My father was a farmer and we had eight siblings. I went to Australia when I was fifteen because my family didn’t have enough to eat. I was on a boat for forty days. When I got there, I couldn’t find a job, I couldn’t speak English, and I had to sleep on the street. I know what it’s like. So everyday I drive the van to the port and hand out bread to the refugees. My son is my business partner. He says, ‘Baba, please. It’s fine to help. But not every day.’ But I still go every day because I know what it feels like to have nothing. –Dionyssis Arvanitakis
Condolences are pouring in to the family of Dionyssis Arvanitakis, the world-renown baker of the island of Kos who offered bread to arriving refugees on his island at the height of the crisis that saw tens of thousands of people arriving in 2014-1015.
Arvanitakis passed away on Sunday at the age of 77.
The “baker of Kos,” as he became known throughout Europe and the world, was honored with the European Union’s Civil Society Prize in 2016.
In September of 2015, Arvanitakis was featured on the popular “Humans of New York” blog when its publisher headed to Greece to meet every day people dealing with the refugee crisis.
The post went viral with almost 90,000 shares and almost a million engagements on Facebook.
