Transcription
Raphael Mousis: In Athens we return to Psychico and immediately after on October 2-3 the Stroop order is issued and my father decides that he will not declare himself but we will hide at Giannitsi's house etc.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Which is in Kifisia.
Raphael Mousis: In Kifisia, down there, near KAT hospital.
Raphael Mousis: Well, during the occupation of course he has no activity although he writes the famous letter about the identity of the Jews which is a shocking letter to Kathimerini, to "Eleftheron Vima" it was called then, they didn't publish it of course, they published it after the war.
Raphael Mousis: And there is another element in this letter, now I'm somewhat departing from the story, but it's about my father's personality. This letter ends with an invocation to Jesus Christ, it's in there. This last paragraph is shocking in which he calls him my great brother, so.
Raphael Mousis: I don't know if you ever came to earth, you came or you didn't come, it's time to come again and perhaps this time thanks to radio and other means of communication you'll succeed in your message and peace will come to earth.
Raphael Mousis: My father believed very much in the human personality of Jesus Christ. He had great admiration. As a human being of course. He considered him a great prophet.
Raphael Mousis: And he was accused for a period, by the Jewish Community, while he was a diplomatic representative of Israel. While he was a diplomatic representative, there was a complaint to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "The one you have as diplomatic representative for Greece, speaks about Christ"
Raphael Mousis: And there is a very interesting file, in which my father explains what exactly he believed about Jesus Christ and there is a response which says "Clear" These are beautiful stories.
Raphael Mousis: Well, I don't remember any other activity of my father during the Occupation. What is written, the effort towards Logothetopoulos, is during the Occupation, but it is I think before the persecution of Athens begins, it's during the period, he goes to Logothetopoulos with Tsaldaris, to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Thessaloniki. It's another story, whether Logothetopoulos really resigned for this reason or there is a left-wing story that says he resigned because they threatened him.
Raphael Mousis: Things we'll never know. There is however Logothetopoulos's diary which one can find. Well, the activity begins while it's imminent, it's obvious that liberation is imminent.
Raphael Mousis: There is this rare document for me where on the back of some doctor's prescription pad with his own hands is written the complete text of the law that later became KIS and the law that became OPAIE. These exist.
Raphael Mousis: And it's handwritten. He wrote with great difficulty, one could read my father's letters. They were almost chicken scratches. But these are the laws. And they are among the things that have been saved. Therefore he was preparing these.
Raphael Mousis: Then there is the first speech at the synagogue. The Melidoni synagogue had suffered damage. And it didn't operate immediately after liberation for several months. And the first gatherings took place in what we now call the Ioannina synagogue. The opposite synagogue. And I remember this first time as a small child. My father speaking and everyone crying.
Raphael Mousis: And me asking why they are crying. I couldn't understand why this emotion. Which had gripped everyone with my father's words. And of course these words which are the appeal, the wish for our brothers to return.
Raphael Mousis: As they returned from Babylon, let them return too. Which shows you what. That he knew about the deportation. But they didn't know what was happening. That is the Auschwitz-Birkenau story and so on. It was inconceivable and you will have heard that the first person who returned they locked up in Dafni.
Raphael Mousis: The man was considered insane. What he was telling was not possible.
Raphael Mousis: I remember my father had an office on Kornarou street and he would take me, take me along and I would sit there and all the then surviving let's say prominent Jews would come and they would plan the rescue and I was there present and heard everything.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: When you say office, this is the professional office, the office.
Raphael Mousis: Law office.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: In Athens.
Raphael Mousis: In Athens, yes.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Rented, yes.
Raphael Mousis: He had opened it. He had it during the occupation too, then he abandoned it and then found it again.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Therefore, essentially, the longest period you were in Athens and Ioannina you were not hidden, you lived your normal life, with everything that entails of course during the Occupation.
Raphael Mousis: The hidden period is from October 1943 until...
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: October 1944.
Raphael Mousis: End of the latter.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: End of the latter, October 1944.
Raphael Mousis: This is the period we are with false names, as Pardo has written, I don't know how many days, I was Dimitrakis Mantzaris.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: These names, the identities were received by your father himself from Angelos Evert.
Raphael Mousis: From Angelos Evert himself. Certainly.
Raphael Mousis: And one of my personal memories, I later became friends with Miltos. Miltiades Evert. And my father's thank you letter to Angelos Evert had been saved. Which I framed and went and gave to Miltiades. And somewhere who knows if this exists.
