is pleased to announce the launch of its newest podcast series Greece’s Darkest Decade, Part One: World War II.

Produced by the HHF’s award-winning History Committee, Greece’s Darkest Decade, Part One: World War II, is a six-part podcast exploring WWII in Greece, with voices from Canada’s immigrant community.

The six episodes explain how World War II played out in Greece, the horrors of the Occupation, the Resistance, and the Holocaust in Greece. Drawing on interviews from the HHF Greek Canadian Archives at York University, Greek-Canadian seniors recount their youth during those years and the hardships and trauma they faced.

Then, the series will continue with Part Two: The Civil War, released in March 2026, to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the war, with more archival interviews from the HHF Greek Canadian Archives.

“We originally planned to tell the story of the Civil War in Greece, but we found we couldn’t do it justice without going back to cover World War II,” says Sandra Gionas, History Committee Chair. “They’re both stories along the same trajectory.”

The podcast series is hosted Gionas, a journalist, along with Angelo Laskaris, a PhD candidate at York University, whose interviews form the basis of the collection at the HHFGCA.

“I wanted to tell the story of the trauma which led so many people of that generation to leave Greece and seek a better life elsewhere,” says Laskaris. “Our grandparents’ generation lived through incredible hardship and I didn’t want those stories to be lost.”

Various local and international experts also appear on the podcast to give a cohesive understanding of the forces that shaped that era, adds Gionas. “But the real treat is hearing the voices of our own immigrant community who make the 1940s come alive for us.”

Podcast episodes can be downloaded on Spotify, Stitcher and Apple Podcasts, or listened to on our website, www.hhf.ca. Episodes drop weekly starting October 28 to November 25.

The HHF Presents also has produced previous season on various chapters in Greek and diaspora history. Exodus: The Stores of 1922 won the 2023 Canadian Ethnic Media Association’s award for Best Podcast Series. The Idea of Greece was featured as part of the Greek Republic’s campaign to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution. The HHF Presents seasons on the student siege of the Athens Polytechnio, and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus have also been nominated for Heritage Toronto Public History awards.

The HHF History Committee was also awarded the 2019 Heritage Toronto Community History Award for its year-long efforts to commemorate the 1918 Anti-Greek Riots in Toronto.

The HHF’s History Committee is made up of volunteers from all walks of life, with a passion for our history. They engage in public history projects that will enrich the lives of our Greek Canadian diaspora, and through podcasting, walking tours and public exhibits.

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