It has been twenty-one years since 1924 when I first wrote this chronicle, as a child, returning from the labor camps of the East. I reworked it in 1931 when it was published as a book. Since then, I had not touched it. It had tormented me greatly when I wrote it, the persistent swirling in the dense and terrible material of this bitter life that needed to be expressed had disturbed me. I had spent many nights then, haunted by nightmares and memories, unable to find refuge even in sleep. That's why, when Number 31328 was finally published as a book, I did not dare, I did not want to see it again - after all, life, when you are old and young, has so much power, it forces you to want to forget.

(from the Author's Preface to the second revised edition [1945])

Dedicated to his "tormented mother" and "to all the mothers of the world," "Number 31328" is one of the most harrowing testimonies in world literature. First published in serial form in the newspaper "Kambana" of Mytilene, which was published and edited by Stratis Myrivilis, "Number 31328" narrates with gripping realism the inhumane living conditions in the labor battalions, which the Turks had formed from foreign conscripts after the collapse of the Asia Minor front and the disorganized retreat of the Greek army. The eighteen-year-old Venezis from Ayvalik found himself in these battalions, along with thousands of Greeks from Asia Minor, from September 1922 until the end of 1923.
The book was translated into many languages and was internationally acclaimed even during Venezis' lifetime. This new, monotonic edition is accompanied by an extensive afterword, which provides the historical context of the persecutions against the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire during the period 1908-1923, as well as a glossary.