“Aktion Sühnezeichen” in Greece in 21/22

Paul guiding the other volunteers around the museum

“I work in a museum that deals with the massacre of Kalavryta. The 117. Hunters Division of the Wehrmacht has gathered all the inhabitants of the village in the school building and divided them into women and men, after which all the male villagers who were over 12 years old were taken to a hill outside the village and executed there. Meanwhile, another group of soldiers looted and set fire to the village. Many of the women and children were able to free themselves at the last moment, but 696 Greek civilians were murdered in Kalavryta and the surrounding villages.

After my arrival, I was slowly introduced to the theme of the museum and took on simple tasks such as putting up posters, small translations and everyday work in the museum. Gradually, I became more involved in the work. After a short time I was able to prove my knowledge of the local history and gave my first guided tour for a group of German educational travellers.
But also interpersonally, I had very good experiences and was welcomed by everyone with open arms and a lot of helpfulness. I get along very well with my colleagues and we also do leisure activities together, such as trips to the seaside, or to Patras, the nearest city, as well as evenings in the local bars or eating together.”

-short report written by Paul from Kiel, the first ASF volunteer staying in Kalavryta

“Etz Hayyim is the only surviving synagogue and was rebuilt only in 1999, after the German occupation almost completely destroyed the Jewish Quarter. It is both an active synagogue and a place to learn about history
learn. In addition, various intercultural projects are organised. This makes it one of the most important non-state supported organisations in Chania.

My working day begins at ten o’clock with the preparation of the synagogue for visitors, e.g. preparation of items for sale. Afterwards, the team discusses the tasks for the day at breakfast together.
I am currently working with Theo, my Austrian co-volunteer from GEDENKDIENST, on a historic city rally for a youth exchange with students of the FU from Berlin, where young people from Chania and the students get to know each other.
During our working hours the synagogue is regularly visited by people of different nations, to whom we show the premises and also give short guided tours according to their interest. That is why I invested time in the first few days to study the history of the place and the Jewish community of Crete.

Every Friday evening the Sabbath is celebrated in the synagogue, where I help with the preparation and follow-up, as well as participating in prayer. Even if this is not part of my working hours, it has always been exciting and beautiful experiences for me so far, because one is received in a friendly way by the community and thus gets first impressions of Jewish culture. During the first weeks, I also had the opportunity to get an insight into the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Sukkot.
To better follow the prayers Theo and I participate in Hebrew Reading lessons.”

-short report about the first months of her voluntary service written by Carleen from Eberswalde, the first ASF volunteer in Chania

When I first got to Ioannina, I was not quite sure what to expect, since the projects I was told about were just starting to take place and so there were some organisation issues that still had to be solved. It took some time to get used to the new environment and to get a solid working schedule, so in the beginning I found myself being confused and sometimes frustrated but after a short while I started taking part in various projects. One of my main purposes here is to exchange cultural differences. Thus, I started giving German lessons twice and English lessons once per day, from Monday to Wednesday. But other than that I include information about traditions and general culture, to not only focus on the language but to create diverse conversations. On Thursdays and Fridays I spend my time in the office of the Cultural Center, where I research, write and publish articles for the website about the Jewish community of Ioannina and Lingiades that I am currently working on. Another project that I am currently working on is creating an interactive tour around Ioannina, featuring the most important parts of Jewish history there. Right now, the synagogue in Lingiades is closed for renovation, so there are not many activities taking place there. But I am really looking forward to explore this and other places connected to my work in the future. Further than that, I am very motivated to learn and also educate others about the history of Lingiades, because during some conversations with the locals, I noticed that not many of them know about its historical context. And in my opinion, it is really interesting to know about. But on the other hand, working with refugees is very important to me, too. I feel like there is a lot of international apathy towards this issue and I see it as crucial to spread more awareness, regarding the political as well as the historical context connected to it.

In conclusion, I am very happy to be here and to be part of this project. Ioannina is a beautiful city and a great place to make long lasting experiences. Despite feeling a little bit lonely during the first weeks, I have now made quite a few friends and acquaintances, that I am getting along with well. The other volunteers and I also meet up regularly and it is good to have people to share your experience with. In addition to that, I have been taking Greek lessons for a few months now, which helped me a lot so far. Learning this new language is something I enjoy a lot and I am very glad to see a huge progress so far. I am looking forward to making even more memories, like exploring more of the country and getting new skills along the way.

