Transcription
Here is the interview in English transcript format:
Interviewer: Mrs. Rachil Varouch, when were you born?
Rachil Varouch: I was born in February 1938 in Volos, Magnesia, where I also completed my high school studies, and then we came to Athens and I graduated from the University of Athens, School of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Mathematics.
Interviewer: What were your parents' names?
Rachil Varouch: My parents were Isidoros Varouch and Renée Varouch, née Alvato Russo from Thessaloniki.
Interviewer: What profession did your father have?
Rachil Varouch: My father was a banker by profession. He was born in Volos in 1902 where he also completed his high school studies, then went to Paris, France and studied Economics and then continued in his father's bank.
Interviewer: Do you remember when he graduated from France?
Rachil Varouch: No.
Interviewer: What school did he attend when he was in Volos?
Rachil Varouch: My father, I don't know that either.
Interviewer: Do you know if it was a French school?
Rachil Varouch: No, it was a Greek school.
Interviewer: What education did your mother have?
Rachil Varouch: My mother was also born in Thessaloniki, graduated from Mission Laïque in Thessaloniki and then went to France where she also obtained a Brevet Supérieur. She knew many languages. Besides Greek, she knew French, Italian, Spanish, English and German. However, she managed and tried to forget them due to the hatred she had against the Germans, who took her entire family and they all died in Auschwitz concentration camp.
Interviewer: Do you have siblings?
Rachil Varouch: Unfortunately, no.
Interviewer: What language did your parents speak to each other at home?
Rachil Varouch: My parents, besides Greek, spoke French and also spoke Spanish, Ladino.
Interviewer: Your father, you said, was born in Volos?
Rachil Varouch: My father was born in Volos but also spoke Spanish.
Interviewer: Was he Sephardic?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, the whole family was Sephardic.
Interviewer: Where did you live in Volos?
Rachil Varouch: In Volos we lived in the center of Volos on K. Kartali Street 69, at the corner of K. Kartali and Gallia. It was a building, a single-family house, three stories.
Interviewer: Did it all belong to your family?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, it all belonged to our family. There was a beautiful front yard where we played when we were little. There was also a well, I remember, in the yard. There was the basement where there was a depot with pumps that brought up the water. It wasn't just the well, in the yard there was a well with a pump that brought up water for the front yard area. But for the house there was a motor in the basement and it brought water up to a large tank above and they used this water for the house's needs.
Interviewer: Which floor did you live on?
Rachil Varouch: In the whole house. Downstairs were the living rooms. On the upper floor were bedrooms. There was also another third floor above that was like an office, like various other guest spaces, etc. And in the basement there were also many storage spaces for wheat, rice, pasta, all the things they used at that time.
Interviewer: Did you know your grandfather and grandmother?
Rachil Varouch: My grandmother, no, because she died. My grandmother died early in 1931, as I remember, from meningitis.
Interviewer: Which grandmother is this?
Rachil Varouch: The grandmother from my father's side.
Interviewer: What was her name?
Rachil Varouch: Rachel.
Interviewer: And the grandfather?
Rachil Varouch: I remember my grandfather very little. During the occupation when we went to the mountains, he was with us and he was of a certain age. And then with the occupation when we went to the mountains, to Agrafa etc., to Siam, to Pertouli, to all these places, he suffered a lot. And due to weather conditions where it was very cold, there were no medicines, there were no foods. My father, then being persecuted, left hastily with his entire family. He had taken with him a few gold pounds to meet the needs, which however they didn't even know about in those villages. They didn't even know what a gold pound meant and they had even named it yellow fever at that time.
Interviewer: What was the grandfather's name?
Rachil Varouch: Varouch Varouch.
Interviewer: Was he also the one who was a banker?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, he was also a banker. He had great experience regarding banking matters and was a continuation from his father. He had taken over the bank, a successor of the family and the bank. He had great economic experience regarding banking issues.
Interviewer: So the first founder of the bank was your great-grandfather?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, it was the great-grandfather. Who initially dealt with wholesale fabric trade and cooperating with agencies in Trieste and had founded the bank in Trikala then, Bank Varouch and Levi. Later they had relocated to Volos where they also founded with Moysis another bank Varouch and Levi and later it was renamed to Bank Varouch.
