“Can an Amputee Work Normally?” Medical Internationalism for People with Disabilities in Greece, 1935–1955

This paper focus on the ideas, practices and representations of medical internationalism for people with disabilities in Greece from 1935 to 1955, between the period of peace, the Second World War, and the civil war. Faced with the inaction of the Greek authorities, who gave priority to disabled children and veterans, two institutions, the Near East Foundation and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, created the Hellenic Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Civilians in 1945. The centre’s mission was to treat patients, provide them with prostheses, teach them a trade or a sport, and thus aim for physical and moral rehabilitation as part of the economic, political and social reconstruction of Greek society. Ten years later, in 1955, after treating approximately 7,000 disabled people, the Near East Foundation negotiated the transfer of the centre to the Greek State, which took over its management, not without difficulty.