What a heart-breaking situation. Kudos to the Italian journalist for his compassion and for being furbo enough to figure out a way that this old man could see his childhood home. It had me crying as well. I could just imagine how I would feel if it were me. Some laws are meant to be broken.
The stupidity of not reaching a legal agreement as to this matter is obvious. I honestly find it hard to believe, and honestly didn't know that there's been no formal "treaty" between the two countries. Could it really just be spite because the Albanian passport uses the Albanian name for his birthplace? Just out of compassion for its own people, couldn't the Albanian government issue passports to these people with the Greek name? One of these countries has to take the high road and be "bigger" about this nonsense. Or, the Albanian exiles could give up claims to the property which they left behind in return for some compensation from the Greek government . This is probably what most of this is about and why some jerk called the police. Someone else is living in the old man's house after all.
It should apply to Greeks similarly affected as well. I don't know of a single conflict in history where one side was always noble and the other side evil. In my own area there were partisans who had noble goals and acted responsibly, and there were ones who were stupid and reckless and brought suffering on innocent people, or who just used the struggle as a means to bring about communism and kill anyone who didn't support that. Likewise, there were nominal fascists who were decent people and some who were monsters and willing accomplices to the Germans. People are infinitely complicated and more so in war time.
I don't know what to tell you, Blevins. It's a mess between two governments, and individuals are caught in the middle and suffer.
As much compassion as I have for the people caught up in this, it doesn't mean that we can allow every thread to be de-railed into a discussion of grievances between countries in the Balkans. That's why we created a separate thread for it. People have to use it.