On September 29, 1945, the Empire Patrol, a British ship carrying Castellorizian refugees from World War II to Castellorizo after their two-year displacement in Nuseirat, Palestine, caught fire and sank 28 nautical miles off Port Said, causing the death of 33 Castellorizians. Some young people and children who later survived immigrated to Australia, where Castellorizian communities had already existed since the early 20th century. There, they rebuilt their lives, as well as the traumatic memories of their exile, displacement, shipwreck, and return to the bombarded and fire-ravaged Castellorizo. They created a polyphonic, experiential, and modern (online) site of memory for the shipwreck and its surrounding events, aiming to preserve its memory and "pass down history" to their descendants, making this traumatic event a central symbol of Castellorizian identity in the diaspora and a public memory element in Australian society.

This book is the result of the author's extensive on-site and multi-site research in the Castellorizian community of Perth, Western Australia, as well as in the communities of Castellorizians on the island of Rhodes and in Athens. It thoroughly examines the formation and transmission of collective, traumatic, and popular memory through the analysis of live (oral), recorded, and digitally archived narratives, as well as online storytelling and rituals about the shipwreck. By combining the scientific tools and approaches of anthropology, ethnography, and oral history, it attempts a comprehensive approach to the study of Castellorizian diaspora, history, and identity in Australia and its relationship with its place of origin. The analysis of the reconstruction of the memory of displacement and shipwreck of Castellorizians in Australia and Greece introduces timely reflection, as today the border island of Castellorizo often welcomes dozens of refugees who often leave behind similar experiences, looking forward to a new life in other, ideally hospitable, homelands.