Interviewer: And do you remember what your great-grandfather's wife was called?
Rachil Varouch: She was Louiza Zagani and with Louiza Zagani they had seven children.
Interviewer: Was your great-grandfather born in Trikala?
Rachil Varouch: The great-grandfather was born in Trikala. He was also a Romaniote Jew and also dealt with wholesale fabric trade and founded the bank in Trikala.
Interviewer: Wait a minute, but you said your father was Sephardic?
Rachil Varouch: Romaniote.
Interviewer: Ah, even though he was Romaniote, he spoke Spanish. Had he learned these because he learned them with a teacher or had he learned them through interaction with other Jews?
Rachil Varouch: No, I don't think he had learned them with a teacher because I also understood them but I don't know how to speak them. I know very few words.
Interviewer: When did your parents get married?
Rachil Varouch: My parents in '37.
Interviewer: Do you know how they met?
Rachil Varouch: In Thessaloniki. I know that my father had gone and there he met my mother and they got married.
Interviewer: Is it possible it was an arranged marriage?
Rachil Varouch: I don't know if it was an arranged marriage. Anyway, I know they got married in Thessaloniki and then they had a big reception at a Mediterranean hotel, I think, that was in Thessaloniki at that time.
Interviewer: When was your mother born?
Rachil Varouch: In 1916.
Interviewer: So she was 21 years old when she got married?
Interviewer: Did your mother work?
Rachil Varouch: No.
Interviewer: After marriage, as a married woman?
Rachil Varouch: No, not before either.
Interviewer: No.
Interviewer: Were your parents, your ancestors, involved in the Volos community?
Rachil Varouch: Of course. Here is my grandfather who offered - for my great-grandfather now - he had offered 32,000 to the Community Council for the construction of the Synagogue.
Interviewer: Ah, this synagogue that was later destroyed by the Germans?
Rachil Varouch: I think yes, I imagine that's what it would be. The synagogue of Volos.
Interviewer: When did this happen, this happened in 1921?
Rachil Varouch: So he had given money for the synagogue. My mother was in Ozer Dalim, in the Ladies' Brotherhood and my father created the club of the Zionist Association of Volos. He worked on the Committee for Care of the Poor, which provided financial and medical-pharmaceutical care. He also served as president of the Zionist Association.
Interviewer: At what age do you remember your first experience?
Rachil Varouch: Related to what?
Interviewer: With your life.
Rachil Varouch: I remember the experience from when I was little, when we went to Agrafa.
Interviewer: Ah, you remember that, eh?
Rachil Varouch: Yes.
Interviewer: Please tell us a bit, when did your family decide to leave or rather when did you leave with your family from Volos?
Rachil Varouch: I think we left in 1943. First of all, when my father realized, who was very perceptive, he realized the danger that existed for the family and there was danger of him being arrested and his first thought was to change the name of the bank. From Bank Varouch to make it Bank of General Transactions so that his Jewish name wouldn't show. Well, after, for this reason, then he convened a General Assembly and made some council and assigned, distributed the shares probably to friendly persons, among whom was Evangelos Glavanis, who took mainly 500 shares, Anastasios Glavanis with 250 shares and Georgios Kontzidopoulos with another 250 shares of nominal value each 1000 drachmas, total 15,000 drachmas. And, no, yes, 15,000 drachmas each. The company capital was set at 15 million which they covered. In the meantime, however, my father has in his hands, and I have it today too, letters with which Evangelos Glavanis sold these shares to my father. Because these were fictitious, so that his name wouldn't show, he put these friends to appear as if they were holders of the company's shares, which, however, he secured by having letters that they sell these to my father again and who is the main shareholder of the bank.
Interviewer: When you left from Volos, where did you go first?