-short report written by Helen from Hamburg, the first ASF volunteer staying in Ioannina and Lingiades

The Orthodox Academy of Crete is more than 50 years old. It was founded in 1868 during the dictatorship under some problems and the one major task of the academy is the Dialogue/exchange between politics, religion and science. The academy stands under the patronage of the Patriarchate, that is why it’s an officially Greek Orthodox Academy.
Nevertheless, the Academy often welcomes groups from science, physics and even apprentices
the landscape gardener from Germany. For example, there was once a seminar/meeting of physicists, where Stephen Hawking took part in. In the future, the Academy will continue its work the Commission’s actions over the last few decades.

During the first month I mostly worked on the reception, helped in the kitchen and took care of the Social Media accounts. Many international groups came in September and October, so I had the opportunity to join some excursions around the island ( for example boat and snorkel tours or exploring hidden beaches) and to meet different kind of people.

Now in winter most of my work takes place in my office where I sort documents and billets but I also have some things to do in the in-house library. Two times a week I participate in Greek lessons in Chania together with Carleen ( who is also a volunteer from ASF) and other students.

I really enjoy living right by the sea and to have the possibility to explore the Crete nature. Sometimes I am a bit bored because I didn’t really get to know some Young Greek people but I am sure that will change in summer and I am looking forward to the next months of my voluntary service.

-report about the life as an ASF volunteer staying in Kolymvari, written by Malena from Nordhorn

“Aktion Sühnezeichen” in Kryoneri Korinthias

I am Marlene, 18 years old and I come from Husum, a small town in Northern Germany.
I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to spend a year abroad after graduating from high school to experience other cultures and so I decided to apply to an organization called “Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste” which particularly caught my eye because of its historical and political context.
ASF describes its objectives and guiding principles on its website as follows: “The confrontation with National Socialism and its crimes is for Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF) the motivation and obligation for concrete action in the present.”

A few days after I submitted my application in November, I received an invitation to a selection and information seminar, which had to be held in January 2021 via Zoom due to the covid situation.
I went into the seminar with no concrete idea and was very excited about what was in store for me.
We talked about various topics in small groups. The discussions about one’s own family history were especially memorable for me. Another part of the seminar was called “country and project presentations”, where I came across Greece by chance. Both the opportunity to be involved in the design of a completely new project and the historical background of the Greek village Kryoneri appealed to me very much. When I was able to sign my service contract in March, not only the anticipation began, but also the first preparations for my voluntary service.

This included getting to know the Greek language for the first time, as well as finding sponsors who would like to support me during the year. Furthermore, I was given the interesting task of dealing intensively with my family’s past. As a result, I had conversations with my relatives and learned about situations and stories from war and post-war times that had never been present to me. I became more and more aware of how important it is to talk about past deeds and events so that they are not forgotten. That’s where my service in Kryoneri comes in.

Me together with the other volunteers

On September 9th, I flew to Greece together with my country group – consisting of four other volunteers. Together, the journey led us to my project in Kryoneri Korinthias, on the Peloponnese, about two hours away from Athens. There we were warmly welcomed by Panos Poulos, who is the Greek contact person for us volunteers, and his wife Athina, and a week of seminar was ahead of us. From excursions to Corinth, to Zoom calls with Contemporary witnesses and a visit to a Greek Orthodox service, it was all there. Since Kryoneri Korinthias is also my location for the year, I already had a first impression of my future home after the arrival week and already got to know some inhabitants. In the weeks that followed, I became more and more comfortable and quickly felt how hospitable and cordial I was received from all sides.

But I also like to look back on bathing trips to the nearby coastal city Kiato or visiting the Kryoneris Observatory at the beginning of my service.

The Karamanos cave in which the family Kamhi hid during the German attacks

My project is run by the Greek Intercultural Environmental Organisation FILOXENIA, which deals with educational work in the fields of ecology, politics and history. The latter is of particular importance to my voluntary service.
The Jewish family Kamhi was rescued in Kryoneri during the German occupation in the early 1940s. For several years, the seven-member family was hidden in houses by locals.

During the repeated German raids on the village, the family was taken to a small cave in the surrounding mountains to not be discovered. Only with help of the entire village population the family survived and the then six-year-old daughter Rivka Jakobi still looks back with gratitude. In 2018, two Families from Kryoneri received the significant award “Righteous Among the Nations” from the State of Israel for their extraordinary deeds.

An important concern of FILOXENIA is that this story shouldn’t be forgotten and that it should receive more attention outside the region, on which my activities are based to a large extent. The main task of my voluntary service is to develop the websites “Matsani” and “Memory Alive”, on which I document the history of the village and the civil courage of the villagers.
In order to obtain the necessary information, I have access to different text sources and also the great opportunity to speak with contemporary witnesses or their descendants. Most of the time I work independently but I can always contact the person in charge if I have any questions.

