Cyprus - Hot Property
18' 38"
Kyrenia harbour/Tourists | Music | 00:00 |
| CORCORAN: For centuries, Cyprus has witnessed invasion and immigration by the Venetians, the Ottomans. The British first arrived as colonisers more than a century ago. Now they're back. | 00:17 |
| Music | 00:32 |
| CORCORAN: For them, Northern Cyprus is a friendly, English speaking place - where you can drink tea by the sea. It's the off season - and the cafes are deserted apart from Brits hunting for their place in the sun. | 00:38 |
Café Touts | Café Tout: Good morning, how are you today? | 00:52 |
| Café Tout 2: Maybe you'd like a toasted sandwich? | 00:56 |
| Café Tout 3: I like English peoples. | 00:58 |
| Café Tout 2: Coffee? | 00:59 |
Fishing boats in harbour | Music | 01:02 |
Fishing boats in harbour/Tourists | CORCORAN: Occasionally, the ambience is interrupted by political reality. For 33 years Cyprus has been an island divided -- run as two separate countries - the Greek south and the Turkish north. For Turkish Cypriots this port city is known as Girne - to the rest of the world it's Kyrenia. | 01:07 |
| The British don't seem to care what it's called - for them it's a newly discovered paradise - and a cheap one at that. Boasting some of the best property bargains in the Mediterranean. | 01:31 |
Phil and Maps inspect partially built house | Phil: We are looking for an economy package - up to 35 thousand pounds - two bedrooms - use of a swimming pool, hopefully -- a chill out zone for the winter. | 01:45 |
| CORCORAN: Phil and Mabs Wright hail from Lancashire. With the traditional British retreats of Spain, France and Southern Cyprus overpriced and overdeveloped - they're in the market for a modest apartment. | 02:03 |
| Real Estate Agent Keith Everett thinks he has just the place. | 02:21 |
| Everett: Another bedroom there... and the kitchen in this sort of area. | 02:25 |
Northern Cypriot development | Music | 02:29 |
| CORCORAN: In just four years, Northern Cyprus has gone from a sleepy economic backwater to this. The boom funded by developers from mainland Turkey - keen to cash in on the dream. | 02:43 |
| The population of 200,000 now boosted by 10,000 - mainly British - expatriates. | 03:00 |
Marion and Richard at partially built house | Marion: Well, why didn't we see this on the site plan? I mean this is the boundary here isn't it? | 03:11 |
| CORCORAN: For Marion Stokes and partner Richard Baumgart, this was to be their escape from high pressure lives in London. | 03:18 |
| Marion: So I think this is --somewhere here is the boundary isn't it? | 03:25 |
| CORCORAN: Their dream was transformed into a nightmare when they discovered their new home's living room was several metres over the neighbour's boundary. Now it all has to be demolished. | 03:30 |
| CORCORAN: How does it make you feel now? | 03:41 |
| Marion: Sick. This is all our money here. | 03:42 |
Marion | And the land is worthless at the minute. And this land is worthless - as you can see it is not a big plot of land. | 03:47 |
Marion on phone | CORCORAN: Fed up with dodgy builders and officials - Marion headed down the path of activism - starting the Home Buyers' Pressure Group. | 03:56 |
| Marion on phone: It's illegal to start building without a building permit, which probably 90% of them do. | 04:07 |
| CORCORAN: It's become a full time, if unpaid, job fielding calls of distress from other expatriates. | 04:13 |
| Marion on phone: OK take it easy -bye. | 04:20 |
Marion. Super: Marion Stokes Property Activist | Marion: We currently have just under 1700 - we'll reach 1700 by the end of next week - properties on our database. | 04:23 |
| CORCORAN: That have problems? | 04:31 |
| Marion: That have problems - that's properties. | 04:32 |
| CORCORAN: Now Marion confronts a more daunting problem - as property is at the heart of an even bigger dispute over ownership of the entire island. | 04:38 |
| Music | 04:48 |
Memorial | CORCORAN: In one sense it all started here on this Kyrenia beach. For this is where Turkey's invasion force stormed ashore in 1974. | 04:54 |
Archival of Kyrenia beach/ landing craft | Music | 05:04 |
| Newsreel Narrator: At the Northern Coastal town of Kyrenia after two and a half days of bitter fighting - Turkish troops are now in firm control of the area. | 05:09 |