Raphael Mousis: Liza has died now too. Who knows who. I don't know if it exists in the archive. Anyway it was him. And he spoke personally with Damaskinos.
Raphael Mousis: The story that Damaskinos mediated for the Logothetopoulos meeting.
Raphael Mousis: Well, we all have this story about the creation of KIS and the various people who work, the Zionist element of course.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did he raise you as a Zionist.
Raphael Mousis: Look. I told you earlier about the paradox of how Aser Mousis, the leading figure of Thessaloniki Judaism, doesn't raise his son as a good Jew. He doesn't teach him Ladino, he doesn't send him to Jewish school. I think my father felt this burden.
Raphael Mousis: The interpretation now. And while I was still just turned sixteen, I'm at Athens College, I've returned to Athens College, I'm a good student, after having been a bad student, I have good company, I'm generally a happy boy and suddenly they tell me to go to England, boarding at a Jewish school.
Raphael Mousis: And of course the idea of going to England seems very nice to me. I don't realize what a radical change in my life. This business of getting on a plane and going where, to England that won the war, no kidding. So.
Raphael Mousis: Well, he sent me to Jewish school, because he considered that finishing Greek, the Greek school was superfluous. To finish in a Jewish environment, so as to develop the Zionist... Because the director of this school, an Englishman, Jacobs, says he was a fanatical Zionist, it was a fanatical Zionist school.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: What was this school called?
Raphael Mousis: Whittingehame College in Brighton, Sussex.
Raphael Mousis: Well, they send me there to become a good Zionist, to learn Hebrew and to end up living in the state of Israel, of which my father is already initially consul and then diplomatic representative.
Raphael Mousis: And initially that's how I would go. Israel has a future in textiles. Look, we're talking about a personality, Aser Mousis. A boy with five sisters, in Trikala, who gets educated and becomes a lawyer. That is, the figure within the family, he is steps above all the sisters and brothers-in-law, who were good people, merchants, you know. There wasn't even one doctor, there was nothing that came close. It was inconceivable in the extended family for anything to happen without Aser Mousis's approval. For some girl, cousin, to marry without Aser Mousis's approval, was unthinkable. So it was, we decide and we order.
Raphael Mousis: The order was that in Israel it would be good to be a textile manufacturer. You'll go to England, you'll finish the English Jewish school and then you'll go to the best textile school that exists in the world, which is in Manchester. And I follow. And I end up in Manchester. But I decide that I'm not interested in becoming a textile manufacturer. And it's the first if you will rebellion from the... orders and directions and I decide I want to become an engineer. Why is another story that doesn't interest you.
Raphael Mousis: Poor Mireta, my sister, submits to the Zionist order and goes and marries in Israel and makes a bad arranged marriage, with which Mireta was unhappy. But Mireta was the victim of Aser Mousis's great Zionist idea. That's how I call poor Mireta.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Her husband, what...
Raphael Mousis: He was a distant relative.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Ah, he was of Greek origin.
Raphael Mousis: No, no, no. Relative from the side. Someone from the relatives was... he was from Beirut. Lubliner. No. He wasn't Levy.
Raphael Mousis: There are many important things he did. That is, he was a fanatical Jewish Zionist, not a fanatical religious Jew. He was a deep knower of the Jewish religion, but he wasn't religiously obsessed. All this knowledge was purely the result... He was self-taught. He was self-taught. In these matters he is self-taught.
Raphael Mousis: I cannot remember my father in all the years I lived with him. To bring to mind a moment when he sat in an armchair idle. Never. A lifetime. There would be a book. There would be something he was writing or something he was reading. Or he would be talking. He was never like I sit. Sometimes I sit like this and think. He never sat. He was constantly searching. For knowledge.
Raphael Mousis: He was proud of the library he had built. The Jewish part of it is here inside. It has been saved. I donated his legal library. He used his acquaintances from the University. Because look now. In 1927 when he finished. There were a handful of people studying law. And all of them were very connected. Georgios Mavros for continuity let's say. Minister of Greece and so on. Konstantinos Tsaldaris. All these were. And he used these acquaintances.
Raphael Mousis: It is that OPAIE has been written about and characterized as a unique phenomenon. Where the official state. The properties of people who were lost and left no heirs. Usually the state inherits them. That's how it happens. In Greece the Jewish community inherits them. This has never happened again. And Peremis has written this too. It is recognized as a unique if you will success. On the part of Aser Mousis. Utilizing the connections he had with politicians. That he succeeded.
