Summary

Greek passport issued to Fani Nitsou in 1964.

Fani Nitsou was born in 1945 in a village near Florina, Greece. In 1964, at the age of 18, she received an opportunity to migrate to Australia to live with distant cousins in Noble Park.
She arrived in Melbourne aboard the RHMS Patris in March 1964. During the voyage she met fellow Greek migrant Iraklis Mangos. In 1967, she met Iraklis again and they fell in love. In 1968, they married at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Richmond. They visited Greece in 1977 and have never regretted their move to Australia.

Physical Description

Blue cover 32-page passport with gold printed lettering on cover. Text in Greek and French throughout. Titled: 'Royaume de Grece/Passeport' with Greek Coat of Arms. Pages document owner's name, nationality, birth date and a number of Greek and Australian stamps. Page 3 has a black and white photograph of Fani Nitsou stapled. Page 7 is an Australian visa for Fani Nitsou and the last page has two attached paper butts relating to the Department of Immigration.

Significance

The Mangos family collection explores the migration experiences of two Greek people who arrived during the high point of Greek migration to Australia after World War II. The Australian Greek population doubled to 140,000 between 1961 and 1966. Their meeting on the ship and subsequent marriage is a classic migration narrative, as is the theme of chain migration which runs across three generations. It also enables the telling of the pre-migration experiences which partly resulted in the family relocation.

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