Transcription
Michalis: Your father was drafted into the army in 1940?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: What do you remember from the start of the war?
Rachil: I don't remember anything particular now.
Michalis: When was the first time you started noticing something different in the city?
Rachil: We heard - my father and my mother, or both, I don't remember - they were listening to news from abroad. They had some radio and knew that Jews were being persecuted, meaning they knew this long before 1943. So they had already prepared for the possibility that they would have to leave at some point, that it would reach Greece too and they would be forced to leave.
I remember this very well because we always had a bag, let's say, with whatever essentials we would need. What the essentials were, I can't remember, but I remember we always had a bag and I remember which bag it was with the essentials.
Michalis: How was this bag?
Rachil: It opened strangely, had metal and opened strangely. I don't know if such bags exist anymore, I don't think so.
Michalis: Do you remember what things you had inside?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: Did you have many furniture in the house?
Rachil: No, not that many.
Michalis: Books?
Rachil: And books, yes. Many books.
Michalis: Did you have Hebrew prayer books?
Rachil: Yes, of course, yes, yes.
Michalis: Did you have other books?
Rachil: And other books, yes. Not as many as today, of course, much fewer than what we have today, but we did have them.
Michalis: Let's move a bit now to '43 and to the point where you left the house at Plateia Attikis.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Can you tell us what happened?
Rachil: Let me see, maybe it would be better - I have written these down, perhaps I'll remember better if I read them.
First of all, we had - I must tell you this - my aunt had some very good friends who lived very close to my aunt.
Michalis: In Sepolia?
Rachil: In Sepolia. They were called Polymeris and Persephone. I might have written their surname further down. They had three children and they found us the place where we would hide.
They took care to send us somewhere. I don't know how we left - a truck, I think some truck came and took us. It wasn't a truck, it was a small vehicle that took us to Dionysus. That's where we went, our first hiding place.
Michalis: What you're telling me now, did you learn this from your parents?
Rachil: More so, because my parents and my sister, who was older - she was 13-14 years old and remembered very well.
Michalis: Who organized this operation?
Rachil: Yes, Polymeris and Persephone, these two arranged it. They had some sister, aunt, in Dionysus and she arranged to hide us.
Michalis: Do you remember or know when you left the house at Plateia Attikis?
Rachil: Let me see... Yes, now I see the neighbor Vourania Koliopoulou that I mentioned. I have her written down. Ah, here I write many things.
In the evening, it says, after it got dark, my parents with my sister transferred whatever they could to her house to save them.
Michalis: To Mrs. Koliopoulou's house.
Rachil: Ah, so Mrs. Koliopoulou participated in the operation.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. And she gave us back whatever things we gave her, which we couldn't take with us - she gave us everything back, even a pin, let's say, in the end. She gave us everything back.
Michalis: Did your neighbors generally know that you were Jewish?
Rachil: They must have known, they must have.
Michalis: Do you remember if it was night or day when the car came to pick you up?
Rachil: Definitely day, I don't think it was night.
Michalis: Do you remember that day?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: What is the first memory you have after the, let's say, move from Plateia Attikis?
Rachil: I remember very well that at first we stayed in Dionysus. Together with, or close to the sister, I don't know what she was. The aunts were living there - Polymeris's aunts lived in Dionysus.
One aunt was married to a Stamatis who was a guard at the National Bank camp in Dionysus. And the other aunt was married to Kostas Roussos, Stamatis's assistant at the camp. And they were willing to host my aunt and uncle. Actually, they were more her friends.
Ah, and Vangelis Dimitriou who worked... Yes, he helped us a lot too.
Vangelis would go to my father's partner, Mr. Mavrogiorgis, and give him money because how did we live, how did we survive those 13 months. He would give him his share, meaning whatever he earned from the office, his partner would give it to Vangelis Dimitriou who brought it to us in Dionysus.
Michalis: So your father's office continued to operate?
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes.
Michalis: Do you remember the place where...
Rachil: I remember Dionysus very well.
Michalis: Can you describe it to us?
Rachil: Yes, the house was near trees, let's say, and I would go out and play with the children because there were other families there too. And my parents were afraid of course when I went out and played. And they forbade me at some point.
I remember very well that I wanted to play so much - play is essential for a child - that I told them: look carefully, don't forbid me to go out, because I'll go tell that you are Jews. That's how far I went.
Michalis: Can you describe the road in Dionysus as it was?
Rachil: The house was in the forest. And we would go out there. It had a clearing of course where we children played. But there we played with the dirt.
Michalis: Were these children living in the same house or were they neighbors?
Rachil: No. They were from the neighborhood.
Michalis: How many houses did this neighborhood have?
Rachil: Few. Very few. Minimal.
Michalis: What was around the forest?
Rachil: It was very sparsely populated. Very much so from what I remember. There was forest around the houses.
Rachil: Forest, yes. Forest.
Michalis: And how was the house inside?
Rachil: The house inside was very small from what I remember. We all lived in one room. And a small room.
Michalis: How did you experience this change?
Rachil: We stayed very little there. Because, if I remember correctly, yes, someone betrayed us.
Michalis: Ah, this is very important.
Rachil: We had a neighbor with whom we had very good relations. And we had told him where we would go. And we are sure, yes of course, we are sure that he betrayed us, that he reported where we were.
And a German car came, or no, collaborators came, and they were searching everywhere. And I don't know how it was learned immediately of course. And we absolutely had to leave from there.
Michalis: From Dionysus.
Rachil: From Dionysus. We rented a house in Rhea, which is a few kilometers from Dionysus.
Michalis: This neighbor lived in the same neighborhood in Dionysus?
Rachil: Yes, at Plateia Attikis.
Michalis: Ah, he lived at Plateia Attikis.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes, at Plateia Attikis.
Michalis: He learned that you would go to Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Do you remember this car that came?