Rachil Varouch: When, well, my father understood that there was danger for the family, at first we went and hid in Portaria of Pelion. In the meantime, at the bank there was an employee who made collections for the bank's account and to use the money himself he embezzled the accounting books, wrote on some money some algebraic equations which he presented to the Germans that my father was a spy and that he cooperated with the Intelligence Service and that they hide weapons in our house. After this the Germans arrested him, arrested the whole family, mistreated them in the worst way, they continuously tried to, they constantly asked them with exhaustive interrogations who are the people they cooperate with, where they hide the weapons, to give them names, they appeared at night with spotlights either appearing as English, or saying that your father, your husband confessed, tell us too who are the collaborators you come in contact with, where the weapons are hidden, they tried in every way to frighten them.
Interviewer: This happened when, the arrest happened when you had already gone to Portaria?
Rachil Varouch: The arrest happened when they were in Portaria, when they were in Portaria and he informed because, then they were hiding in Portaria and the employee was down there.
Interviewer: I understand.
Interviewer: After Portaria and the arrest?
Rachil Varouch: After their release and until December 1941, they were obliged to appear, they had been forbidden to leave the city of Volos and the family was obliged to appear three times a week before the German authorities.
Interviewer: You said December 1941?
Rachil Varouch: December 1941.
Interviewer: So the arrest had happened earlier?
Rachil Varouch: Earlier.
Interviewer: So you went to Portaria as soon as the Germans entered Greece?
Rachil Varouch: Around 1941 it must have been.
Interviewer: OK. And you remember, you probably don't remember these episodes, you were small?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, then I don't remember these, but I remember from the stories they told, because later the family was arrested again by the Italians in 1942.
Interviewer: With what charge?
Rachil Varouch: With the same charge again. And again they were obliged to appear before the Italian authorities three times a week.
Interviewer: And when did the family leave to hide in the mountains?
Rachil Varouch: Beginning of 1943.
Interviewer: Beginning of 1943 and where did you go?
Rachil Varouch: Beginning of 1943 when he realized that there was danger of being arrested and led to an unknown direction the family now, he was helped by Dimitris Chatzigakis and his family. Dimitris Chatzigakis was a pre-war MP of the Liberals and later of ERE. And because they were connected friendly with the Varouch family, he took care and realized the danger that existed, he took care to take them, he probably organized their transport, to Styrna Trikalon to a house they had. And at that time in particular, one room was requisitioned by Germans. Despite all this however, despite the danger, they managed to save our family this way. In the basement there was a room and it had a door that was like a very large closet and in case of danger there the family was supposed to hide. After a few days however, because the Chatzigakis family had many godfathers and friends in villages, they managed to forward our family to some village and from there my people left towards Agrafa, towards free mountainous Greece. And they went to these villages like Siam, Mouzaki.
Interviewer: In this phase do you remember the villages?
Rachil Varouch: From then on I remember in the villages because I remember I was small and because there the children walked barefoot, I also wanted to walk barefoot. And I remember this intensely.
Interviewer: And you were there the four of you together with grandfather?
Rachil Varouch: There was my mother, my father, me and my grandfather, yes. And I also remember another incident, because the people there were very good indeed, but they were terribly uneducated and once my father wanted - asked a villager to bring him a mule to go down to some village to get some food. The next day he sees he brought him a mule, no he had asked for two little donkeys, so he brought him a mule, he says where is the second mule to get the food, he says I brought my thing. He considered his wife a thing. Because the value of women then, at that time and in those villages at least, was considered proportional to the burden and the burden was the weight that the woman could carry on her back. And therefore he considered that he could consider instead of the mule to take his wife to be loaded for the food.
At some point the partisans had caught some Germans, who I don't know how they lost their way, how they found themselves there with the partisans and because they knew that my mother knew German, they brought them to my mother to act as interpreter. And the partisans said tell them that we won't hurt them, we just want them to give us some information, with whom, where they belong, where they are located etc. Well, my mother told them that they will skin you alive, they will do to you, they will show you, against the hatred she had, because she had lost her own people. And they started crying and saying you are probably also a mother, don't you also have children, pity us, we also have family. The partisans when they saw them crying and lamenting like this, he tells them but what are you telling them, why are they crying, why are they grieving, what did you tell them. He says, I told them that I am Jewish.
Interviewer: Do you remember seeing the Germans or is this from narratives?
Rachil Varouch: Both a little I remember and a little from narratives. So I have a somewhat vague image in my mind.