| Music | 05:17 |
| CORCORAN: Turkey invaded Cyprus, after Greece backed a coup against the Cypriot Government. Turkey claimed it was intervening to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority - 18% of the population. For decades they'd been caught up in inter communal violence. | 05:22 |
| Newsreel Narrator: Turkish forces are digging in for a long stay. | 05:40 |
| CORCORAN: Turkish troops swiftly enforced a partition. 140,000 Greeks and 60,000 Turks, caught on the wrong side of this new ethnic divide, were forced to abandon their homes. | 05:48 |
UN Peacekeepers | Since then, United Nations peacekeepers have patrolled the so called Green Line, dividing the two sides. The Greek south was transformed by tourism and rampant development, while the Turkish North languished. | 06:04 |
| Music |
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Northern Cypriot development | CORCORAN: But now Northern Cyprus is booming, watched with growing anger by Greek Cypriots, who claim this miracle is rising on their land. | 06:23 |
Severis shows painting | Severis: And this is the other side of the harbour - and again this is our house. It's now turned into a restaurant or whatever. | 06:38 |
| CORCORAN: Art historian Rita Severis is from one of the island's prominent Greek families. Before the war, the Severis family home was on the Kyrenia waterfront - and they had vast property holdings in the area. | 06:47 |
Severis. Super: Rita Severis Art historian | Severis: It's what Cyprus was like - it's my childhood - it's where we were brought up. It's what we grew up with, and where we grew up - this is my country. | 07:01 |
| CORCORAN: Greek Cypriots claim that 80% of Northern Cyprus was, and still is, privately owned by Greeks - that the foreigners are buying stolen property. | 07:16 |
Paintings | Severis: I think that, you know are a bunch of opportunists - they find a cheap piece of land - find a cheap villa by the sea - ah! - let's take it. | 07:2- |
Severis | It is disgraceful, it is really disgraceful. | 07:39 |
Turkish Cypriot cafés | CORCORAN: Turkish Cypriots also lost land in the Greek south. The Turkish Cypriot Government established a property exchange system, but Greek Cypriots say it's illegal. | 07:47 |
| The British arrivals say they're dealing with the facts on the ground today - not the tragedy of three decades ago. | 08:01 |
Marion on land | Marion: Oh, some of the things survived that we put in. | 08:12 |
| CORCORAN: Marion Stokes' land was originally Greek. After the war, she says Northern Turkish Authorities gave it to a Turkish Cypriot refugee - who later - sold it to her. | 08:15 |
| Marion: ...Yeah all the trees have died. | 08:25 |
Marion. Super: Marion Stokes Property Activist | Marion: Well, the land is safe we hope - it's ours - we have title to it so, I don't think the Greeks are going to come and take it away from us. | 08:28 |
Marion in car | CORCORAN: It's a view probably bolstered by the UK Courts in a landmark case - throwing out the prosecution of a British couple who'd built this house on disputed land. | 08:39 |
| Marion: Of course it's gone to appeal now - so it will never be over and here this beautiful house is just sitting here. | 08:50 |
Marion drives on to property | CORCORAN: But while Marion and Richard's current residence is safe - it's rented - there are dangers south of the border. | 09:01 |
| The Greek Cypriot Government has declared that any foreigner caught with documents relating to property in the Turkish north could be jailed for seven years. | 09:12 |
Marion looking through documents | Marion: And then it goes on about laws about building... | 09:22 |
| Marion: To us it seems like that's against human rights - and as they are part of Europe they shouldn't be allowed to do it - but they've done it. | 09:26 |
Severis. Super: Rita Severis | Severis: What human rights? Now they are asking for their human rights - can you imagine! They've come and bought my land - knowing it is illegal, stolen property - then they ask for the protection of the human rights (laughs) what about my human rights! | 09:35 |
Crossing point | CORCORAN: It's all so far from the optimism of just a few years ago. For nearly three decades the UN Green zone was a no man's land. Then, in 2003, the Turkish Cypriots suddenly opened the gates. | 09:55 |