During the first two months, I mainly worked on small translations on the website “Matsani”, which represents Kryoneri as a whole village with all leisure activities, clubs and restaurants.
At the moment, my focus is on capturing Kryoneri’s moving story and its background on this website. In the course of the year, I will also report on various projects in which volunteers deal with the occupation in Greece.
My office is in the village’s youth club, where I stay from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m every day.

Another part of my service is the digitization of the village archive, which contains documents that are more than 100 years old. And I also take care of the development and maintenance of the hiking trails that lead to the cave where the Kamhi family hid temporarily.

Almost every day I meet the youngsters from the region– in groups of two, we exchange cultural differences and

everyday situations in English, German or Greek and learn languages in a playful way together. A “language tandem encounter” takes about an hour and is prepared by me.

In addition, I plan various leisure activities and events for young and old inhabitants of Kryoneri together with other volunteers.
In Kryoneri there are regular international exchange projects, which intensively liven up the village and are a cultural enrichment. The Hostel Elisson is an important place of contact for volunteers and offers space for encounters of all kinds. My colleagues and I also stay here.

In my free time, I do a lot of things with the other international volunteers. A great common passion of ours is baking and cooking, whereby we also try the first Greek recipes. We usually use the weekends for small hiking tours in the surrounding mountains and are overwhelmed by the beautiful nature of Greece.
I also attend a gymnastics class twice a week with other women from the village. These hours are always really funny and out of the reason that we don’t have a common language, I am very grateful to be integrated so naturally.

Especially memorable for me was the first small event we did with the youngsters where we met at the youth club to create a poster about our tandem encounters. Although the language is still a big barrier, we had a great time together and we volunteers felt very welcomed in the group.

Another highlight of my voluntary service is definitely the exploration of Greece and I already had the opportunity to visit another ASF volunteer at his project in Kalavryta, as well as to visit Athens for a few days.
I am looking forward to what will await me in the coming months and I am sure my stay here will shape me in the long term.

Voluntary Service with “Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste e.V. “

The German organization “Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste e.V.” was founded in 1958 to confront the legacy of Nazism. It is especially known through international volunteer programs and the organization of work camps in eastern and western Europe. ASF sends approximately 180 volunteers to countries that suffered under the German occupation during the Second World War.

In 2021 “Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste” made it possible for volunteers to start projects in Greece for the first time. In close cooperation with the Greek organization Filoxenia, several projects were developed on Crete, Peloponnese and in Ioannina.

The new book “My People” by Mariza Decastro

From Athens to a poor village in Corinthia – The adventure of a family through the eyes of the children who lived it

The great illustrations by Hara Marantidou add emotion to the narrative. It is an exemplary conversation between text and image. The overall result is a Greek book for children that has all the makings of an international career.

“I loved going to that school with the saints, looking at us from the pictures hanging on the walls. Everyone loved Father Athanasoulis and listened to him because he was very good. One day, after class, some of the older boys grabbed my brother and put him in the middle. A boy holding a broken bottle shouted at him, “You killed our Christ!” The priest found out and punished them.”

In the story of the Jewish girl Rebecca, who became Koula during the Occupation and, with the help of EAM, hid with her family in the village of Matsani (today Kryoneri) in Corinthia, everything fits. The peaceful osmosis between cultures and solidarity, brutality and fear, the family bond and racist bullying, self-denial and risk-taking. Not a few months have passed since I was wondering, writing here about an excellent foreign-language Holocaust martyrdom book (“The Boy from Buchenwald” by Robbie Weisman, Pataki Publications), when we will finally have children’s and teenage books based on Greek-Jewish stories from the Occupation (and not only!).

And here is my expectation fulfilled in the best possible way.

Rebecca-Koula, now over 80 years old, a permanent resident of Israel with children and grandchildren, is a cousin of Decastro and lends her story to her. Marantidou’s great illustrations add to the emotion and drama that the low tone of the wise, short narrative holds beneath the author’s lines. It is an exemplary conversation between text and image. The overall result is a Greek book for children that has all the makings of an international career.

A Jewish family with two young children, then aged about 7 and 9, is rescued from occupied Athens in 1943. A shanty village with tiled houses, without running water and electricity, welcomes the Jews and hides them.

The village priest takes the matter upon himself in his Sunday sermon: “When the Germans come, anyone can raise their hand and say that there are Jews hiding here. The Germans may give him money, they may not hurt him, but I, your priest, will burn his house and drive him out of the village. Because there are no traitors in our village”.

the book cover, illustrated by Hara Marantidou

“A shepherd, then, who knew how to manage both the good and the wild, became the guardian angel of the irreligious fugitives. Decastro has the good idea of interpolating the words of the alien children of the village of Matsani into Rebecca-Koula’s words. This is effective staging, as the reader makes the comparison on his own and forms on his own initiative the complete picture from the pieces of the multi-faceted mnemonic puzzle. Here the author seems to make use of oral testimonies.