Rachil: The car... No, I didn't see it. Because it came a second time too. Then I saw it and I remember it.
Michalis: In Rhea.
Rachil: How long did you stay in Dionysus?
Rachil: Very little. It must have been months, much less maybe. One, two months.
Michalis: Mr. Mavrogiannis all this time was sending money?
Rachil: Mavrogiorgis. Yes, yes. Vangelis Dimitriou would go. The one who helped us a lot.
Michalis: How were you transported from Dionysus to Rhea?
Rachil: Again with some gazogene it was called then. It wasn't called a truck. It was a gazogene.
Michalis: Do you remember who was driving these cars?
Rachil: Something tells me now. Because I remember that some acquaintance had come who took us. All these trips were made by someone very familiar. It was some friend.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. And in fact, now I don't remember at what moment, someone had taken us from behind. I think when we were leaving Rhea and from there we left later.
Michalis: Yes.
Rachil: It was the same car.
Rachil: Yes, the same. The same and the same driver.
Michalis: Can you describe the car to me?
Rachil: In front sat the driver and one more. And in the back we were all with the things. And it was closed. It didn't have windows in the back. Only windows it had in the back door which opened.
Michalis: Was it a passenger car or some other type?
Rachil: No, no. Probably not passengers. It shouldn't have had any. It was only for transport.
Michalis: Do you remember the transfer from Dionysus to Rhea?
Rachil: Very little.
Michalis: What do you remember?
Rachil: Very little. Because there we had no fear. We had no one following us. After Rhea when we left was the problem.
Michalis: In Rhea.
Rachil: We rented a house which I can see. We rented a house which was very beautiful. It had an external courtyard. Like this, proper. And in the middle was the house. Small of course. Very small. It had a garden. And my father there planted vegetables.
Michalis: Did your father know how to deal with gardening?
Rachil: Yes, he liked it very much. And he cooked too... And he did it at Plateia Attikis too.
Rachil: He cooked there.
Rachil: No. We didn't have a garden there at all.
Michalis: Of the three houses - at Attiki, Dionysus and Rhea - which was the largest?
Rachil: In Rhea.
Rachil: In Rhea. No, our house was the largest. In Rhea it was small. It was someone's country house. In Rhea.
Michalis: How did you live inside the house as a family?
Rachil: I think we normally had our beds. A double one, my mother. This was a house that belonged to someone who came only in the summer. She lived in America. And she rented it to us precisely because she wouldn't use it for a period.
Michalis: Was she Greek?
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: At this time, do you remember what year we are in?
Rachil: 1943, when did the persecution in Athens begin?
Rachil: Yes.
Rachil: September.
Rachil: September 1943. Therefore... Now to justify ourselves we said we were refugees from Kavala. To justify ourselves in Rhea where we went.
Michalis: At this time were your parents using their normal names?
Rachil: No. They had... I must have them. They had identity cards that the father of Evert who was police chief had given them. False ones for both my mother and my father.
Michalis: Do you remember the names of these identities?
Rachil: Yes, I think Livadiotis was the surname. And the first names... Tasos and Anastasios, meaning, and my mother... I'll find the identities. I must have them.
Michalis: Your mother.
Rachil: Somehow I don't remember how...
Fakas was the one who suggested to my parents to leave me there because I was very small, and he was the one who betrayed us. And my parents always said that he kept me to blackmail the situation because they would never leave me. Because everyone was taking some money.
Michalis: Do you remember Fakas's first name?
Rachil: No. I don't have it.
Michalis: Fakas betrayed you when you were in Rhea?
Rachil: Yes. It started from Rhea. And that's when the collaborators' cars came.
Rachil: Yes. It wasn't in Dionysus. It was in Rhea. Because we stayed very little in Dionysus.
Michalis: How long did you stay in Rhea?
Rachil: Very little we stayed there too. Because I remember that my father had planted... I remember this well. He had planted cabbages, lettuce and so on. And he didn't manage to... He didn't manage to... We were ready to harvest them and we left.
Michalis: Did you cook in Dionysus and Rhea?
Rachil: I don't remember in Dionysus. In Rhea definitely.
Michalis: And how did you have access to food?
Rachil: Where we shopped. I really don't remember that either.
Michalis: At this time had your parents given you any instructions?
Rachil: No. No. My siblings were very frightened. I was a bit, I don't know, I hadn't realized. I don't know. I was a bit more carefree.
Michalis: Did your parents call you Rachil or Lili?
Rachil: Lili always. From small. I don't know, they never called me Rachil.
Michalis: And in Dionysus and Rhea?
Rachil: Yes, Lili, Lili always.
Michalis: I understand that the house in Rhea was a bit more comfortable than Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes, yes. There in Dionysus it was one room. And in Rhea we had, we could move around.
Michalis: Did you have neighbors there?
Rachil: In Rhea I don't think so. I don't think we had any relationship with any neighbor. Because I don't write it here either.
Michalis: Do you remember how you spent your time?
Rachil: Yes, I'll tell you later. This explains it.
When they came to search for us in Rhea, they went first to Dionysus. Because there they were searching for us and Polymeris's aunt sent her son who was a child. Running from Dionysus to Rhea. He came not by the main road. He came through the paths. To warn us to leave.
Michalis: Mrs. Polymeris.
Rachil: Polymeris's aunt.
Rachil: Yes, Pina. That's what I called her. She lived in the same neighborhood in Dionysus. In the same neighborhood in Dionysus. No, in the house where we stayed the first time. We stayed a bit with her too. And then we rented the house in Rhea. But her house was in Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: So you were staying with Mrs. Pina Polymeris.
Rachil: Yes, there we stayed the first time.
Michalis: That's why you were in one room.
Rachil: And who else was in this house?
Rachil: I think she with the children. I see that she has a son too. I don't know if she has others too.
Michalis: Do you remember staying with another family?
Rachil: Yes, of course.