Interviewer: Did you survive then using these gold pounds?
Rachil Varouch: The gold pounds I think, yes. With a few gold pounds he had. Now if he also had some money with him I don't know, because there was great looting both of our house and the bank basically, where they embezzled many things, all the movable and immovable property that is, where he had seven trucks of things, as a neighbor who lived across from us mentioned, they took from our house, among which also paintings of great value by Rubens that he had.
Interviewer: Authentic paintings. Yes?
Rachil Varouch: Which were never found I imagine.
Interviewer: And how long did you stay in these villages?
Rachil Varouch: When they left.
Interviewer: Until the Germans left?
Rachil Varouch: With the liberation, yes.
Interviewer: October 1944?
Rachil Varouch: With the liberation of 1944.
Interviewer: Almost two years?
Interviewer: When you returned to Volos, did you settle again in your house?
Rachil Varouch: First of all when we returned to Volos, my grandfather was very worn out and arriving in Trikala, my father thought it good to leave him in Trikala hospital to have some medical-pharmaceutical care. And he had arranged with the doctors to come after a short time to take him again. Unfortunately however he didn't make it when we returned to Volos. After a while they notified him that he died on 14/11/1944 because he had suffered a lot in the mountains and died then in Trikala hospital, in the state hospital of Trikala from nephritis. He was yet another of the many victims of the holocaust.
When we returned to Volos still, I remember that my mother tried, the whole family that is, to find her people, her mother, her father and the two brothers who were in Thessaloniki. Unfortunately however, the search was fruitless. They had also come in contact with the Greek Red Cross and there is even a letter from the Greek Red Cross asking about her family, Salvator Russo, whether they returned from captivity, whether there is information about them, when we had seen them last, but unfortunately there was no result. No one returned, no one's voice was heard again. They were also victims of the holocaust.
Interviewer: From your father's side were there relatives who survived, close ones?
Rachil Varouch: Close ones no, because he was also an only child, he had no brothers or sisters.
Interviewer: So he was an only child?
Rachil Varouch: Yes.
Interviewer: Did you finally settle in the three-story house when you returned?
Rachil Varouch: When we returned, we found a house completely destroyed, looted and they had requisitioned every room. A family was also living there, even chickens were walking around. My father made some efforts to be given it. They gave him one room. But we couldn't all live in one room as a family. And for this reason at some point he came to Athens, to take care on one hand of financing the bank, if it could be done, and on the other hand for the liberation of the house.
For the financing of the bank, despite the efforts he made both at the Ministry of Finance and at the Monetary Committee, he didn't manage to get the bank financed. He succeeded in liberating part of the house, which he started renting to have some income, because another part was still requisitioned by Lili Katricha who was a dentist and the Germans had established her there, but because she was a state employee, working at IKA, he couldn't remove her.
Interviewer: She lived there, she lived in your house, she didn't use it for other purposes?
Rachil Varouch: No, she lived and had her dental office there.
Interviewer: Do you remember on which floor?
Rachil Varouch: I think on the first.
Interviewer: Did this house ever return in its entirety to your family?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, it returned later. At some point she also left and when she left, then my father tried again to rent it to have some income, to be able to meet the family's needs.
But later there was another tragedy because at some point afterwards the earthquakes happened in Volos. So the house was again destroyed by the earthquakes, became unsafe. Then my father took a loan to repair it and with the little money he had again he tried to repair it and so he started again to have some income.
Because he had great ability regarding stock market matters and all that, he managed gradually to increase his property. And for some time indeed later he got involved in timber trade.
And for a period I remember again he tried for us to emigrate to America. Because there was a time when many of the co-religionists wanted to go to America. My father also wanted to but unfortunately because he had some real estate property he was not considered poor and so his application was rejected.
An extensive and shocking testimony by Mrs Papandrianou (b. 1938), daughter of the banker Isidoros Varouch and Renee Alvaro Russo from Thessaloniki. The interview documents the story of an important Jewish family in Volos that was active in the banking sector for four generations. Bank Baruch, originally founded in Trikala and relocated to Volos, was an important economic factor in the city. The narrator describes in detail the life of the family in the three-storey building on K. Kartali Street, their participation in the Jewish community and the dramatic events of the Occupation. Particularly shocking is the description of the arrest and torture by the Germans, caused by a traitor, and the two-year period of hiding in Agrafa with the help of the deputy Dimitris Hatzigiakis. The testimony also records the loss of all relatives on the mother's side in Auschwitz and the efforts to rebuild life after liberation.
