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In April we rented a furnished apartment at Ypsilantou 41 and Marasli Street, which was very close to my uncle Mario’s on Ploutarchou and Ypsilandou Street. It was a small apartment with an entrance, a bathroom to the right and the sitting room and a dining room.
The kitchen could be shut out and didn’t look like kitchen. It was the first time that I saw such a thing, like a sliding cupboard that would shut the kitchen out. The bedroom that my grandparents were using had a balcony looking out on Ypsilantou Street.
We were the only ones that also had a stove and when it was very cold the neighbors would come to warm up. On the floors there were carpets. In front of my grandparents’ room was a storage space under the floor, where we would put our suitcases etc. In this storage space I was saved later.
My sister had been hiding with the Karounidis family, who were ship-owners, while I went to a house in Pangrati to baby-sit a child. However, I didn’t stay as the man of the family behaved with what we describe today as sexual harassment, and this is why I left within a week and returned home. After I left, I stayed at my aunt’s so that I could be with my cousin May.
This is when my uncle learned about the new racist legislation, so we left and hid in Agia Paraskevi. There, there was a farm, but as we were afraid that the local people had understood that we were hiding, we left and went to stay at Tavros. The house was owned by the aunt of Koula, the Christina fiancée of the son of Nissim, who lived in Paris.
But even there, my uncle recognized somebody working at a neighboring farm, who used to work at a grocery shop in Kolonaki, and so we were forced to move from there too. I went back to our apartment, my uncle hid close to the Acropolis and my aunt with her daughter May, who had finished German studies in Dresden, Germany, found a job as an in-house teacher of German for the child of some lady. As for myself, I once again had to find a place to hide.
My uncle Mario had a friend called Aristotelis Stamatiadis, who was working at the Ionian Popular Bank. He sent me to a friend of his in Ekali, I remember I went in the morning to the bank wearing a scarf and looking down so that nobody would recognize me.
Mr. Stamatiadis took me to Mr. Telemachos Apostolpoulos, the bank manager. He died recently, at the age of 104, and he was included on the list of the Righteous Among the Nations [27] by Yad Vashem [28].
His sister, Toula, was the secretary of the National Bank manager, but she had been transferred to the office of Archbishop Damaskinos [29]. Damaskinos was a ‘shelter,’ protecting whatever you could imagine: communists, New Zealanders, who had fought with Australians and Greeks against the Germans, when Germany invaded Greece, Jews etc.
My G-d how much he helped us [the interviewee starts crying]. I put myself in his position and ask myself would I risk as much as Archbishop Damaskinos did or Toula, or Memis, Telemachos. It happened because we were facing the same enemy, or maybe it is because we Greeks are great souls.
This is how I went to live in Ekali and I had with me the Physics books, as this was the only subject left from my first year’s exams. The professors was Mr. Hondros, he was a special man with great courage.
The kitchen could be shut out and didn’t look like kitchen. It was the first time that I saw such a thing, like a sliding cupboard that would shut the kitchen out. The bedroom that my grandparents were using had a balcony looking out on Ypsilantou Street.
We were the only ones that also had a stove and when it was very cold the neighbors would come to warm up. On the floors there were carpets. In front of my grandparents’ room was a storage space under the floor, where we would put our suitcases etc. In this storage space I was saved later.
My sister had been hiding with the Karounidis family, who were ship-owners, while I went to a house in Pangrati to baby-sit a child. However, I didn’t stay as the man of the family behaved with what we describe today as sexual harassment, and this is why I left within a week and returned home. After I left, I stayed at my aunt’s so that I could be with my cousin May.
This is when my uncle learned about the new racist legislation, so we left and hid in Agia Paraskevi. There, there was a farm, but as we were afraid that the local people had understood that we were hiding, we left and went to stay at Tavros. The house was owned by the aunt of Koula, the Christina fiancée of the son of Nissim, who lived in Paris.
But even there, my uncle recognized somebody working at a neighboring farm, who used to work at a grocery shop in Kolonaki, and so we were forced to move from there too. I went back to our apartment, my uncle hid close to the Acropolis and my aunt with her daughter May, who had finished German studies in Dresden, Germany, found a job as an in-house teacher of German for the child of some lady. As for myself, I once again had to find a place to hide.
My uncle Mario had a friend called Aristotelis Stamatiadis, who was working at the Ionian Popular Bank. He sent me to a friend of his in Ekali, I remember I went in the morning to the bank wearing a scarf and looking down so that nobody would recognize me.
Mr. Stamatiadis took me to Mr. Telemachos Apostolpoulos, the bank manager. He died recently, at the age of 104, and he was included on the list of the Righteous Among the Nations [27] by Yad Vashem [28].
His sister, Toula, was the secretary of the National Bank manager, but she had been transferred to the office of Archbishop Damaskinos [29]. Damaskinos was a ‘shelter,’ protecting whatever you could imagine: communists, New Zealanders, who had fought with Australians and Greeks against the Germans, when Germany invaded Greece, Jews etc.
My G-d how much he helped us [the interviewee starts crying]. I put myself in his position and ask myself would I risk as much as Archbishop Damaskinos did or Toula, or Memis, Telemachos. It happened because we were facing the same enemy, or maybe it is because we Greeks are great souls.
This is how I went to live in Ekali and I had with me the Physics books, as this was the only subject left from my first year’s exams. The professors was Mr. Hondros, he was a special man with great courage.
Period
Interview
Yvonne Capuano-Molho