From the reference at the end of the book we assume that the testimonies come from the relevant archive of the Corinthian organisation Filoxenia, which is now based in the same village and is active in the field of culture and the environment. So this is why words are not only the children of many people, but also of a combination of modern infrastructure and good practices. Who would have expected, a few years ago, such performance starting from the mountainous Peloponnese? The descendants of Father Athanasoulis, and of the Dimopoulou family who hosted Rebecca-Koula, her brother and parents, were later honored by Yad Vashem, the International Holocaust Remembrance Center based in Jerusalem.

After reading the book, I walked to the building at number 10 Athinas Street, a modern building with no taste. This is where once, at the beginning of history, the pre-war apartment building that the Kamhi family abandoned when they fled to Matsani would have been located. In this way, I think, the city is given its true face. From now on, the readers of this book, walking in Monastiraki or passing the Isthmus or climbing the mountains of Corinth, will recall a certain past, which will no longer be a ghost. And his people.

(Article translated from “Η Καθημερινή”, January 30, 2022, written by Μαρία Τοπαλη)

Mariza Decastro studied Pedagogy at the Sorbonne and Literature for Children and Young People. She taught History and Literature to primary school students in private schools. Furthermore she writes Knowledge books for children in the fields of history and art, and translates literature for young people and adults.

Since 1998 she has been involved in the review of children’s and teenage books in print and online
periodically.
Her books have been honoured with the State Knowledge Book Award (2006, 2018, 2019), the IBBY-Hellenic Book of Knowledge Award Department (2012, 2016, 2021) and the Youth Translation Award (2012, 2016, 2021) Book Award of the Hellenic Society of Literature Translators (2014).
Her works are included in the White Ravens 2017 catalogue and 2018 of the Munich Youth Library.
Plus that her books are also published by Kaleidoscope Publications:
A world in motion (National Knowledge Book Award 2018) and in the market of Ancient Athens.

Detailed biography and review: https://biblionet.gr/προσωπο/?personid=1625

Hara Marantidou is an artist, designer and architect.
She is a graduate of the School of Architecture of NTUA and
of the Athens School of Fine Arts.
She believes everything is interesting as long as you look at it up close. In all her works she tries to tell stories through the combination of image, text, objects and also through space, materials, sound and everything that can be combined to enrich the experience of storytelling.
Marantidou made Design exhibitions, educational material, museum products, special crafts, activities for children and adults, books and objects for many different institutions such as: the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC), the Olympic Museum of Athens, the Coin Collection of the Athens ALPHA BANK, the Kapodistrias Museum in Corfu, the Museum Greek Folk Musical Instruments, and other cultural institutions and education.
She has also illustrated books for Kaleidoscope Publications: Man or violin? (Honorary distinction The Reader 2013)
and The Complaining Mako.

(Βiographies were extracted from Kaleidoscope Publications)

Memory Alive in Germany

Memory Alive
Stories of Dresden Community

It’s a small scale project of fellow Hana Sebestova during her phase I., placement in Germany (02.10 – 15.11.2018), under the “START – Create Cultural Change” program supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

The mini project’s goal under „yOUR Community“ programme focused on local community’s needs and on issues that nowadays resonates and divides the society.
Using memory as a tool helping us to understand different paths as a reflection mirror of the diverse societies we live in.

The idea was to share personal stories in open discussions, in a creative way, understanding and getting closer to each other, focusing on people with a background of escape, migration and difficult paths.

The project consists from 3 activities: workshop, exhibition, video interviews.

During the workshop we used non-formal methods including creative, autobiographical writing, searching for an artistic voice in our lives.
We brought the light of the past into the present and it reminded us how our lives have changed.

The result of the workshop are short stories, illustrated by the participants, presented in the exhibition, hosted in different places of Dresden.

“Memory Alive/Stories of Dresden Community” is supported by “START – Create Cultural Change”, a program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, conducted in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the German Association of Sociocultural Centers, supported by the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation and the Bodossaki Foundation.
www.startgreece.net
www.facebook.com/startgreece

Please check the link bellow for more information about the whole project:
https://www.startgreece.net/fellows/hana-sebestova

In collaboration with https://www.kulturaktiv.org/

An image of Greek Jews (image extracted from the Jewish Museum of Greece)

History of Greek Jews

Jewish history goes back far into the past. The discovery of an inscription from Attica dating from 300-250 BC is the oldest archaeological evidence of Jewish life in Greece.