Transcription
Here is the interview in English transcript format:
Interviewer: Mrs. Rachil Varouch, when were you born?
Rachil Varouch: I was born in February 1938 in Volos, Magnesia, where I also completed my high school studies, and then we came to Athens and I graduated from the University of Athens, School of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Mathematics.
Interviewer: What were your parents' names?
Rachil Varouch: My parents were Isidoros Varouch and Renée Varouch, née Alvato Russo from Thessaloniki.
Interviewer: What profession did your father have?
Rachil Varouch: My father was a banker by profession. He was born in Volos in 1902 where he also completed his high school studies, then went to Paris, France and studied Economics and then continued in his father's bank.
Interviewer: Do you remember when he graduated from France?
Rachil Varouch: No.
Interviewer: What school did he attend when he was in Volos?
Rachil Varouch: My father, I don't know that either.
Interviewer: Do you know if it was a French school?
Rachil Varouch: No, it was a Greek school.
Interviewer: What education did your mother have?
Rachil Varouch: My mother was also born in Thessaloniki, graduated from Mission Laïque in Thessaloniki and then went to France where she also obtained a Brevet Supérieur. She knew many languages. Besides Greek, she knew French, Italian, Spanish, English and German. However, she managed and tried to forget them due to the hatred she had against the Germans, who took her entire family and they all died in Auschwitz concentration camp.
Interviewer: Do you have siblings?
Rachil Varouch: Unfortunately, no.
Interviewer: What language did your parents speak to each other at home?
Rachil Varouch: My parents, besides Greek, spoke French and also spoke Spanish, Ladino.
Interviewer: Your father, you said, was born in Volos?
Rachil Varouch: My father was born in Volos but also spoke Spanish.
Interviewer: Was he Sephardic?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, the whole family was Sephardic.
Interviewer: Where did you live in Volos?
Rachil Varouch: In Volos we lived in the center of Volos on K. Kartali Street 69, at the corner of K. Kartali and Gallia. It was a building, a single-family house, three stories.
Interviewer: Did it all belong to your family?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, it all belonged to our family. There was a beautiful front yard where we played when we were little. There was also a well, I remember, in the yard. There was the basement where there was a depot with pumps that brought up the water. It wasn't just the well, in the yard there was a well with a pump that brought up water for the front yard area. But for the house there was a motor in the basement and it brought water up to a large tank above and they used this water for the house's needs.
Interviewer: Which floor did you live on?
Rachil Varouch: In the whole house. Downstairs were the living rooms. On the upper floor were bedrooms. There was also another third floor above that was like an office, like various other guest spaces, etc. And in the basement there were also many storage spaces for wheat, rice, pasta, all the things they used at that time.
Interviewer: Did you know your grandfather and grandmother?
Rachil Varouch: My grandmother, no, because she died. My grandmother died early in 1931, as I remember, from meningitis.
Interviewer: Which grandmother is this?
Rachil Varouch: The grandmother from my father's side.
Interviewer: What was her name?
Rachil Varouch: Rachel.
Interviewer: And the grandfather?
Rachil Varouch: I remember my grandfather very little. During the occupation when we went to the mountains, he was with us and he was of a certain age. And then with the occupation when we went to the mountains, to Agrafa etc., to Siam, to Pertouli, to all these places, he suffered a lot. And due to weather conditions where it was very cold, there were no medicines, there were no foods. My father, then being persecuted, left hastily with his entire family. He had taken with him a few gold pounds to meet the needs, which however they didn't even know about in those villages. They didn't even know what a gold pound meant and they had even named it yellow fever at that time.
Interviewer: What was the grandfather's name?
Rachil Varouch: Varouch Varouch.
