Italian colonists in the Dodecanese colonists of Rhodes. In the Treaty of Paris in 1947, the islands were ceded to Greece. For the nearly 8,000 Italian colonists, after the Italian defeat in World War II, started a process of return to Italy and successive disappearance. The Dodecanese officially passed from Italy to Greece in 1947, and in that year all the Italian schools were closed. Some of the Italian colonists remained in Rhodes and were quickly assimilated. Actually only a few dozen old colonists remain, but the influence of their legacy is evident in the relative diffusion of the Italian language mainly in Rhodes and
Syrna (island) 7 December 1946, the ship "Athina Rafiah" carrying Jewish immigrants to Palestine was wrecked in the Agiou Soassin Bay, on the south coast of Syrna, and more than seven hundred survivors came ashore on the island. The British minesweeper HMS "Providence", working with HMS "Chevron", HHMS "Themistocles" and HHMS "Aegean" managed to rescue the survivors. Syrna (island) Syrna () or Sirna is a small island about 4 km in area to the south-east of Astypalaia in the Dodecanese group of Greek islands near the south-west coast of Turkey. It is mostly covered with juniper and garrigue scrub. The few inhabitants