Many Jews immigrated to Greece in Roman times and made the beginning of the Byzantine Jewish Communities. These Communities mainly settled down in cities on the mainland and on the largest Greek islands in the 12^th century CE.
“Romaniotes” is the name these Jews got later. They were distinguished by their activities in the fields of weaving, dyeing of textiles and the silk industry. The “Romaniotes” were already speaking Greek and even had the ability to write in the Greek language with the help of Hebrew letters.

During the Ottoman occupation the society was separated into Muslims and non-Muslims. Second-mentioned were less respected but allowed to practice their faith and had restricted autonomy on community matters. After some time Ottomans realized the importance of an active Jewish Population which is why the Ottoman Empire let the persecuted Spanish and Portuguese Jews into the country. These Jews were called Sephardim (Sepharad=Spain) and had their own language (Judeo-Espagnol), folklore and customs. But some smaller groups also came from Hungary and Southern Italy.

A story of a Sephardic family in Greece during the Second World War can be read here.

Thessalonica, a city in the northern part of Greece, had one of the largest Jewish communities in the whole world between the 16^th and 18^th century. Other ones of great importance were also those on Rhodes and Crete. Especially the latter one was famous for the development of Rabbinical Philosophy.

An enormous step forward for the Greek Jews was the founding of the modern Greek State in 1832 which had the consequences that all citizens (including Jews) were granted equal civil rights from year 1882 till 1920 when all Jewish communities in the country were recognized as legal entities.
After the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) the Greek borders have been widened, which brought the number of Jewish people in Greece to the maximum of approximately 100,000.

During the Second World War the Greek Armed Forces (consisting to a large extent of Jews) fought against the attacks of Italy (1940) and Germany (1941). Nevertheless, almost every Jewish community was completely wiped out in times of Occupation by the assassinations at the death camps. Only 13 percent of the pre-war Jewish population survived.

After the end of World War II the Jewish Community of Greece became even smaller because of the urge to emigrate – mainly to the U.S.A. and Israel. That is why only about 9 Jewish communities are left in Greece nowadays, including 5,000 Jews.

Even though a lot of things happened in the past, the Greek Jews have always been a very active part in the country’s public life. An example is the Jewish representation in the parliament and the Senate (now abolished).

(image and text information were extracted from the following website: Jewish Museum of Greece)

Jewish Refugees During the War

A lot of descriptions have been written about hell. It usually has a huge crematoria and cruel angels who carry out their plot. But when Rivka Kamhi-Jakobi (81) describes the hell she experienced as a child in World War II in Greece, she describes it as a place where many good souls can be found.

The Kamhi Jewish family

Rivka was born in Athens to the Kamhi family. In 1943, when she was a 6-year-old, the Germans occupied the city (under Italian occupation at the time) and her life was turned upside down in an instant. She grew up in a wealthy home, as a spoiled child, with a maid who took off her father’s shoes when he returned from work. But all of a suden, she had to flee with her family in a horse-drawn cart to a village where there was no electricity and running water. There they hid until the end of the occupation, living a life of austerity under a false identity, fully relying on the kindness of the locals.

When Rivka thinks about her past, memories come back to her in flashes. “One thing that I remember is that, during the Italian rule, even before the German occupation, there was a severe famine in Athens. My mother, who was in the first weeks of pregnancy, went to fetch a pasta machine from the neighbor. Drugs were also hard to find, as most of them were sent to the front. The baby was a miracle for the family, however they worried, ‘What if he gets ill and they have no medicine?’ It would be very hard to hide him in a cave without being caught.“

“I always wondered what I would have done, if I were a mother during the Holocaust. How would I breastfeed my baby? All mothers with infants shared the same worries: Where to hide the baby if war broke out and how to calm him down if he started crying while in hiding.”

How it all started…

“I remember when I went with my mother and brother to a resort, as we did every year. It was November 1943. My father also joined us for the weekend. Then suddenly, our parents told us we needed to flee to a village. We went at once, horseback on a steep ascent, on an unpaved road. To this day, I do not understand how the horse managed to climb that path. We arrived at a small house in the village, at two in the morning: me, my parents (Avraham and Shulamit), my grandparents (Yechiel and Rivka), my brother Yechiel, who was two years older than me and uncle Rafael. As we arrived, people to whom we were complete strangers opened their doors to us. They invited us in to have supper together, in their little house, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.”

For years, Rivka Jakobi continued to talk about these memories from her childhood. At first, she told these memories to her own children as if they were mere fairy tales, bedtime stories. When they grew up, however, they started inviting her to school during the Holocaust Day, to share her story once again. To this day she sees it as her mission to let world know about the heroism of the good villagers and the lessons she drew from them about life.

