On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Smyrna Catastrophe, when the flourishing metropolis, today’s Izmir, was completely destroyed and tens of thousands of people lost their lives, as well as the 200 years since the Chios Massacre, distinguished author and journalist Lutz C. Kleveman embarks on a year-long journey across the Greek islands and Smyrna, which ultimately transforms into a journey through time.

We are transported to Chios at the end of the 18th century and witness the events that led to the enslavement of its population, as well as the wave of refugees to the other islands of the Aegean. Next, we move across to the shores of Asia Minor and cosmopolitan Smyrna, when Greeks, Turks, Jews, Armenians, Europeans, and Americans lived peacefully there, and we relive the developments that ultimately resulted in the Catastrophe of 1922.

This shocking event and the end of the Greco-Turkish War were followed by a population exchange, during which nearly two million Christians and Muslims were forced to leave their homes; this exchange became the prototype for all the ethnic cleansings of the 20th century.

Based on the testimonies of the people he meets and his on-site research, the author seeks to find the thread of History that connects the past with the present, as well as the population movements in the Aegean, which seem to have no end...