Maurice Born

Maurice Born (31 December 1943 – 9 July 2020) was a Swiss architect, ethnographer, sociologist and writer, known for his work on the study of the leper colony of Spinalonga in Greece.

Background

Spinalonga is a small barren island located in the Gulf of Elounda in north-eastern Crete. In 1564, when it was part of the Kingdom of Candia, the Venetians built a fortress on Spinalonga, which soon became a key outpost for controlling the trading routes to the Levant. After Crete fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1649, Spinalonga remained under Venetian control until 1718. Shortly after the departure of the last Ottomans in 1898, the Cretan State established a leper colony on the island in 1904 that operated until 1957. This decision was influenced both by political factors and Edvard Ehlers' theories, who was strongly in favor of secluding leprosy patients in order to contain the disease. Spinalonga initially received patients from Crete but after 1913, when Crete was annexed to the Kingdom of Greece, also from mainland Greece.

Work on Spinalonga Interested in social isolation and social stigma, Born heard about Spinalonga from a friend and first visited the island in 1967. At that time, Spinalonga had been abandoned for ten years but little was known about the life of patients on the island; neither the state nor the locals wished to share details about the colony. Born was intrigued by the islands' past and returned in 1968, supported by a grant from the Paris Institute of the Environment . that focuses on Spinalonga and includes a unique interview with Remoundakis. In 2015, he published a book titled Vies et morts d’un Crétois lépreux (Lifes and deaths of a Cretan leper) that is based on Remoundakis' narrations.

Born also developed an interest in contemporary history of Crete. He became a member of the Society of Cretan Historical Studies . During the last decade of his life, Born had settled in Neapoli. In October 2019, he was declared an honorary citizen of Agios Nikolaos. He died in Auch, France after a long illness.