“Whenever the Germans raided the village, the partisans would ring the church bells and send one of the children to take us to a cave in the mountains. The children would cover the cave entrance with branches, so we would not be exposed. I do not remember trauma, I do not remember fear. Only the piece of sky shining blue through the tree branches.”

Pastor Athanasoulis & Life in the village

“On the Sunday after we arrived, my father went to church because we had Christian certificates. The pastor, Nikolaos Athanasoulis, asked him to get out for a while. My father went out, but remained behind the door. He heard the priest say to the people, “Everyone knows that a family from Athens came to the village. They say they are Christians, but we all know they are not. The Germans will come and will offer you a bag of sugar or flour to betray this family. I warn you, if anyone talks about them, I will burn your house down. There will be no informants in my village!“

The current pastor, Panagiotis Theodorou, hears the story for the first time and the excitement on his face is evident.

“The spirit of the priest remains in the village to this day. Every stranger who comes here is embraced. The Albanians were also given food, clothes and a place to sleep.”

The pastor also served as the village teacher. Rivka remembers how he vacated the worship chairs after Sunday prayers and put small chairs instead, to teach the multi-age class, since the school building was used by the partisans. Rivka and her brother joined the makeshift class. She sat with the toddlers, in the front rows, and Yechiel sat a little behind her. The pastor adjusted the lessons according to the age and level of knowledge of the students.

“One day, after school, the pastor left and all children remained alone. Suddenly everyone surrounded my brother Yechiel, took a glass bottle and threatened him:

‘We will kill you, just like you killed Jesus.’

“I was standing there petrified. I did not know what to do. One child ran to the priest and told him what was happening. The priest came and put side by side the child who fetched him and the children who were threatening my brother and said: ‘These are the bad children, this is the good boy.’ His message was clear and sharp and everyone understood it.“

Father Athanasoulis had ten children. His youngest daughter, now 97, could not attend the ceremony, but his grandchildren came to receive the award in his name. One of them is Aliki Athanasouli (79), who met Rivka again during her visit to Kryoneri after 74 years. “We were real friends,” she said. “I remember we played together. My grandfather told us, ‘You have to take care of this family.’

“You were part of our family. One day, your brother Yechiel felt sick. You had to flee to the cave, but my mother told your mother to leave him with us. My father was also sick, so they lay together in bed. Then my mother told me to call Yechiel ‘my brother.’ When the Germans arrived, they asked my mother: “Who is this boy?”. She replied: ‘My son.’”

A book for posterity

Avi Jakobi (57), the eldest son, wrote a book six years ago about his family, with his brother Ido, which included some of his mother’s stories.

“As kids these stories were romanticised. Only now, when we’re here and meet with the people, can I truly understand the risk they took on for us. I try to imagine my grandmother living with the mothers of the women who are now present here. It surprises me to find out how important our story is to them. It is a part of them, no less than it is a part of me.”

The Kamhis Family Story

Gabriel Kamhi (the son of Rafael Kamhi who was hidden with other family members in Kryoneri during the German occupation in World War II) took his time to document his fathers family story:

“I, Gabriel Kamhi, a descendent of the Kamhi family whose origins lie in the city of Monastir (in north Macedonia), to which they came from the city of Toledo, Spain after the expulsion by the catholic kings.

Yehiel and Rebecca Kamhi with their two daughters Victoria and Frida. On the bottom left is my father Rafael and on the right his brother Abraham (Monastir 1906).

The stories of Rafael Kamhi and his wife Malka, my great grandfather and great grandmother went through the family from generation to generation. Rafael and Malka had several children, but naturally I will focus on stories about one oftheir sons, Yehiel Kamhi and his wife Rebecca, the parents of my father Rafael.

The family stories and tales through generations delivered strong messages of the importance of family and its protection in case of danger. These stories taught me important lessons. After the Balkan War, the Serbs took over the city of Monastir and closed the free passage to Greece. The trade with Thessaloniki was stopped and Monastir suffered an economic recession.

My grandfather Yehiel was looking for a way out, and along with my aunt Victoria went to search for their luck in Athens. They settled there to prepare the ground for the arrival of the other family members. Meanwhile, World War I broke out and the border was finally closed. The family in Athens made great efforts to obtain a permit to leave Monastir.

My aunt Victoria had ties to the Queen of Greece seamstress, who was the sister of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and, through her contacts, managed to obtain the long-awaited permits.

It was in 1915 when a German soldier showed up at my grandmother’s (Rebecca) house with documents.