| About a year after these checkpoints reopened, the United Nations brokered a referendum on the issue of reunification. Around two thirds of Turkish Cypriots voted yes, in favour of the motion. However three quarters of Greek Cypriots said no. | 10:15 |
Greek flag | The Greek Republic has since gone on to gain membership of the European Union, while the Northern Turkish Republic retains its pariah status - recognised by no nation - apart from Turkey. | 10:36 |
Severis driving | Music | 10:52 |
Severis at checkpoint | CORCORAN: Still, the checkpoints remain open. Turkish Cypriots, realising they can't have political union now seek economic security, and thousands cross each day to jobs in the south, while Rita Severis heads north on one of her regular trips to gauge the pace of development. | 11:06 |
Driving to Nicosia | She journeys into the Turkish side of the divided capital, Nicosia - now largely populated by yet another community of outsiders. | 11:35 |
| Severis: This is really the heart of Nicosia, but it's not beating Cypriot - anything but. Most of the old town is inhabited by settlers, by basically Anatolians from Turkey -that were brought in to increase the Turkish population of the north part of Cyprus. And the Turkish Cypriots have no affinity to them. | 11:46 |
Flute player | [Flute music] | 12:14 |
Severis greets Sevketoglu | CORCORAN: Rita has an appointment at the Great Inn of Nicosia. Despite the divide, some firm friendships remain. | 12:22 |
| Rita and Turkish Cypriot archaeologist Muge Sevketoglu have been friends for a decade. Dr. Sevketoglu is fighting to save the North's heritage sites from the bulldozers. | 12:33 |
Sevketoglu. Super: Dr. Muge Sevketoglu Archaeologist
| Sevketoglu: Suddenly there is money coming in and nobody knows how to deal with it. They are not thinking of tomorrow. This is a typical - I'm afraid - typical mentality, Cypriot mentality. Money and today...tomorrow? We'll think about it when we get there. | 12:45 |
Sevketoglu and Severis with Corcoran | CORCORAN: Both women campaigned for a Yes vote on the issue of reunification. But both now believe that the dream of a United Cyprus is lost - the divisions being rapidly cemented in place by the North's building boom. | 13:05 |
Sevketoglu | Sevketoglu: So what you had was lots of Turkish Cypriots selling their land - to take the money at least - because that's something they can definitely have - because the land - which is Greek property, has no future - and try to invest it in Turkey or in London by buying up property there. | 13:22 |
Severis drives to Kyrenia | Music | 13:36 |
| CORCORAN: Rita Severis drives on to Kyrenia, absorbed in the thoughts of the past. | 13:48 |
| Music | 13:53 |
| CORCORAN: On a hill overlooking the port, she surveys family land that was still forest when the border opened in 2003 - now 420 villas cover the landscape. | 14:01 |
Overlooking Kyrenia | CORCORAN: Do you think they know that they bought properties on your land. | 14:14 |
| Severis: Of course they know, but they take the opportunity - cheap land - cheap house - they are building on other people's misery - that's what's happening. Do you realise that? | 14:17 |
Everett with Phil and Mabs | CORCORAN: In a nearby village, real estate agent Keith Everett insists that the Northern Cyprus Government - the TRNC - has fixed everything. | 14:38 |
Super: Keith Everett | Everett: The TRNC Government is now guaranteeing all title deeds - in the event of a settlement - I don't think anyone would actually be thrown out of their property. The very worst case scenario is that there might be a small amount of compensation to pay. | 14:47 |
Corcoran and Severis walk in Kyrenia | CORCORAN: Rita Severis' outrage at development of the north is compounded down on the Kyrenia waterfront. | 15:08 |
| Severis: Oh my God-what have they done here? | 15:19 |
| It's so ugly. This is part of our house. CORCORAN: This is your place here? Severis: This house. All these three houses. | 15:22 |
| The owner is not here - she's an art historian - that's how I know her. Or is she? Is she here? Amber? | 15:35 |