Raphael Mousis: And this too is published. Those Jews who had been arrested. As participants in the left. In the leftist movement. A law was passed which said they are released. On the condition that they will emigrate to Palestine. And this again with Mavros and Tsaldaris let's say.
Raphael Mousis: You haven't heard the airplane story of course. Well, we are on the eve of the founding of the state of Israel. And Shimon Peres has found 6-7 airplanes somewhere in northern Europe. Which he buys to come to Israel and constitute the first air force of the state to be created. But these airplanes don't have the ability to fly. To Palestine they must be refueled somewhere and Crete is chosen as a suitable refueling place. And they send a message to my father to find some old runway and fuel and to organize the landing of these airplanes in Crete so they can be refueled and leave again.
Raphael Mousis: My father doesn't know anyone in Crete, but he knows very well the minister then, I think of foreign affairs, Konstantinos Tsaldaris. And he goes to Tsaldaris and tells him this and that. He trusted him, Tsaldaris knew, he was absolutely friendly disposed towards the Jewish element and Zionism.
Raphael Mousis: And Tsaldaris gives him a name in Crete. You'll go, you'll find so-and-so. My father conservatively asks for information and learns that so-and-so is a gangster, a mafioso of the worst kind. And he goes back to Tsaldaris and says, minister, the one you sent me to, is a scoundrel. Well, Mousis, next time I'll introduce you to the Archbishop. What did you want me to introduce you to? The Metropolitan? That is, it's a fact, the airplanes came, were refueled, flew, went.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: How long did you stay in England as a student?
Raphael Mousis: In England I must have stayed two and a half years and in Manchester four.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: So you returned to Greece.
Raphael Mousis: No, I didn't return to Greece.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Ah, what did you do.
Raphael Mousis: Then I went to MIT.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: To America.
Raphael Mousis: To America.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: When you decided to become an engineer and not a textile manufacturer, how did your father take it.
Raphael Mousis: Very well. He wrote to me, I had a letter. I have determined that you have abilities. And I understand that textiles is not something that suits you. That was it.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And therefore you went to MIT with his blessings and all that.
Raphael Mousis: Phew. With purpose. Now here begins my personal story. Which is my other transgression, that my late wife was a Christian Orthodox.
Raphael Mousis: That was it. A big mistake. So. Well.
Raphael Mousis: Dido. Her surname Sourapa. The father, Vasileios Sourapas was the founder of EVGA. The first dairy industry, the first company which brought the concept of pasteurization to Greece and also the first who brought the concept of franchising to Greece because the EVGA outlets which were the neighborhood EVGA in those years were not owned by EVGA they were franchising, a new concept. The term franchisee didn't exist yet.
Raphael Mousis: She was from Psychico and I was from Psychico and we met when she was 13 years old and I was 17 years old and our romance begins from this age innocent of course completely but innocent in deeds but not at all neutral in thoughts so we plan because Sourapas had as a small child illegally immigrated to America and there he made his money as an ice cream vendor in Chicago and came and built EVGA he was an American citizen and consequently my late wife as his daughter had American citizenship.
Raphael Mousis: Civil marriage is forbidden in Greece. She had been born in America. No she had been born in Greece but from American citizen father and mother so the children acquire American citizenship. Well she had American citizenship. Consequently the plan is devised that you must be able to enter an American University. So.
Raphael Mousis: And when I complete my 21st year of age when I'm allowed to travel without parental permission then I will come to America in order to have a civil marriage. We plan it from childhood and we cultivate it and we carry it out.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: What year.
Raphael Mousis: 1956. Sorry 1958.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: The civil marriage that took place.
Raphael Mousis: In Boston. And then there was a religious one, Dido became Jewish.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: When did her conversion process begin.
Raphael Mousis: There.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: In the USA.
Raphael Mousis: Ah no here in Greece.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Of course not because there was no reason.
Raphael Mousis: There. Look. There our purpose was to have a civil marriage. To have. My father. Look. They tried to stop it obviously. Both sides. Both the Sourapas. And the Mousis. Who had learned of the existence of the relationship. And they even met. Sourapas and Mousis. To discuss to find ways. To prevent this event. When it happened. That is she eloped. She left secretly from her house. Got on the plane and left. The day after her 21st birthday when she turned 21. In '58.