Michalis: While in Rhea you were alone.
Rachil: Alone. Just us. Ah, and my aunt always. We were the four of us and my aunt with my uncle. Eftyhia and Rikos.
Rachil: Yes, we were together until...
Michalis: And in Dionysus?
Rachil: Because it was her acquaintance who we went to in Dionysus.
Michalis: You stayed with Mrs. Pina Polymeris's family.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: And with your aunt.
Rachil: Six people, yes.
Michalis: And when you went to Rhea.
Rachil: You went together with your uncle and aunt.
Rachil: Yes, of course. Six people. Later we separated.
Michalis: Do you remember the day the child arrived to tell you that you must leave?
Rachil: Very intensely. It was a small child, must have been ten. He wore short pants. And he came and told us, my mother said: "There's a car in Dionysus. Looking for two Jewish families. They've already found one. And they're looking for the second," which I imagine was you. "You must get up and leave."
At that moment we had sat at the table to eat. It was midday I imagine. My father says we're leaving immediately. We got up, left everything there as it was, the food. And we took three things. I don't know if we took anything. We got up and left immediately. My mother was in slippers. She left in slippers.
Sorry, I didn't tell you correctly. Fakas wasn't at Plateia Attikis. Fakas was a neighbor in Rhea.
Michalis: In Rhea.
Rachil: In Rhea, not even in Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes, yes, in Rhea. And we passed by there. By there to tell him we were leaving. And he kept betraying us.
Michalis: Do you remember him?
Rachil: Yes, I remember him. I remember him. Because we saw him later too. And it made an impression on us, let's say. He was Greek.
Actually we had passed once after the liberation. He lived in Rhea. And we had passed and seen him. From a distance.
Michalis: You said they had found a Jewish family in Dionysus.
Rachil: That's what I write here.
Michalis: But do you remember if there was another Jewish family?
Rachil: No. No. And probably it must have been my aunt. That is, my aunt with my uncle. And they had us as two different families. They were looking for us. They didn't find another I think.
Michalis: Were your uncle and aunt where they had arrested a Jewish family?
Rachil: And yet there must have been another. Not your uncle and aunt.
Rachil: No. No. They had us as one family.
Michalis: How did you leave Rhea?
Rachil: From Rhea. Well. We left, my mother as we were. My father took me. He put me on his shoulders. And my siblings. And my aunt and uncle. And we left as we were. And we hid - I remember this very well.
We left. We crossed the road. The asphalted road. And there was a ditch after. And we went and hid in the ditch. And we heard. After a while I write here. We heard the Germans' cars passing.
Michalis: Do you remember hearing the cars?
Rachil: No. These are perhaps more from my sister.
Michalis: At this moment you are with your sister, your parents...
Rachil: Six.
Rachil: Your uncle. They didn't have children.
Rachil: No.
Michalis: So you are all six in the ditch.
Rachil: And how long did you stay there?
Rachil: We heard the Germans' cars passing and we started walking after.
Michalis: Do you remember this?
Rachil: That my father had put me there. I remember this.
Michalis: And where did you go?
Rachil: And I remember the ditch a bit.
Michalis: Where did you go?
Rachil: Well. Ah, and my father and uncle were carrying me. We took a path towards Pogiati. Now it's called Agios Stefanos.
Michalis: Do you remember what the weather was like that day?
Rachil: It was night.
Rachil: Night.
Rachil: Night yes. We waited for it to get dark to leave the ditch.
Michalis: So you learned this when you were eating lunch.
Rachil: Yes, yes. And we had sat at the table and left everything like that and left.
Michalis: And you walked to Pogiati.
Rachil: Yes. Where a compatriot of my mother and aunt lived, named Kariotis.
Michalis: When you say compatriot.
Rachil: From Albania, from Northern Epirus. Avlona.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Relatives?
Rachil: No. Compatriot. We asked him to spend the night. He was afraid and didn't accept us though.
And then my father remembered, he says, an acquaintance of his, a baker who lived in Kifissia. We took another path and found ourselves in front of a place where a German anti-aircraft antenna was set up.
And normally there were mines there, he says. But because we had to pass, my father told me the Makentavis, how do I say it. A prayer and he says if God protects us we will pass. And we passed.
Michalis: And you are all on foot?
Rachil: All, yes. And I was always very small, I couldn't endure such things.
Michalis: And in Kifissia where did you go?
Rachil: We went to this compatriot of my father. Ah, no, the baker. Baker. Now where was he from.
Michalis: Do you remember the baker?
Rachil: No, I don't remember any of these things.
Michalis: Do you remember where you stayed there in Kifissia?
Rachil: I remember that this baker, I remember this, that he didn't have where to put us. To spend the night now was the issue. And he took down the doors. He took down the doors so we could lie down somewhere.
Michalis: He removed the doors.
Rachil: He removed the doors from his house, amazing.
Michalis: The house or the shop?
Rachil: It was his house.
Michalis: Do you remember if there was anyone else in the house?
Rachil: No, I don't remember.
Michalis: How long did you stay?
Rachil: Just that night.
And then they had, my father had, I don't know how, I don't remember well now, I have it written. That he had some suspicion that we must leave Rhea at some point. And he had given a down payment for a house in Pogiati. And we went saying that now we will stay, from now we will stay.
Michalis: Your father already had some plan to leave Rhea?
Rachil: Yes, to leave because he didn't feel safe.
Michalis: And when did you go to the house in Pogiati?
Rachil: The next day we went there and we called, if I remember correctly, we called this Fakas who we didn't know then that he was betraying us every time. And they went together and took our things that we had in Rhea to move, let's say.
Michalis: This was done by car?
Rachil: Yes, it must have been with his own, I don't know, we moved, let's say.
Michalis: Do you know what relationship Fakas had with your father?
Rachil: No, simply that he was the neighbor in Rhea, from what I write here too. I thought he was at Plateia Attikis but he was the neighbor in Rhea.