Severis greets Amber | Amber at bar: Oh hi... Severis: Are you... I didn't believe that you are going to be here. | 15:47 |
Severis with Amber | Severis: What did you do there? | 15:57 |
| Amber: This is just for the winter and then we are going to take it down. Severis: You're going to get rid of it? Amber: Because we can't get rid of the furniture properly in the winter time. Severis: So it will go you mean? Amber: Of course, of course. Severis: Because I don't like it. | 15:58 |
Outside restaurant | CORCORAN: Amber Onar's Turkish Cypriot family has owned this restaurant for 30 years. She says they received it in exchange for all their family property, lost on the Greek side. Amber: We don't like it of course - | 16:12 |
Amber | because we have property in the south as well - and it's not nice to not be able to go there or to claim it - but it's not up to us. [to Severis]: It doesn't seem to be up to us. Severis: No, I wish it was. | 16:24 |
| CORCORAN: While Amber worries about the pace of development, she argues that the North is equally entitled to benefits long enjoyed by the south. Amber has some news for Rita: One floor of the old Severis home has just been sold to foreigners. | 16:40 |
Amber and Severis on street outside restaurant | Amber: This has like three owners right now - an English couple here. Severis: English? Amber: They bought it from the Turkish General. Severis: The general? The Turkish General's gone? Amber: They sold it. Severis: Oh shit! Amber: They sold it to a British couple. | 16:57 |
| CORCORAN: It's a polite, if slightly forced encounter, so typical of Cyprus. Two friends with two separate, incompatible versions of history. | 17:13 |
| Severis: The fact that this has all been built - doesn't give you a chance - to do what? Amber: Do you think I like to... Severis: No, I'm not saying you... | 17:23 |
| CORCORAN: There is one point on which both sides agree - the property boom will make Cyprus' division permanent. | 17:34 |
Turkish flag flying | Music | 17:42 |
Tourists | CORCORAN: The sea changers bear some responsibility - even if they'd prefer to ignore the torturous history of their island in the sun. And for an older generation of Cypriots, there will always be the pain of what was, and perhaps will never be again. Severis: Property means land - land means country. | 17:48 |
Severis | It's my country! It's part of Cyprus, it is Cyprus. So, you know, how can I give my country up? | 18:11 |
Waterfront | If I'm not allowed go and live in my own country - then what's left for me? | 18:24 |
| Music | 18:30 |
Credits: | Reporter: Mark Corcoran Camera: David Martin Editor: Garth Thomas Producer : Linda Mottram Production Company: ABC Australia Foreign Correspondent |
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Vienna in the rain | Music | 00:00 |
| CORCORAN: Vienna is a city that celebrates its past. It's a splendid heritage largely created during the 18th and 19th centuries. | 00:11 |
| Music | 00:21 |
Tina walks to cemetery | CORCORAN: But there's a sense of collective amnesia over one era. A legacy that historian Tina Walzer is determined to reveal. | 00:28 |
Tina inside walled cemetery | TINA: We have about 30,000 people buried here - but what you can see actually is about 8,000 tombstones. | 00:48 |
| CORCORAN: This is Wahring Jewish cemetery - a 20,0000 square metre wilderness in the heart of an obsessively tidy metropolis. | 00:57 |
| TINA: It's the most important Jewish cemetery in Vienna for the 19th century and | 01:12 |
Tina. Super: Tina Walzer Historian | it's the place where all the important people - the key figures of the Industrial Revolution in Austria are buried. | 01:18 |
Wall of cemetery | CORCORAN: Wahring closed in the 1880's. Within a lifetime there would be no one left to mourn the dead. | 01:29 |
Archival stills of Viennese Jews/Nazis | Music | 01:36 |
| CORCORAN: 200,000 Jews lived in Vienna when the Nazis came to power in the 1930's. Those who didn't flee were sent off to the death camps. | 01:50 |
Stills. Nazis rounding up Jews | Only 700 survived in the city at the end of the war. TINA: That's part of the reason why the | 02:05 |
Tombstones | cemetery is looking like this today, because you have to keep in mind that most of the families whose ancestors are buried here have been killed during the holocaust - so they don't live any more. | 02:13 |