Interviewer: Was he also the one who was a banker?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, he was also a banker. He had great experience regarding banking matters and was a continuation from his father. He had taken over the bank, a successor of the family and the bank. He had great economic experience regarding banking issues.
Interviewer: So the first founder of the bank was your great-grandfather?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, it was the great-grandfather. Who initially dealt with wholesale fabric trade and cooperating with agencies in Trieste and had founded the bank in Trikala then, Bank Varouch and Levi. Later they had relocated to Volos where they also founded with Moysis another bank Varouch and Levi and later it was renamed to Bank Varouch.
Interviewer: And do you remember what your great-grandfather's wife was called?
Rachil Varouch: She was Louiza Zagani and with Louiza Zagani they had seven children.
Interviewer: Was your great-grandfather born in Trikala?
Rachil Varouch: The great-grandfather was born in Trikala. He was also a Romaniote Jew and also dealt with wholesale fabric trade and founded the bank in Trikala.
Interviewer: Wait a minute, but you said your father was Sephardic?
Rachil Varouch: Romaniote.
Interviewer: Ah, even though he was Romaniote, he spoke Spanish. Had he learned these because he learned them with a teacher or had he learned them through interaction with other Jews?
Rachil Varouch: No, I don't think he had learned them with a teacher because I also understood them but I don't know how to speak them. I know very few words.
Interviewer: When did your parents get married?
Rachil Varouch: My parents in '37.
Interviewer: Do you know how they met?
Rachil Varouch: In Thessaloniki. I know that my father had gone and there he met my mother and they got married.
Interviewer: Is it possible it was an arranged marriage?
Rachil Varouch: I don't know if it was an arranged marriage. Anyway, I know they got married in Thessaloniki and then they had a big reception at a Mediterranean hotel, I think, that was in Thessaloniki at that time.
Interviewer: When was your mother born?
Rachil Varouch: In 1916.
Interviewer: So she was 21 years old when she got married?
Interviewer: Did your mother work?
Rachil Varouch: No.
Interviewer: After marriage, as a married woman?
Rachil Varouch: No, not before either.
Interviewer: No.
Interviewer: Were your parents, your ancestors, involved in the Volos community?
Rachil Varouch: Of course. Here is my grandfather who offered - for my great-grandfather now - he had offered 32,000 to the Community Council for the construction of the Synagogue.
Interviewer: Ah, this synagogue that was later destroyed by the Germans?
Rachil Varouch: I think yes, I imagine that's what it would be. The synagogue of Volos.
Interviewer: When did this happen, this happened in 1921?
Rachil Varouch: So he had given money for the synagogue. My mother was in Ozer Dalim, in the Ladies' Brotherhood and my father created the club of the Zionist Association of Volos. He worked on the Committee for Care of the Poor, which provided financial and medical-pharmaceutical care. He also served as president of the Zionist Association.
Interviewer: At what age do you remember your first experience?
Rachil Varouch: Related to what?
Interviewer: With your life.
Rachil Varouch: I remember the experience from when I was little, when we went to Agrafa.
Interviewer: Ah, you remember that, eh?
Rachil Varouch: Yes.
Interviewer: Please tell us a bit, when did your family decide to leave or rather when did you leave with your family from Volos?
Rachil Varouch: I think we left in 1943. First of all, when my father realized, who was very perceptive, he realized the danger that existed for the family and there was danger of him being arrested and his first thought was to change the name of the bank. From Bank Varouch to make it Bank of General Transactions so that his Jewish name wouldn't show. Well, after, for this reason, then he convened a General Assembly and made some council and assigned, distributed the shares probably to friendly persons, among whom was Evangelos Glavanis, who took mainly 500 shares, Anastasios Glavanis with 250 shares and Georgios Kontzidopoulos with another 250 shares of nominal value each 1000 drachmas, total 15,000 drachmas. And, no, yes, 15,000 drachmas each. The company capital was set at 15 million which they covered. In the meantime, however, my father has in his hands, and I have it today too, letters with which Evangelos Glavanis sold these shares to my father. Because these were fictitious, so that his name wouldn't show, he put these friends to appear as if they were holders of the company's shares, which, however, he secured by having letters that they sell these to my father again and who is the main shareholder of the bank.