Raphael Mousis: Well, when they learned that what had happened had happened. Aser Mousis with my mother. Took a bouquet of flowers. And went and knocked on Sourapas's house. In Psychico. Who received them with open arms. And they said now what shall we do. It's over. And a telegram came which had shocked poor dear late mother. Because when the telegram came her hands were shaking to open it. And it said. We opened a bottle of champagne and drink to your health. Thus the reconciliation happened and they became very good friends afterwards. The Sourapas and the Mousis.
Raphael Mousis: The idea that we had to have a religious marriage too. Came when we began to cultivate the possibility of returning to Greece. From America. I was then an adjunct professor at MIT. I taught thermodynamics and heat transfer. But there was EVGA. And EVGA needed someone like me.
Raphael Mousis: And so we began to talk. So there had to be a religious marriage too. Of course it was Reform. The process was much simpler. She took some lessons with a very nice rabbi Shapiro. He gave her the name Ruth.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Do you remember the name of the synagogue.
Raphael Mousis: No, because it didn't even take place in a synagogue. The Rabbi came to the house. And performed this ceremony and then named her. It didn't happen in any synagogue. We went to synagogue afterwards. We liked the synagogue, the service, the Reform.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Do you remember which synagogue this was.
Raphael Mousis: In Boston it was Reform. I can't remember. I remember approximately where it was. I say, if you really insist, I'll look it up. But I don't remember it. Rabbi Shapiro. And he gave her the name Ruth. The civil one is 1958. The religious one. Perhaps 1959 or 1960.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did this satisfy your parents.
Raphael Mousis: No, they didn't care. They had accepted the... Of course what satisfied them was the fact that we could return to Greece. The religious marriage, because the civil one wasn't recognized. Exactly. Not for my reasons or hers. Of course, as it's not at all strange for me to tell you that my late wife was a much better Jew than me. Because she had gone through some catechism. While I had not.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And when did you return to Greece.
Raphael Mousis: We return to Greece in 1962. With a one-year leave from MIT. And this one year never expired. Because things were such here, that in the end we decided to stay.
In the third part of the interview, Rafael Moses recounts his family life and his professional development. He describes the birth of his two sons, Alexandros (1961) and Elias (1965), his return to Greece in 1962 to head EBGA, and his impressive career in the public sector. From the National Energy Council, he was promoted to deputy director of ETVA and then, at the age of only 35, became the governor of PPC in 1978. He details the instances of anti-Semitism he faced during his tenure, including false accusations of involvement in the Six Day War and pressure from politicians and the media. The narrative demonstrates the challenges faced by a Jewish executive in high positions in the Greek civil service in the 1980s.
In the second part of the interview, Raphael Moses describes the period of his family's secret residence in Kifissia (1943-1944) and the post-war activity of his father Asher Moses in the reconstruction of the Jewish community. He mentions his father's important letter to Jesus Christ, the creation of the KIS and the OPIE, and his diplomatic activities for the newly established State of Israel. Moses also tells his personal story: his studies in England and America, his love affair with the Christian Dido Surapa and their marriage in Boston in 1958, their return to Greece and his assumption of the leadership of EBGA.
Raphael Moses
Transcription
Raphael Mousis: In Athens we return to Psychico and immediately after on October 2-3 the Stroop order is issued and my father decides that he will not declare himself but we will hide at Giannitsi's house etc.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Which is in Kifisia.
Raphael Mousis: In Kifisia, down there, near KAT hospital.
Raphael Mousis: Well, during the occupation of course he has no activity although he writes the famous letter about the identity of the Jews which is a shocking letter to Kathimerini, to "Eleftheron Vima" it was called then, they didn't publish it of course, they published it after the war.
Raphael Mousis: And there is another element in this letter, now I'm somewhat departing from the story, but it's about my father's personality. This letter ends with an invocation to Jesus Christ, it's in there. This last paragraph is shocking in which he calls him my great brother, so.
Raphael Mousis: I don't know if you ever came to earth, you came or you didn't come, it's time to come again and perhaps this time thanks to radio and other means of communication you'll succeed in your message and peace will come to earth.
Raphael Mousis: My father believed very much in the human personality of Jesus Christ. He had great admiration. As a human being of course. He considered him a great prophet.
Raphael Mousis: And he was accused for a period, by the Jewish Community, while he was a diplomatic representative of Israel. While he was a diplomatic representative, there was a complaint to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "The one you have as diplomatic representative for Greece, speaks about Christ"
Raphael Mousis: And there is a very interesting file, in which my father explains what exactly he believed about Jesus Christ and there is a response which says "Clear" These are beautiful stories.
