The small display contains an icon of the Virgin Mary, a pouch filled with soil and a note. This is a recent find by Michalis Kokkinos, a third-generation Asia Minor refugee, whose mother passed away in 2021. Going through her belongings in January 1922, he opened the icon display she had in her home and found a pouch filled with soil and a note hand-written by her. In the note, she explains that the soil was brought to Greece by her father from Prousa (Bursa), where he had been persecuted from. The soil had been kept for 100 years next to the icon of the Virgin Mary, a holy relic in its own right and a testament to the family’s refugee experience.