Interviewer: When you left from Volos, where did you go first?
Rachil Varouch: When, well, my father understood that there was danger for the family, at first we went and hid in Portaria of Pelion. In the meantime, at the bank there was an employee who made collections for the bank's account and to use the money himself he embezzled the accounting books, wrote on some money some algebraic equations which he presented to the Germans that my father was a spy and that he cooperated with the Intelligence Service and that they hide weapons in our house. After this the Germans arrested him, arrested the whole family, mistreated them in the worst way, they continuously tried to, they constantly asked them with exhaustive interrogations who are the people they cooperate with, where they hide the weapons, to give them names, they appeared at night with spotlights either appearing as English, or saying that your father, your husband confessed, tell us too who are the collaborators you come in contact with, where the weapons are hidden, they tried in every way to frighten them.
Interviewer: This happened when, the arrest happened when you had already gone to Portaria?
Rachil Varouch: The arrest happened when they were in Portaria, when they were in Portaria and he informed because, then they were hiding in Portaria and the employee was down there.
Interviewer: I understand.
Interviewer: After Portaria and the arrest?
Rachil Varouch: After their release and until December 1941, they were obliged to appear, they had been forbidden to leave the city of Volos and the family was obliged to appear three times a week before the German authorities.
Interviewer: You said December 1941?
Rachil Varouch: December 1941.
Interviewer: So the arrest had happened earlier?
Rachil Varouch: Earlier.
Interviewer: So you went to Portaria as soon as the Germans entered Greece?
Rachil Varouch: Around 1941 it must have been.
Interviewer: OK. And you remember, you probably don't remember these episodes, you were small?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, then I don't remember these, but I remember from the stories they told, because later the family was arrested again by the Italians in 1942.
Interviewer: With what charge?
Rachil Varouch: With the same charge again. And again they were obliged to appear before the Italian authorities three times a week.
Interviewer: And when did the family leave to hide in the mountains?
Rachil Varouch: Beginning of 1943.
Interviewer: Beginning of 1943 and where did you go?
Rachil Varouch: Beginning of 1943 when he realized that there was danger of being arrested and led to an unknown direction the family now, he was helped by Dimitris Chatzigakis and his family. Dimitris Chatzigakis was a pre-war MP of the Liberals and later of ERE. And because they were connected friendly with the Varouch family, he took care and realized the danger that existed, he took care to take them, he probably organized their transport, to Styrna Trikalon to a house they had. And at that time in particular, one room was requisitioned by Germans. Despite all this however, despite the danger, they managed to save our family this way. In the basement there was a room and it had a door that was like a very large closet and in case of danger there the family was supposed to hide. After a few days however, because the Chatzigakis family had many godfathers and friends in villages, they managed to forward our family to some village and from there my people left towards Agrafa, towards free mountainous Greece. And they went to these villages like Siam, Mouzaki.
Interviewer: In this phase do you remember the villages?
Rachil Varouch: From then on I remember in the villages because I remember I was small and because there the children walked barefoot, I also wanted to walk barefoot. And I remember this intensely.
Interviewer: And you were there the four of you together with grandfather?
Rachil Varouch: There was my mother, my father, me and my grandfather, yes. And I also remember another incident, because the people there were very good indeed, but they were terribly uneducated and once my father wanted - asked a villager to bring him a mule to go down to some village to get some food. The next day he sees he brought him a mule, no he had asked for two little donkeys, so he brought him a mule, he says where is the second mule to get the food, he says I brought my thing. He considered his wife a thing. Because the value of women then, at that time and in those villages at least, was considered proportional to the burden and the burden was the weight that the woman could carry on her back. And therefore he considered that he could consider instead of the mule to take his wife to be loaded for the food.
At some point the partisans had caught some Germans, who I don't know how they lost their way, how they found themselves there with the partisans and because they knew that my mother knew German, they brought them to my mother to act as interpreter. And the partisans said tell them that we won't hurt them, we just want them to give us some information, with whom, where they belong, where they are located etc. Well, my mother told them that they will skin you alive, they will do to you, they will show you, against the hatred she had, because she had lost her own people. And they started crying and saying you are probably also a mother, don't you also have children, pity us, we also have family. The partisans when they saw them crying and lamenting like this, he tells them but what are you telling them, why are they crying, why are they grieving, what did you tell them. He says, I told them that I am Jewish.
