The facilities accommodated orphans and abandoned children from unsafe areas, as well as children whose parents were soldiers or political prisoners of the Greek government. The 51 cities provided a safe environment for 18,000 children aged 4-16 years old. Most of them were too young to understand what was happening in Greece but, despite the obvious political and ideological orientation of the cities’ creators, it seems that care was provided to all irrespective of their parents’ position in the civil war. Frederica was declared as the “first mother of Greece” or “Great Mother”, and many parents were proud to say that they had “given their children to the queen”.