In-Between Categories 49 of research, I do not know whether Nikolaos entered the Egyptian labor market, making use of his Egyptian citizenship, as his father did, or whether he departed in 1967 from Port Tawfik, as other Greeks did, following the 1967 War. Indeed, even if he had decided to remain and work in or around the Suez Canal region, it is likely that he left Egypt eventually, as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War forced Greeks and others to evacuate the canal. Because of the 1967 and 1973 wars, the canal remained closed for navigation for eight years (1967–1975). As my interlocutors commented, some of the Greeks who left the canal at that time relocated mostly to Cairo but on a temporary basis. Greece became the main destination for most of them, regardless of whether or not they held Egyptian citizenship. Therefore, Egyptian citizenship did not bind most Greeks to Egypt nor prevent the “return” of diaspora Greeks, but instead mostly solved practical issues for the period they lived there.40 Egypt-based international companies seemed to have similar prerequisites with regard to Egyptian citizenship. Another interlocutor, Michalis, commented that the international company Shell obliged his brother-in-law, who was an employee there for many years, to obtain Egyptian citizenship in order to keep his post. This person applied for and obtained citizenship and hence was able to remain in his post until 1973 when the war drove him, like others, from the Suez Canal region.41 Indeed, as the archival records and the oral accounts testified, Greek children in the Suez Canal region were able to obtain Egyptian citizenship because of their parents’ work contracts. Furthermore, political developments also influenced the access one could have to citizenship and the strategies of Greeks working in the canal zone. As an aftermath of the Suez Crisis, the Egyptian government expelled all British and French nationals from Egypt. Among those nationals, many Cypriots held British citizenship. Even though Decree 206 issued by Nasser in 1956 exempted Greek Cypriots and Greek Jews from all measures targeting British citizens in Egypt, many tried to change their citizenship to Greek out of fear of possible expulsion. According to archival records I examined, two out of five Cypriot children with British citizenship written on their birth certificates appeared later as Cypriot nationals on their student cards; others who had held Cypriot citizenship in the past were given Greek papers to avoid expulsion.42 For example, the birth certificate of Themelina Zachariadou, who was born in 1950 in Suez, stated that she was originally from Cyprus and held Cypriot citizenship. However, when Themelina was a teenager attending the second grade of gymnasium at the community

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