My grandmother and those around her did not understand his language and did not know what he wanted. He, who couldn’t explain the purpose of his visit, left the place. The same day, Grandma told the story of the arrival of that soldier to one of her neighbors, which suggested that they might have been the long-awaited exit permits from Monastir.

Gabriel Kamhi with Dimitris Dimopoulos (son of Athanasios Dimopoulos)

Immediately at that moment, my father Rafael, who was only 12 years old at the time, was sent to the town center to try and locate the soldier. After searching, running and running, he found him. Unable to talk to him, he shrugged and managed to bring him back to my grandmother’s house. With the help of the neighbors who were able to understand and translate his words, it turned out that these were the exit permits from Monastir, but to their astonishment the validity was only forty-eight hours. In the short time they had loaded everything they could on a wagon. They began their journey towards the border and on arrival, thanks to the permits they had in hand, the border was opened for them and they arrived to Florina and from there took the train to Athens and connected with my grandparents. The family settled in Athens.

This was not the end of the story of the family’s hardships. In 1940, after Mussolini’s failed invasion of Greece through Albania, the Germans invaded Greece.

In 1943 the Gestapo representative in Athens sought to convene the leaders of the Jewish community in the synagogue and demanded that Rabbi Barzilai prepare a list of all the city’s Jews. The rabbi gathered the Jews and told them in the Ladino language “vos fuites todos”, which means “all to flee”. As a result, the family again had to disperse. Some hide in Kryoneri a village on the Peloponnese (formerly named Matsani), some hide in Athens and elsewhere. The only family that did not run away and did not hide was my aunt Frida’s family, who thought that because she was carrying a Spanish passport, they were immune to deportation. The bitter result is that she ended her life in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, along with many of the Jews. Our consolation is that her daughter Laura survived, she is 94 and lives in Jerusalem.

Going back to Kryoneri, my family (My father Rafael, his brother Abraham with their children Yehiel Jr. and Rivca, and their parents Yehiel and Rebbeca Kamhi) was hidden by Athanasios Dimopoulos and his family under the protection of the priest Nikolaos Athanasoulis. Under his personal protection the family could survive the war and return safely to their homes in Athens when the war ended.

From time to time (17 times) the village was visited by German patrols searching for partisans and Jews which might be hiding. They stayed days in the village searching from house to house and checking the documentation to find people that don’t not fit there, like a Jewish family.

Meanwhile, when the lookout in the observation post saw a German patrol approaching to the village, he gave the notice and the church bell ringed announcing that the Germans are coming. From that moment on, all the men that could be associated to the resistance ran to hide in the mountains, taking with them the Jewish family to hide in a cave in the mountain, in which they could spent several days in very unfavorable conditions, but most of all fearing from the knowledge that if they are found by the Germans, whether by searching or by betrayal of a local, they could be sent to the death camps in which Jews were exterminated by an industrialized process: factories of death. This was the first time I became aware of this feeling of horror, realizing why my father never told me about his horrendous experience.

At the end of World War II, the brothers dispersed again. Uncle Abraham, his wife and their two children Yehiel and Rivka immigrated to Israel. My father Rafael emigrated to Chile with his wife and my sister.

In Chile he met his sister Jenny, who married Enrique Assael in the 1920s, also of Monastir who emigrated to Chile at the 20’s and was spare from the horror of war. In Athens, Victoria remained married to Salomon Kamhi, a monasterly too.”

Volunteers creating a mosaic together in Kryoneri, Greece

Footprints in Silence 2019

An artistic search for traces in the shared past of young people from Germany and Greece

“Young people from Germany together with young people from Greek Martyr communities do research in Ravensbrück and Kalavryta in order to deal creatively and narratively with the history of the people in these memorial sites.

FOOTPRINTS IN SILENCE is a project of coming together, questioning one another and oneself, finding common ground beyond generations of hardened, mostly confrontational narratives. It is a journey in the footsteps of silence, metaphorically and literally. German and Greek young people visit places of remembrance – Ravensbrück and Kalavryta – on their search for traces of the common past. They research, write and create art, giving voice to the place and victims.

There are over 100 Martyr communities in Greece. Places severely hit by Wehrmacht atrocities during the German occupation of Greece in World War II. Like the Holocaust of the Greek Jews, it is a chapter in the history of the Second World War that is hardly known in Germany. The crimes of the Nazis have shown the devastating effects of disregarding human rights. Approximately 55,000 Greeks were deported to concentration camps. Gaps that hinder the perception of these places and the history of their people, the silence that envelops the fate of the people are filled here by an expressive, intercultural and interdisciplinary work of art of the youth programme.