| Music | 02:27 |
Tina clearing graves/Leading tour | CORCORAN: Ten years ago Tina Walzer arrived - a Jewish historian on a field trip. She's never left - and now guides tour groups through her domain. | 02:35 |
| Her lobbying has finally paid off. After years of bureaucratic buck passing, city and federal authorities have just agreed to fund a clean up. But the damage may already be done. | 02:55 |
Tina picking up part of rib bone | TINA: I'm not a doctor, but I'd say that's part of a rib. | 03:09 |
| CORCORAN: Tina routinely finds human bones, dug up by foxes that scavenge through the broken tombs. | 03:14 |
| TINA: I put it aside so that nobody would step on it. | 03:20 |
Cemetery wall | Music | 03:24 |
| CORCORAN: Constant vandalism prompted the construction of a wall topped with wire and broken glass. | 03:29 |
| TINA: If there are visitors for the guided tours at the cemetery they say ‘Well, why does the Jewish community want the place to look like a concentration camp?' So this is what they associate with the barbed wire. Well I would turn the question around and say why is it necessary to fortify a Jewish cemetery in Vienna this way. | 03:38 |
Judenplatz sign | Music | 04:04 |
| CORCORAN: Wahring may be forgotten, but in Vienna's Judenplatz the memory of the Holocaust is very much alive. | 04:08 |
Memorial | On this memorial only the death camps are listed - the dead remain anonymous. | 04:17 |
Students at memorial | Austrian authorities claim that they've done much in recent years to help atone for the past. In addition to this memorial there are now two Jewish museums in the city. The Austrian Government has established a fund to provide at least token compensation to the survivors and next of kin of Jewish families whose homes were seized in the war and never returned. | 04:30 |
Building exteriors | But there are those who claim this is all too little, too late, that the legacy of Vienna's Nazi past still lingers in these streets. | 04:53 |
Cemetery | Music | 05:03 |
| CORCORAN: Not only did the Nazis persecute the living - they pursued the dead. | 05:10 |
| To prove their master race theories, Nazi anthropologists from the Vienna Museum of Natural History exhumed between two and three hundred Jewish graves from Wahring. | 05:17 |
Portrait. Fanny von Arnstein | Music | 05:30 |
| CORCORAN: Among the remains taken away for study were those of Fanny von Arnstein. Credited as Vienna's first feminist -Fanny von Arnstein is best remembered as the hostess of backroom deals - when Europe's leaders gathered here in 1815 to redraw the continent's borders. | 05:40 |
| TINA: Think about Fanny Von Arnstein, the woman who had the first bourgeois salon | 06:02 |
Tina in cemetery. Super: | in Austria, who invited diplomats, politicians, artists, writers, journalists | 06:07 |
Portrait. Von Arnstein | to her house to form what later became political parties. Music | 06:14 |
Reporter and Baron in lounge room examining the family tree | BARON JORDIS: So, Fanny is here, Fanny von Arnstein is here... | 06:26 |
| CORCORAN: Baron Ulrich Jordis is a member of the old Austrian aristocracy. He's also a direct descendent of Fanny von Arnstein, something he's never discussed publicly -- until now. | 06:31 |
Baron Jordis. Super: Baron Ulrich Jordis | BARON JORDIS: My mother would not think of the fact that we have a Jewish ancestor - yes? She - it was this generation who had a complete unreflected anti-Semitism. | 06:47 |
Vienna streets. Night | Music | 07:03 |
| CORCORAN: It's taken a younger generation of Austrians to confront what's called the "burden of the past". | 07:13 |
| For decades, Austria's wartime generation portrayed themselves as victims of Nazism. Unlike Germany - there was no thorough de-Nazification program here after the War. When the Third Reich collapsed, anti-Jewish sentiment lived on. | 07:22 |
| BARON JORDIS: It took more than one full generation to even understand what was going on. | 07:45 |
Baron Jordis | I think the first generation that was involved -they simply didn't want to hear any more - on both sides - yes - on victims' side and on the Nazi side. | 07:51 |
Ext. Natural History Museum | Music | 08:02 |