Raphael Mousis: Well, I don't remember any other activity of my father during the Occupation. What is written, the effort towards Logothetopoulos, is during the Occupation, but it is I think before the persecution of Athens begins, it's during the period, he goes to Logothetopoulos with Tsaldaris, to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Thessaloniki. It's another story, whether Logothetopoulos really resigned for this reason or there is a left-wing story that says he resigned because they threatened him.
Raphael Mousis: Things we'll never know. There is however Logothetopoulos's diary which one can find. Well, the activity begins while it's imminent, it's obvious that liberation is imminent.
Raphael Mousis: There is this rare document for me where on the back of some doctor's prescription pad with his own hands is written the complete text of the law that later became KIS and the law that became OPAIE. These exist.
Raphael Mousis: And it's handwritten. He wrote with great difficulty, one could read my father's letters. They were almost chicken scratches. But these are the laws. And they are among the things that have been saved. Therefore he was preparing these.
Raphael Mousis: Then there is the first speech at the synagogue. The Melidoni synagogue had suffered damage. And it didn't operate immediately after liberation for several months. And the first gatherings took place in what we now call the Ioannina synagogue. The opposite synagogue. And I remember this first time as a small child. My father speaking and everyone crying.
Raphael Mousis: And me asking why they are crying. I couldn't understand why this emotion. Which had gripped everyone with my father's words. And of course these words which are the appeal, the wish for our brothers to return.
Raphael Mousis: As they returned from Babylon, let them return too. Which shows you what. That he knew about the deportation. But they didn't know what was happening. That is the Auschwitz-Birkenau story and so on. It was inconceivable and you will have heard that the first person who returned they locked up in Dafni.
Raphael Mousis: The man was considered insane. What he was telling was not possible.
Raphael Mousis: I remember my father had an office on Kornarou street and he would take me, take me along and I would sit there and all the then surviving let's say prominent Jews would come and they would plan the rescue and I was there present and heard everything.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: When you say office, this is the professional office, the office.
Raphael Mousis: Law office.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: In Athens.
Raphael Mousis: In Athens, yes.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Rented, yes.
Raphael Mousis: He had opened it. He had it during the occupation too, then he abandoned it and then found it again.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Therefore, essentially, the longest period you were in Athens and Ioannina you were not hidden, you lived your normal life, with everything that entails of course during the Occupation.
Raphael Mousis: The hidden period is from October 1943 until...
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: October 1944.
Raphael Mousis: End of the latter.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: End of the latter, October 1944.
Raphael Mousis: This is the period we are with false names, as Pardo has written, I don't know how many days, I was Dimitrakis Mantzaris.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: These names, the identities were received by your father himself from Angelos Evert.
Raphael Mousis: From Angelos Evert himself. Certainly.
Raphael Mousis: And one of my personal memories, I later became friends with Miltos. Miltiades Evert. And my father's thank you letter to Angelos Evert had been saved. Which I framed and went and gave to Miltiades. And somewhere who knows if this exists.
Raphael Mousis: Liza has died now too. Who knows who. I don't know if it exists in the archive. Anyway it was him. And he spoke personally with Damaskinos.
Raphael Mousis: The story that Damaskinos mediated for the Logothetopoulos meeting.
Raphael Mousis: Well, we all have this story about the creation of KIS and the various people who work, the Zionist element of course.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did he raise you as a Zionist.
Raphael Mousis: Look. I told you earlier about the paradox of how Aser Mousis, the leading figure of Thessaloniki Judaism, doesn't raise his son as a good Jew. He doesn't teach him Ladino, he doesn't send him to Jewish school. I think my father felt this burden.
Raphael Mousis: The interpretation now. And while I was still just turned sixteen, I'm at Athens College, I've returned to Athens College, I'm a good student, after having been a bad student, I have good company, I'm generally a happy boy and suddenly they tell me to go to England, boarding at a Jewish school.
Raphael Mousis: And of course the idea of going to England seems very nice to me. I don't realize what a radical change in my life. This business of getting on a plane and going where, to England that won the war, no kidding. So.
Raphael Mousis: Well, he sent me to Jewish school, because he considered that finishing Greek, the Greek school was superfluous. To finish in a Jewish environment, so as to develop the Zionist... Because the director of this school, an Englishman, Jacobs, says he was a fanatical Zionist, it was a fanatical Zionist school.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: What was this school called?