Michalis: And then you took your things to Pogiati?
Rachil: Yes, lower Kifissia, I don't know, lower Kifissia the house might have been.
Michalis: Do you remember what this house was like?
Rachil: The only thing I remember is it had a covered veranda, relatively small, I know, enough for four chairs or maybe five. You entered first into this veranda and then you entered inside the house. I remember this veranda well.
Michalis: And how long did you stay there?
Rachil: We stayed a little and at some point came... We see a car. I remember this. We see a car coming. Which was black. Small black car. With two people inside. Greeks.
And who got out came. They were collaborators. They didn't give their names. I never knew them. And they sat us all down. On this veranda. And I remember this. I remember it very much as if it were today. This veranda. And they sat us all down.
And they told us that we have orders. To arrest you. And my father said: "What do you want from us?" He says give us whatever you have. Jewelry, money, pounds. My father says: "I have nothing. Of what you're asking me."
Since I remember this very characteristically. My sister was wearing a makentavid. On her neck. "The only gold we have," he says, "is this chain. If you want us to give it to you." "No, no," he says. "Not from the child." "Not from the child," they said.
"But we give you," he says, "I don't know how much time, deadline, to get up and leave."
Michalis: Were these people armed?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: And when did you leave this house?
Rachil: Immediately. Again the same. That is, what we did from Rhea we left from there too. Immediately.
Michalis: Even though you had already paid?
Rachil: Yes, yes. We didn't calculate these things.
Michalis: And how did you leave this house?
Rachil: Again Vangelis Dimitriou came. He came to pick us up with the car. But from there where did we go though. It was the same gazogene.
Ah, she also had a little ring that she wore. Besides the chain. She wore a little ring too. He says no, no, not from the child.
Michalis: When you were on this veranda, do you remember what you felt?
Rachil: Fear. Fear. I had too, even though I was a bit... I was afraid. When I saw all the others frozen. I was afraid too.
Michalis: Were they all frozen?
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. That is, we were sure they would tell us get up. Come for us to take you. How they pitied us, I don't know. It seems very strange to me.
Michalis: Vangelis Dimitriou picked you up with the same car?
Rachil: Yes, yes. He always did our transfers. He worked in a hotel. I remember this. At the beginning of Stadium Street that was called Sudan. He was an exceptional man. That is, thanks to him I think we survived.
And he was related to Polymeris and his wife. No, let me think. Ah, one minute. Aristidis. There's also an Aristidis here. He did our moves. Who Aristidis was though I don't remember.
And we went, he says, to the Queen's Tower. To Agioi Anargyroi. I don't remember this at all. To another house.
Rachil: Yes. That Aristidis had learned that a house was being rented there.
Michalis: Do you remember how long you stayed?
Rachil: No, we didn't stay. Because I see here that although we said we were refugees. The owner realized we were Jews and threw us out.
Rachil: And we slept in the open near a train station.
Michalis: Do you remember this?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: What is the next memory after the house in Pogiati and the veranda?
Rachil: Where we went after. What do you remember. What do you remember.
Rachil: We went. What do you remember immediately after. That is, you remember the veranda. Now I remember them because I wrote all these down with my sister. But now they escape me. I don't remember because I don't remember what I ate yesterday.
There we separated. My aunt and uncle left and went elsewhere because we were becoming targets all together.
Michalis: Do you remember the day you separated?
Rachil: Yes, yes. I remember we were all crying. Many because we were one family.
Michalis: This happened in Agioi Anargyroi?
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Do you know where your uncle went?
Rachil: To Piraeus. I remember this. But I don't know where they went.
And we went to Kalyvia.
Rachil: Yes, there we calmed down. Who found us this house I don't know. In Kalyvia. Kalyvia Attikis still exists. You would know. We went to Kalyvia.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. There we found a house and stayed until... There we calmed down for the last time. I don't know how long we stayed. But we really had peace there. That is, no one knew us. We hadn't told anyone. They had understood about Fakas being a traitor. And we hadn't told anyone. No one. And we calmed down there.
Michalis: Did you rent a house?
Rachil: Probably. We stayed in a house anyway.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes.
Michalis: And do you remember the house in Kalyvia?
Rachil: No. Not at all.
Michalis: Do you remember the day you stopped hiding?
Rachil: I remember who it was that came. And I remember when they bombed Larissa Station. I remember when we went out and watched the bombs falling. It was, the English it was. Probably, the English it was.
Michalis: You were in Kalyvia.
Rachil: In Kalyvia, yes.
Michalis: What do you remember from that bombing?
Rachil: I remember the airplanes that we saw with the bombs. That is, they were like lightning. And how were we to know that one of those bombs would fall on our house too. Because we were very close to Larissa Station.
Michalis: So your house was destroyed?
Rachil: Yes, completely.
Michalis: What time of day did you see these bombs?
Rachil: It was night.
Michalis: Do you remember anything else from when you were in Kalyvia?
Rachil: No, we were very happy there. I know this, I remember this. We were very calm and happy.
Michalis: Did you see a change in your parents' behavior?
Rachil: I imagine that they too... That is, according to what I understand, they calmed down, we calmed down too as children.
Michalis: But don't you remember if you had neighbors?
Rachil: Not at all I don't remember.
End of Interview
In this interview, Rachil about her memories after staying in Kalyvia during WWII. Rachel discusses her family's post-war life, including their temporary stay with relatives, returning to damaged homes, her education at various schools including time in England, marriage arrangements within the Jewish community, and the gradual decline of religious observance in her household compared to her parents' generation. She reflects on Jewish traditions, family relationships, and how the war's aftermath affected their community's religious and cultural practices.
