The book by Greek-American Thea Halo, "Not Even My Name," has achieved great success in America. The author records the true story of her mother, who, at the age of 10, was uprooted from the Greek villages of Pontus, witnessed her family members perish one by one during the death marches in Anatolia, and was miraculously saved by an Armenian family in Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey. At the age of 15, she was given in marriage to an Assyrian immigrant in America and arrived in the USA, where she lives to this day.
Sano Halo was one of the thousands of children lost during the Greek Genocide in the East during the death marches organized by the Kemalists during the second phase of the Genocide. Her family, like the entire Greek community of Saint Anthony of Giresun, as well as neighboring villages, was displaced to the interior of Anatolia. As a ten-year-old girl, she found herself in Kurdistan and eventually alone in Aleppo, Syria, where she was taken in by an Assyrian family. She married an Assyrian, with whom she emigrated via Lebanon to America in 1925.
As part of the events presenting the Greek edition, the author and her mother Sano, at the age of 91, traveled to Greece from New York. The then ninety-year-old Sano made her first visit to her homeland. The testimonial book achieved particular success in America, as, for the first time, the American public had the opportunity to learn about the history of Pontic Hellenism, a chapter of history unknown to the wider public. The author and her mother have attended countless events in America, and the Governor of New York, George Pataki, awarded the ninety-year-old Sano for her courage and vision. Sano Halo passed away in 2014 at the age of 105.
The publication of this book contributed to the publicizing of unknown historical events. Additionally, for the first time in America, a publication not originating from the Greek-American community openly discussed the genocidal policies followed by Turkish governments. Although it mainly refers to the genocide of Pontic Hellenism, it also extensively references the genocide of all Christian populations of Asia Minor and Anatolia.