10 participants from Germany, 10 young Greeks from Martyr villages and young people interested in art and history, aged 18-23.

1. Youth exchange: August 11-18, 2019 in Ravensbrück (former concentration camp and memorial) and Berlin

2. Youth exchange: October 03-10, 2019 in Kryoneri Korinthias and Kalavryta

Partner organisations:

Elisson gUG – A North-South connection (non-profit company) – Berlin
DJH – German Youth Hostel Association
FILOXENIA – Intercultural-Environmental Organization, Kryoneri Korinthias

This project is a follow-up activity to a German-Greek specialist exchange that was carried out by the DJH in December 2018 at memorial sites and former concentration camps in Germany.

The youth exchange project in Germany and Greece is funded by the EUROPEANS FOR PEACE: celebrate diversity! youth exchange for all of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”, with support from the German Ministry of Families, Seniors, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) – Special Programme for Greece.

Project team:

Anja Hack, Dipl.Wjur., Project coordinator with a focus on international inclusive project management, has been an international consultant since 2008. Anja organized and coordinated German-Greek projects, including international youth exchanges and European specialist programmes.

Christian W. Find, radio author, speaker and sound artist. Lives and works in Berlin. In his project Tonspurleben, he produces audio biographies. Since 2012 Christian has held audio workshops on the creative use of sound, noises, voices and silence in cross-generational memory projects.

Alicja Miszczor, certified lecturer in contemporary dance technique and improvisation in dance and in dance theater, lives and works in Kraków. With her InterArt dance method, drama of movement, Alicja accompanied a variety of creative and international youth encounters.

Dr. Matthias Heyl, Ingrid Bettwieser and Rüdiger Hahn, Pedagogical Service of the Ravensbrück Memorial offer a wide range of international youth education for active and creative engagement with the history of the Ravensbrück camp complex and the memorial as a place for historical and political education.

Lydia Konsta, MA Film Art, studied at the Northern Media School and at Sheffield Hallam University, film director / producer with international experience. Lydia graduated in performing arts and is a theater and experimental writing teacher. She lives and works in Thessaloniki and as director of the film “The Light Thickens” she deals in a special way with the time of the German occupation of Greece.

Hana Sebestova, ΜΑ Arts Teacher, human rights trainer of the Council of Europe is based in Corinth and studied art science and music in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Hana has organized numerous international youth exchange projects in recent years.

Panos Poulos, Dipl.-Pol., Youth consultant, studied political science in Athens and Berlin. He had his first professional experience in the field of youth exchange in Germany, returned to Greece in the mid-1990s and was one of the founders of the Filoxenia association. In 2014 he founded the non-profit Elisson UG in Berlin. Panos has 30 years of experience in youth work and youth exchange.”

(Information were extracted from the following website: https://elisson.org/en/footprints-in-silence-en/ )

The Jewish Refugees return to the village

74 years after the people of a small Greek village, led by the local priest, hid her and her family from the Nazis, Rivka Jakobi returned to meet the descendants of her rescuers.

On June 7th 2017, Rivka arrived in Kryoneri, which she knew by “Matsani” back in 1943. She came back to the village accompanied by her husband, Benny, her youngest daughter Rina and Rina’s friend Ila, who videotaped both visits.
Rivka and her family arrived early morning by the upper fountain of the village, which she seemed to remember clearly despite the few changes. They were welcomed by the president of the Municipal Department of Kryoneri, Mr Raftopoulos and Panos Poulos, head of the “Filoxenia” organisation.

Rivka Jakobi with Dimitris Dimopoulos

During her two days in Kryoneri, Rivka visited familiar places, such as the house she and her family lived in during the occupation. The descendants of Athanasios Dimpoulos (the man to hide Rivka’s family in his home), warmly welcomed everyone inside. Naturally, the house had since been renovated but Rivka was able to recount small details and even point out the window through which she watched the Germans set fire to a warehouse full of food and supplies.

Another place Rivka was glad to visit, was the chapel of the Rapsomati Monastery. Along with the Karamanos Cave, it was also another hiding place for her family whenever the Germans came.

In the afternoon, Rivka met up with her former classmates and old friends from the village. They spent an entire afternoon talking about her time in Kryoneri and all kinds of memories. Many even brought old photographs and everyone seemed to remember something. They all had dinner together at Diporto in the evening.

Finally, on her second day in the village, Rivka met some volunteers from the “Filoxenia” organisation and told them her story, from the moment she fled Athens all the way to when she moved to Israel. Every single youngster listened intently and by the end they decided to take on the task to open up the path to the Karamanos Cave. Rivka came back in September with her entire family (70+ people) and was finally able to visit that cave again.