| CORCORAN: Tina Walzer believes the Vienna Museum of Natural History may still hold Fanny von Arnstein's remains. TINA: I think it's simply because the museum | 08:08 |
Tina in cemetery | forgot about its bones and its skull collection and that parts of it are originating from the Wahring Jewish cemetery. | 08:18 |
Inside museum | Music | 08:25 |
| CORCORAN: Our search for Fanny takes us to the Museum -- imposing both in reputation and presence. | 08:31 |
Human remains in museum | The Natural History Museum now faces a complex dilemma confronting leading institutions across the world. What to do with collections gathered in the distant past - often under dubious circumstances? Do human remains belong to science or to the indigenous communities from which they came? PROFESSOR TESCHLER: This collection | 08:40 |
Prof. Teschler. Super: | holds about 40,000 individuals from different time periods. | 09:07 |
Prof Teschler with remains | CORCORAN: High above the public galleries Professor Maria Teschler, head of Anthropology, is grappling with the ethical problems posed by her collection. This means confronting the legacy of the Nazi era - when museum scientists enthusiastically endorsed master race theories. | 09:13 |
| PROFESSOR TESCHLER: During the Nazi period the scientific interests changed. | 09:37 |
Prof. Teschler | From 1938, there was more interest in what is a Jewish. How looks a Jewish person. | 09:44 |
Skulls in cases | CORCORAN: Professor Teschler says she's just completed a lengthy investigation of human remains collected during the Nazi period. | 09:57 |
Prof. Teschler | CORCORAN: Where is Fanny Von Arnstein's remains, today? | 10:07 |
| PROFESSOR TESCHLER: I think she has been reburied in 1947 - during this action after the Second World War. | 10:09 |
Labelled skulls in cases | Music | 10:19 |
| CORCORAN: But there've also been some embarrassing political skeletons that still tarnish the museum's credibility. In the 1990's, a newspaper investigation revealed that the museum still held the remains of Jewish concentration camp inmates and Polish resistance fighters. | 10:28 |
Prof. Teschler | CORCORAN: Why did it take until 1999? PROFESSOR TESCHLER: Yes, this is... CORCORAN: 54 years after the end of the Second World War - for those remains to be handed back? You must have known they were here before? PROFESSOR TESCHLER: This is very hard to explain, because I mean no one before was really, I would say really deeply interested in the history of the discipline. | 10:51 |
Skulls | It's a burden, but we have to live with it. I think what we can do is to open our archives - we have it here - we found it. For us it was not easy to realise what happened here during this time period. | 11:20 |
| CORCORAN: Nazi era exhibits are still held in storage. The science may be discredited but the museum intends keeping the labelled samples for historical reasons. | 11:38 |
Portrait. Fanny von Arnstein | Music | 11:54 |
| CORCORAN: As for Fanny von Arnstein, there were no further leads confirming her fate. | 12:00 |
Wahring Cemetery | Music | 12:09 |
Tina in cemetery | CORCORAN: Tina Walzer's search continues - and as we wander around Wahring Cemetery it becomes apparent it's a very personal quest. TINA: In the end it's very simple -- | 12:24 |
Tina | members of my family are buried here. | 12:37 |
Tina clearing graves | CORCORAN: Some of her family survived the war. And after a decade here, Tina still hasn't found the graves of her ancestors. | 12:42 |
| TINA: I always wanted to find out about what was my family like before the Nazi time, | 12:55 |
| because of course it was a vivid family. I have very few photos of them and I wanted to get a clear picture of what this was like - what was destroyed. | 13:00 |
Tina | CORCORAN: Are you sad though - at the end of the day - when you see this? TINA: No. No, I'm happy that I can do this work, and that I can help maintain the memory of these people. | 13:13 |
Tina walks through avenue of trees | Music | 13:28 |
| TINA: Because that's keeping me alive too - we are nothing without remembering our ancestors. | 13:33 |
| Music | 13:39 |
Credits: | Reporter : Mark Corcoran Camera: David Martin Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen Research : Bronwen Reed |
13:48 |