Everyone would know Peter Poulos as the son of Con Poulos, a Greek migrant who joined forces with his brother Denis in 1956 to form the Poulos Bros group – Australia’s leading wholesale fresh and frozen seafood supplier.
On Saturday, May 20 this year, Mr Poulos was one of numerous Kytherians who honoured their family’s legacies by permanently inscribing their name on the National Monument to Migration.
Located at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, the Monument is hard to miss.
It is a bronze-panelled wall that faces Sydney’s Darling Harbour and Pyrmont Bay, and features over 32,000 names from 138 countries including 1,938 from Greece – amongst these, the first ten Greek migrants to Australia.
Mr Poulos has always encouraged others to think about inscribing their own parents or grandparents’ name on the Monument.
“It is our absolute duty to remember our brave Kytherian migrant relatives who left their families and homes for the great unknown of a new life in Australia,” Mr Poulos said.
“It was then a ‘one-way’ ticket for them and without their tears and sacrifice we would not be here today.”
Mr Poulos’ father Con arrived in Sydney, Australia in 1952 to work in cafes. His brother Denis had migrated earlier in 1951 and was working on banana plantations and cane fields in Gympie, Queensland. He later joined Con in Sydney and they started a business partnership in 1956 in a fish and chips shop in Rydalmere.
“The business partnership Con and Denis forged as the Poulos Brothers, changed their lives forever and that of our entire family across three generations,” Mr Poulos said.
“Their legacy lives on today and the Poulos Bros business is a little bigger now than a suburban fish and chips shop and employs over 120 people from more than 16 different countries as the Poulos Bros group recognises all migrants need a chance to succeed.”
To honour your own loved one on the National Monument to Migration, the Museum requires a tax-deductible gift of $500.
The Museum then requests a brief story about each person being honoured on the Monument for publication on its website. The Museum is amassing a selection of stories from these migrants; stories that, in turn, build the history of modern Australia.
Honour our immigrants on Australia’s National Monument to Migration at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Register by June 20 to be part of the next unveiling ceremony in November. To register please visit this website or call (02) 9298 3777.