This moving testimony recounts the story of a Jewish family forced to abandon their home in Plateia Attikis in 1943 to escape Nazi persecution. The family hid in various locations around Athens (Dionysus, Rhea, Kifissia, Kalyvya), aided by courageous Greek citizens but also repeatedly betrayed. Despite the dangers, fear, and constant relocations, the family managed to survive until liberation, while their original home was destroyed by Allied bombing. The narrative provides a deeply personal account of survival during the Holocaust in Greece, highlighting both human cruelty and extraordinary acts of solidarity.
Rachel Alkalai (Botton)
Transcription
Michalis: Your father was drafted into the army in 1940?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: What do you remember from the start of the war?
Rachil: I don't remember anything particular now.
Michalis: When was the first time you started noticing something different in the city?
Rachil: We heard - my father and my mother, or both, I don't remember - they were listening to news from abroad. They had some radio and knew that Jews were being persecuted, meaning they knew this long before 1943. So they had already prepared for the possibility that they would have to leave at some point, that it would reach Greece too and they would be forced to leave.
I remember this very well because we always had a bag, let's say, with whatever essentials we would need. What the essentials were, I can't remember, but I remember we always had a bag and I remember which bag it was with the essentials.
Michalis: How was this bag?
Rachil: It opened strangely, had metal and opened strangely. I don't know if such bags exist anymore, I don't think so.
Michalis: Do you remember what things you had inside?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: Did you have many furniture in the house?
Rachil: No, not that many.
Michalis: Books?
Rachil: And books, yes. Many books.
Michalis: Did you have Hebrew prayer books?
Rachil: Yes, of course, yes, yes.
Michalis: Did you have other books?
Rachil: And other books, yes. Not as many as today, of course, much fewer than what we have today, but we did have them.
Michalis: Let's move a bit now to '43 and to the point where you left the house at Plateia Attikis.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Can you tell us what happened?
Rachil: Let me see, maybe it would be better - I have written these down, perhaps I'll remember better if I read them.
First of all, we had - I must tell you this - my aunt had some very good friends who lived very close to my aunt.
Michalis: In Sepolia?
Rachil: In Sepolia. They were called Polymeris and Persephone. I might have written their surname further down. They had three children and they found us the place where we would hide.
They took care to send us somewhere. I don't know how we left - a truck, I think some truck came and took us. It wasn't a truck, it was a small vehicle that took us to Dionysus. That's where we went, our first hiding place.
Michalis: What you're telling me now, did you learn this from your parents?
Rachil: More so, because my parents and my sister, who was older - she was 13-14 years old and remembered very well.
Michalis: Who organized this operation?
Rachil: Yes, Polymeris and Persephone, these two arranged it. They had some sister, aunt, in Dionysus and she arranged to hide us.
Michalis: Do you remember or know when you left the house at Plateia Attikis?
Rachil: Let me see... Yes, now I see the neighbor Vourania Koliopoulou that I mentioned. I have her written down. Ah, here I write many things.
In the evening, it says, after it got dark, my parents with my sister transferred whatever they could to her house to save them.
Michalis: To Mrs. Koliopoulou's house.
Rachil: Ah, so Mrs. Koliopoulou participated in the operation.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. And she gave us back whatever things we gave her, which we couldn't take with us - she gave us everything back, even a pin, let's say, in the end. She gave us everything back.
Michalis: Did your neighbors generally know that you were Jewish?
Rachil: They must have known, they must have.
Michalis: Do you remember if it was night or day when the car came to pick you up?
Rachil: Definitely day, I don't think it was night.
Michalis: Do you remember that day?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: What is the first memory you have after the, let's say, move from Plateia Attikis?
Rachil: I remember very well that at first we stayed in Dionysus. Together with, or close to the sister, I don't know what she was. The aunts were living there - Polymeris's aunts lived in Dionysus.
One aunt was married to a Stamatis who was a guard at the National Bank camp in Dionysus. And the other aunt was married to Kostas Roussos, Stamatis's assistant at the camp. And they were willing to host my aunt and uncle. Actually, they were more her friends.
Ah, and Vangelis Dimitriou who worked... Yes, he helped us a lot too.
Vangelis would go to my father's partner, Mr. Mavrogiorgis, and give him money because how did we live, how did we survive those 13 months. He would give him his share, meaning whatever he earned from the office, his partner would give it to Vangelis Dimitriou who brought it to us in Dionysus.
Michalis: So your father's office continued to operate?
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes.
Michalis: Do you remember the place where...
Rachil: I remember Dionysus very well.
Michalis: Can you describe it to us?
Rachil: Yes, the house was near trees, let's say, and I would go out and play with the children because there were other families there too. And my parents were afraid of course when I went out and played. And they forbade me at some point.
I remember very well that I wanted to play so much - play is essential for a child - that I told them: look carefully, don't forbid me to go out, because I'll go tell that you are Jews. That's how far I went.
Michalis: Can you describe the road in Dionysus as it was?
Rachil: The house was in the forest. And we would go out there. It had a clearing of course where we children played. But there we played with the dirt.
Michalis: Were these children living in the same house or were they neighbors?
Rachil: No. They were from the neighborhood.
Michalis: How many houses did this neighborhood have?
Rachil: Few. Very few. Minimal.
Michalis: What was around the forest?
Rachil: It was very sparsely populated. Very much so from what I remember. There was forest around the houses.
Rachil: Forest, yes. Forest.
Michalis: And how was the house inside?
Rachil: The house inside was very small from what I remember. We all lived in one room. And a small room.
Michalis: How did you experience this change?
Rachil: We stayed very little there. Because, if I remember correctly, yes, someone betrayed us.
Michalis: Ah, this is very important.
Rachil: We had a neighbor with whom we had very good relations. And we had told him where we would go. And we are sure, yes of course, we are sure that he betrayed us, that he reported where we were.
And a German car came, or no, collaborators came, and they were searching everywhere. And I don't know how it was learned immediately of course. And we absolutely had to leave from there.
Michalis: From Dionysus.
