It has been twenty-one years since 1924 when I wrote this chronicle in its first form, returning as a child from the labor camps of the East. I reworked it in 1931 when it was published as a book. Since then, I hadn't touched it again. It had tormented me greatly when I was writing it; the persistent twisting around the dense and terrible substance of this bitter life that had to be expressed had troubled me. I had spent many nights back then, chased by nightmares and memories, unable to find refuge even in sleep. That's why, when Number 31328 was finally published as a book, I didn't dare; I didn't want to see it again – after all, life, when you are old and when you are young, has such power; it imposes upon you the desire to forget.

From the author's preface to the second revised edition [1945]. Dedicated to his "tormented mother" and "to all the mothers of the world," Number 31328 is one of the most shocking testimonies in world literature. Published for the first time in installments in the newspaper Kampana of Mytilene, which was published and directed by Stratis Myrivilis, Number 31328 narrates with gripping realism the inhumane living conditions in the labor battalions that the Turks had organized from foreign conscripts for the construction of large public works after the collapse of the Asia Minor front and the chaotic retreat of the Greek army. Among these battalions was the eighteen-year-old Venizis from Ayvalik, along with thousands of Greeks from Asia Minor, from September 1922 until the end of 1923.

The book has been translated into many languages and was internationally appreciated during Venizis's lifetime. The present new monotonic edition is accompanied by an extensive afterword, which provides the historical context of the persecutions against Greeks of the Ottoman Empire during the period 1908-1923, as well as a glossary.