Interviewer: Do you remember seeing the Germans or is this from narratives?
Rachil Varouch: Both a little I remember and a little from narratives. So I have a somewhat vague image in my mind.
Interviewer: Did you survive then using these gold pounds?
Rachil Varouch: The gold pounds I think, yes. With a few gold pounds he had. Now if he also had some money with him I don't know, because there was great looting both of our house and the bank basically, where they embezzled many things, all the movable and immovable property that is, where he had seven trucks of things, as a neighbor who lived across from us mentioned, they took from our house, among which also paintings of great value by Rubens that he had.
Interviewer: Authentic paintings. Yes?
Rachil Varouch: Which were never found I imagine.
Interviewer: And how long did you stay in these villages?
Rachil Varouch: When they left.
Interviewer: Until the Germans left?
Rachil Varouch: With the liberation, yes.
Interviewer: October 1944?
Rachil Varouch: With the liberation of 1944.
Interviewer: Almost two years?
Interviewer: When you returned to Volos, did you settle again in your house?
Rachil Varouch: First of all when we returned to Volos, my grandfather was very worn out and arriving in Trikala, my father thought it good to leave him in Trikala hospital to have some medical-pharmaceutical care. And he had arranged with the doctors to come after a short time to take him again. Unfortunately however he didn't make it when we returned to Volos. After a while they notified him that he died on 14/11/1944 because he had suffered a lot in the mountains and died then in Trikala hospital, in the state hospital of Trikala from nephritis. He was yet another of the many victims of the holocaust.
When we returned to Volos still, I remember that my mother tried, the whole family that is, to find her people, her mother, her father and the two brothers who were in Thessaloniki. Unfortunately however, the search was fruitless. They had also come in contact with the Greek Red Cross and there is even a letter from the Greek Red Cross asking about her family, Salvator Russo, whether they returned from captivity, whether there is information about them, when we had seen them last, but unfortunately there was no result. No one returned, no one's voice was heard again. They were also victims of the holocaust.
Interviewer: From your father's side were there relatives who survived, close ones?
Rachil Varouch: Close ones no, because he was also an only child, he had no brothers or sisters.
Interviewer: So he was an only child?
Rachil Varouch: Yes.
Interviewer: Did you finally settle in the three-story house when you returned?
Rachil Varouch: When we returned, we found a house completely destroyed, looted and they had requisitioned every room. A family was also living there, even chickens were walking around. My father made some efforts to be given it. They gave him one room. But we couldn't all live in one room as a family. And for this reason at some point he came to Athens, to take care on one hand of financing the bank, if it could be done, and on the other hand for the liberation of the house.
For the financing of the bank, despite the efforts he made both at the Ministry of Finance and at the Monetary Committee, he didn't manage to get the bank financed. He succeeded in liberating part of the house, which he started renting to have some income, because another part was still requisitioned by Lili Katricha who was a dentist and the Germans had established her there, but because she was a state employee, working at IKA, he couldn't remove her.
Interviewer: She lived there, she lived in your house, she didn't use it for other purposes?
Rachil Varouch: No, she lived and had her dental office there.
Interviewer: Do you remember on which floor?
Rachil Varouch: I think on the first.
Interviewer: Did this house ever return in its entirety to your family?
Rachil Varouch: Yes, it returned later. At some point she also left and when she left, then my father tried again to rent it to have some income, to be able to meet the family's needs.
But later there was another tragedy because at some point afterwards the earthquakes happened in Volos. So the house was again destroyed by the earthquakes, became unsafe. Then my father took a loan to repair it and with the little money he had again he tried to repair it and so he started again to have some income.
Because he had great ability regarding stock market matters and all that, he managed gradually to increase his property. And for some time indeed later he got involved in timber trade.
And for a period I remember again he tried for us to emigrate to America. Because there was a time when many of the co-religionists wanted to go to America. My father also wanted to but unfortunately because he had some real estate property he was not considered poor and so his application was rejected.