Rachil: From Dionysus. We rented a house in Rhea, which is a few kilometers from Dionysus.
Michalis: This neighbor lived in the same neighborhood in Dionysus?
Rachil: Yes, at Plateia Attikis.
Michalis: Ah, he lived at Plateia Attikis.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes, at Plateia Attikis.
Michalis: He learned that you would go to Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Do you remember this car that came?
Rachil: The car... No, I didn't see it. Because it came a second time too. Then I saw it and I remember it.
Michalis: In Rhea.
Rachil: How long did you stay in Dionysus?
Rachil: Very little. It must have been months, much less maybe. One, two months.
Michalis: Mr. Mavrogiannis all this time was sending money?
Rachil: Mavrogiorgis. Yes, yes. Vangelis Dimitriou would go. The one who helped us a lot.
Michalis: How were you transported from Dionysus to Rhea?
Rachil: Again with some gazogene it was called then. It wasn't called a truck. It was a gazogene.
Michalis: Do you remember who was driving these cars?
Rachil: Something tells me now. Because I remember that some acquaintance had come who took us. All these trips were made by someone very familiar. It was some friend.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. And in fact, now I don't remember at what moment, someone had taken us from behind. I think when we were leaving Rhea and from there we left later.
Michalis: Yes.
Rachil: It was the same car.
Rachil: Yes, the same. The same and the same driver.
Michalis: Can you describe the car to me?
Rachil: In front sat the driver and one more. And in the back we were all with the things. And it was closed. It didn't have windows in the back. Only windows it had in the back door which opened.
Michalis: Was it a passenger car or some other type?
Rachil: No, no. Probably not passengers. It shouldn't have had any. It was only for transport.
Michalis: Do you remember the transfer from Dionysus to Rhea?
Rachil: Very little.
Michalis: What do you remember?
Rachil: Very little. Because there we had no fear. We had no one following us. After Rhea when we left was the problem.
Michalis: In Rhea.
Rachil: We rented a house which I can see. We rented a house which was very beautiful. It had an external courtyard. Like this, proper. And in the middle was the house. Small of course. Very small. It had a garden. And my father there planted vegetables.
Michalis: Did your father know how to deal with gardening?
Rachil: Yes, he liked it very much. And he cooked too... And he did it at Plateia Attikis too.
Rachil: He cooked there.
Rachil: No. We didn't have a garden there at all.
Michalis: Of the three houses - at Attiki, Dionysus and Rhea - which was the largest?
Rachil: In Rhea.
Rachil: In Rhea. No, our house was the largest. In Rhea it was small. It was someone's country house. In Rhea.
Michalis: How did you live inside the house as a family?
Rachil: I think we normally had our beds. A double one, my mother. This was a house that belonged to someone who came only in the summer. She lived in America. And she rented it to us precisely because she wouldn't use it for a period.
Michalis: Was she Greek?
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: At this time, do you remember what year we are in?
Rachil: 1943, when did the persecution in Athens begin?
Rachil: Yes.
Rachil: September.
Rachil: September 1943. Therefore... Now to justify ourselves we said we were refugees from Kavala. To justify ourselves in Rhea where we went.
Michalis: At this time were your parents using their normal names?
Rachil: No. They had... I must have them. They had identity cards that the father of Evert who was police chief had given them. False ones for both my mother and my father.
Michalis: Do you remember the names of these identities?
Rachil: Yes, I think Livadiotis was the surname. And the first names... Tasos and Anastasios, meaning, and my mother... I'll find the identities. I must have them.
Michalis: Your mother.
Rachil: Somehow I don't remember how...
Fakas was the one who suggested to my parents to leave me there because I was very small, and he was the one who betrayed us. And my parents always said that he kept me to blackmail the situation because they would never leave me. Because everyone was taking some money.
Michalis: Do you remember Fakas's first name?
Rachil: No. I don't have it.
Michalis: Fakas betrayed you when you were in Rhea?
Rachil: Yes. It started from Rhea. And that's when the collaborators' cars came.
Rachil: Yes. It wasn't in Dionysus. It was in Rhea. Because we stayed very little in Dionysus.
Michalis: How long did you stay in Rhea?
Rachil: Very little we stayed there too. Because I remember that my father had planted... I remember this well. He had planted cabbages, lettuce and so on. And he didn't manage to... He didn't manage to... We were ready to harvest them and we left.
Michalis: Did you cook in Dionysus and Rhea?
Rachil: I don't remember in Dionysus. In Rhea definitely.
Michalis: And how did you have access to food?
Rachil: Where we shopped. I really don't remember that either.
Michalis: At this time had your parents given you any instructions?
Rachil: No. No. My siblings were very frightened. I was a bit, I don't know, I hadn't realized. I don't know. I was a bit more carefree.
Michalis: Did your parents call you Rachil or Lili?
Rachil: Lili always. From small. I don't know, they never called me Rachil.
Michalis: And in Dionysus and Rhea?
Rachil: Yes, Lili, Lili always.
Michalis: I understand that the house in Rhea was a bit more comfortable than Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes, yes. There in Dionysus it was one room. And in Rhea we had, we could move around.
Michalis: Did you have neighbors there?
Rachil: In Rhea I don't think so. I don't think we had any relationship with any neighbor. Because I don't write it here either.
Michalis: Do you remember how you spent your time?
Rachil: Yes, I'll tell you later. This explains it.
When they came to search for us in Rhea, they went first to Dionysus. Because there they were searching for us and Polymeris's aunt sent her son who was a child. Running from Dionysus to Rhea. He came not by the main road. He came through the paths. To warn us to leave.
Michalis: Mrs. Polymeris.
Rachil: Polymeris's aunt.
Rachil: Yes, Pina. That's what I called her. She lived in the same neighborhood in Dionysus. In the same neighborhood in Dionysus. No, in the house where we stayed the first time. We stayed a bit with her too. And then we rented the house in Rhea. But her house was in Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: So you were staying with Mrs. Pina Polymeris.
Rachil: Yes, there we stayed the first time.
Michalis: That's why you were in one room.
Rachil: And who else was in this house?
Rachil: I think she with the children. I see that she has a son too. I don't know if she has others too.
Michalis: Do you remember staying with another family?
Rachil: Yes, of course.
Michalis: While in Rhea you were alone.
Rachil: Alone. Just us. Ah, and my aunt always. We were the four of us and my aunt with my uncle. Eftyhia and Rikos.
Rachil: Yes, we were together until...
Michalis: And in Dionysus?
Rachil: Because it was her acquaintance who we went to in Dionysus.
Michalis: You stayed with Mrs. Pina Polymeris's family.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: And with your aunt.
Rachil: Six people, yes.
Michalis: And when you went to Rhea.
Rachil: You went together with your uncle and aunt.
Rachil: Yes, of course. Six people. Later we separated.
Michalis: Do you remember the day the child arrived to tell you that you must leave?
Rachil: Very intensely. It was a small child, must have been ten. He wore short pants. And he came and told us, my mother said: "There's a car in Dionysus. Looking for two Jewish families. They've already found one. And they're looking for the second," which I imagine was you. "You must get up and leave."
At that moment we had sat at the table to eat. It was midday I imagine. My father says we're leaving immediately. We got up, left everything there as it was, the food. And we took three things. I don't know if we took anything. We got up and left immediately. My mother was in slippers. She left in slippers.
Sorry, I didn't tell you correctly. Fakas wasn't at Plateia Attikis. Fakas was a neighbor in Rhea.
Michalis: In Rhea.
Rachil: In Rhea, not even in Dionysus.
Rachil: Yes, yes, in Rhea. And we passed by there. By there to tell him we were leaving. And he kept betraying us.
Michalis: Do you remember him?
Rachil: Yes, I remember him. I remember him. Because we saw him later too. And it made an impression on us, let's say. He was Greek.
Actually we had passed once after the liberation. He lived in Rhea. And we had passed and seen him. From a distance.
Michalis: You said they had found a Jewish family in Dionysus.
Rachil: That's what I write here.
Michalis: But do you remember if there was another Jewish family?
Rachil: No. No. And probably it must have been my aunt. That is, my aunt with my uncle. And they had us as two different families. They were looking for us. They didn't find another I think.
Michalis: Were your uncle and aunt where they had arrested a Jewish family?
Rachil: And yet there must have been another. Not your uncle and aunt.
Rachil: No. No. They had us as one family.
Michalis: How did you leave Rhea?
Rachil: From Rhea. Well. We left, my mother as we were. My father took me. He put me on his shoulders. And my siblings. And my aunt and uncle. And we left as we were. And we hid - I remember this very well.
We left. We crossed the road. The asphalted road. And there was a ditch after. And we went and hid in the ditch. And we heard. After a while I write here. We heard the Germans' cars passing.
Michalis: Do you remember hearing the cars?
Rachil: No. These are perhaps more from my sister.
Michalis: At this moment you are with your sister, your parents...
Rachil: Six.
Rachil: Your uncle. They didn't have children.
Rachil: No.
Michalis: So you are all six in the ditch.
Rachil: And how long did you stay there?
Rachil: We heard the Germans' cars passing and we started walking after.
Michalis: Do you remember this?
Rachil: That my father had put me there. I remember this.
Michalis: And where did you go?
Rachil: And I remember the ditch a bit.
Michalis: Where did you go?
Rachil: Well. Ah, and my father and uncle were carrying me. We took a path towards Pogiati. Now it's called Agios Stefanos.
Michalis: Do you remember what the weather was like that day?
Rachil: It was night.
Rachil: Night.
Rachil: Night yes. We waited for it to get dark to leave the ditch.
Michalis: So you learned this when you were eating lunch.
Rachil: Yes, yes. And we had sat at the table and left everything like that and left.
Michalis: And you walked to Pogiati.
Rachil: Yes. Where a compatriot of my mother and aunt lived, named Kariotis.
Michalis: When you say compatriot.
Rachil: From Albania, from Northern Epirus. Avlona.
Rachil: Yes, yes.
Michalis: Relatives?
Rachil: No. Compatriot. We asked him to spend the night. He was afraid and didn't accept us though.
And then my father remembered, he says, an acquaintance of his, a baker who lived in Kifissia. We took another path and found ourselves in front of a place where a German anti-aircraft antenna was set up.
And normally there were mines there, he says. But because we had to pass, my father told me the Makentavis, how do I say it. A prayer and he says if God protects us we will pass. And we passed.
Michalis: And you are all on foot?
Rachil: All, yes. And I was always very small, I couldn't endure such things.
Michalis: And in Kifissia where did you go?
Rachil: We went to this compatriot of my father. Ah, no, the baker. Baker. Now where was he from.
Michalis: Do you remember the baker?
Rachil: No, I don't remember any of these things.
Michalis: Do you remember where you stayed there in Kifissia?
Rachil: I remember that this baker, I remember this, that he didn't have where to put us. To spend the night now was the issue. And he took down the doors. He took down the doors so we could lie down somewhere.
Michalis: He removed the doors.
Rachil: He removed the doors from his house, amazing.
Michalis: The house or the shop?
Rachil: It was his house.
Michalis: Do you remember if there was anyone else in the house?
Rachil: No, I don't remember.
Michalis: How long did you stay?
Rachil: Just that night.
And then they had, my father had, I don't know how, I don't remember well now, I have it written. That he had some suspicion that we must leave Rhea at some point. And he had given a down payment for a house in Pogiati. And we went saying that now we will stay, from now we will stay.
Michalis: Your father already had some plan to leave Rhea?
Rachil: Yes, to leave because he didn't feel safe.
Michalis: And when did you go to the house in Pogiati?
Rachil: The next day we went there and we called, if I remember correctly, we called this Fakas who we didn't know then that he was betraying us every time. And they went together and took our things that we had in Rhea to move, let's say.
Michalis: This was done by car?
Rachil: Yes, it must have been with his own, I don't know, we moved, let's say.
Michalis: Do you know what relationship Fakas had with your father?
Rachil: No, simply that he was the neighbor in Rhea, from what I write here too. I thought he was at Plateia Attikis but he was the neighbor in Rhea.
Michalis: And then you took your things to Pogiati?
Rachil: Yes, lower Kifissia, I don't know, lower Kifissia the house might have been.
Michalis: Do you remember what this house was like?
Rachil: The only thing I remember is it had a covered veranda, relatively small, I know, enough for four chairs or maybe five. You entered first into this veranda and then you entered inside the house. I remember this veranda well.
Michalis: And how long did you stay there?
Rachil: We stayed a little and at some point came... We see a car. I remember this. We see a car coming. Which was black. Small black car. With two people inside. Greeks.
And who got out came. They were collaborators. They didn't give their names. I never knew them. And they sat us all down. On this veranda. And I remember this. I remember it very much as if it were today. This veranda. And they sat us all down.
And they told us that we have orders. To arrest you. And my father said: "What do you want from us?" He says give us whatever you have. Jewelry, money, pounds. My father says: "I have nothing. Of what you're asking me."
Since I remember this very characteristically. My sister was wearing a makentavid. On her neck. "The only gold we have," he says, "is this chain. If you want us to give it to you." "No, no," he says. "Not from the child." "Not from the child," they said.
"But we give you," he says, "I don't know how much time, deadline, to get up and leave."
Michalis: Were these people armed?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: And when did you leave this house?
Rachil: Immediately. Again the same. That is, what we did from Rhea we left from there too. Immediately.
Michalis: Even though you had already paid?
Rachil: Yes, yes. We didn't calculate these things.
Michalis: And how did you leave this house?
Rachil: Again Vangelis Dimitriou came. He came to pick us up with the car. But from there where did we go though. It was the same gazogene.
Ah, she also had a little ring that she wore. Besides the chain. She wore a little ring too. He says no, no, not from the child.
Michalis: When you were on this veranda, do you remember what you felt?
Rachil: Fear. Fear. I had too, even though I was a bit... I was afraid. When I saw all the others frozen. I was afraid too.
Michalis: Were they all frozen?
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. That is, we were sure they would tell us get up. Come for us to take you. How they pitied us, I don't know. It seems very strange to me.
Michalis: Vangelis Dimitriou picked you up with the same car?
Rachil: Yes, yes. He always did our transfers. He worked in a hotel. I remember this. At the beginning of Stadium Street that was called Sudan. He was an exceptional man. That is, thanks to him I think we survived.
And he was related to Polymeris and his wife. No, let me think. Ah, one minute. Aristidis. There's also an Aristidis here. He did our moves. Who Aristidis was though I don't remember.
And we went, he says, to the Queen's Tower. To Agioi Anargyroi. I don't remember this at all. To another house.
Rachil: Yes. That Aristidis had learned that a house was being rented there.
Michalis: Do you remember how long you stayed?
Rachil: No, we didn't stay. Because I see here that although we said we were refugees. The owner realized we were Jews and threw us out.
Rachil: And we slept in the open near a train station.
Michalis: Do you remember this?
Rachil: No.
Michalis: What is the next memory after the house in Pogiati and the veranda?
Rachil: Where we went after. What do you remember. What do you remember.
Rachil: We went. What do you remember immediately after. That is, you remember the veranda. Now I remember them because I wrote all these down with my sister. But now they escape me. I don't remember because I don't remember what I ate yesterday.
There we separated. My aunt and uncle left and went elsewhere because we were becoming targets all together.
Michalis: Do you remember the day you separated?
Rachil: Yes, yes. I remember we were all crying. Many because we were one family.
Michalis: This happened in Agioi Anargyroi?
Rachil: Yes.
Michalis: Do you know where your uncle went?
Rachil: To Piraeus. I remember this. But I don't know where they went.
And we went to Kalyvia.
Rachil: Yes, there we calmed down. Who found us this house I don't know. In Kalyvia. Kalyvia Attikis still exists. You would know. We went to Kalyvia.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes. There we found a house and stayed until... There we calmed down for the last time. I don't know how long we stayed. But we really had peace there. That is, no one knew us. We hadn't told anyone. They had understood about Fakas being a traitor. And we hadn't told anyone. No one. And we calmed down there.
Michalis: Did you rent a house?
Rachil: Probably. We stayed in a house anyway.
Rachil: Yes, yes, yes.
Michalis: And do you remember the house in Kalyvia?
Rachil: No. Not at all.
Michalis: Do you remember the day you stopped hiding?
Rachil: I remember who it was that came. And I remember when they bombed Larissa Station. I remember when we went out and watched the bombs falling. It was, the English it was. Probably, the English it was.
Michalis: You were in Kalyvia.
Rachil: In Kalyvia, yes.
Michalis: What do you remember from that bombing?
Rachil: I remember the airplanes that we saw with the bombs. That is, they were like lightning. And how were we to know that one of those bombs would fall on our house too. Because we were very close to Larissa Station.
Michalis: So your house was destroyed?
Rachil: Yes, completely.
Michalis: What time of day did you see these bombs?
Rachil: It was night.
Michalis: Do you remember anything else from when you were in Kalyvia?
Rachil: No, we were very happy there. I know this, I remember this. We were very calm and happy.
Michalis: Did you see a change in your parents' behavior?
Rachil: I imagine that they too... That is, according to what I understand, they calmed down, we calmed down too as children.
Michalis: But don't you remember if you had neighbors?
Rachil: Not at all I don't remember.
End of Interview