Raphael Mousis: Whittingehame College in Brighton, Sussex.
Raphael Mousis: Well, they send me there to become a good Zionist, to learn Hebrew and to end up living in the state of Israel, of which my father is already initially consul and then diplomatic representative.
Raphael Mousis: And initially that's how I would go. Israel has a future in textiles. Look, we're talking about a personality, Aser Mousis. A boy with five sisters, in Trikala, who gets educated and becomes a lawyer. That is, the figure within the family, he is steps above all the sisters and brothers-in-law, who were good people, merchants, you know. There wasn't even one doctor, there was nothing that came close. It was inconceivable in the extended family for anything to happen without Aser Mousis's approval. For some girl, cousin, to marry without Aser Mousis's approval, was unthinkable. So it was, we decide and we order.
Raphael Mousis: The order was that in Israel it would be good to be a textile manufacturer. You'll go to England, you'll finish the English Jewish school and then you'll go to the best textile school that exists in the world, which is in Manchester. And I follow. And I end up in Manchester. But I decide that I'm not interested in becoming a textile manufacturer. And it's the first if you will rebellion from the... orders and directions and I decide I want to become an engineer. Why is another story that doesn't interest you.
Raphael Mousis: Poor Mireta, my sister, submits to the Zionist order and goes and marries in Israel and makes a bad arranged marriage, with which Mireta was unhappy. But Mireta was the victim of Aser Mousis's great Zionist idea. That's how I call poor Mireta.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Her husband, what...
Raphael Mousis: He was a distant relative.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Ah, he was of Greek origin.
Raphael Mousis: No, no, no. Relative from the side. Someone from the relatives was... he was from Beirut. Lubliner. No. He wasn't Levy.
Raphael Mousis: There are many important things he did. That is, he was a fanatical Jewish Zionist, not a fanatical religious Jew. He was a deep knower of the Jewish religion, but he wasn't religiously obsessed. All this knowledge was purely the result... He was self-taught. He was self-taught. In these matters he is self-taught.
Raphael Mousis: I cannot remember my father in all the years I lived with him. To bring to mind a moment when he sat in an armchair idle. Never. A lifetime. There would be a book. There would be something he was writing or something he was reading. Or he would be talking. He was never like I sit. Sometimes I sit like this and think. He never sat. He was constantly searching. For knowledge.
Raphael Mousis: He was proud of the library he had built. The Jewish part of it is here inside. It has been saved. I donated his legal library. He used his acquaintances from the University. Because look now. In 1927 when he finished. There were a handful of people studying law. And all of them were very connected. Georgios Mavros for continuity let's say. Minister of Greece and so on. Konstantinos Tsaldaris. All these were. And he used these acquaintances.
Raphael Mousis: It is that OPAIE has been written about and characterized as a unique phenomenon. Where the official state. The properties of people who were lost and left no heirs. Usually the state inherits them. That's how it happens. In Greece the Jewish community inherits them. This has never happened again. And Peremis has written this too. It is recognized as a unique if you will success. On the part of Aser Mousis. Utilizing the connections he had with politicians. That he succeeded.
Raphael Mousis: And this too is published. Those Jews who had been arrested. As participants in the left. In the leftist movement. A law was passed which said they are released. On the condition that they will emigrate to Palestine. And this again with Mavros and Tsaldaris let's say.
Raphael Mousis: You haven't heard the airplane story of course. Well, we are on the eve of the founding of the state of Israel. And Shimon Peres has found 6-7 airplanes somewhere in northern Europe. Which he buys to come to Israel and constitute the first air force of the state to be created. But these airplanes don't have the ability to fly. To Palestine they must be refueled somewhere and Crete is chosen as a suitable refueling place. And they send a message to my father to find some old runway and fuel and to organize the landing of these airplanes in Crete so they can be refueled and leave again.
Raphael Mousis: My father doesn't know anyone in Crete, but he knows very well the minister then, I think of foreign affairs, Konstantinos Tsaldaris. And he goes to Tsaldaris and tells him this and that. He trusted him, Tsaldaris knew, he was absolutely friendly disposed towards the Jewish element and Zionism.
Raphael Mousis: And Tsaldaris gives him a name in Crete. You'll go, you'll find so-and-so. My father conservatively asks for information and learns that so-and-so is a gangster, a mafioso of the worst kind. And he goes back to Tsaldaris and says, minister, the one you sent me to, is a scoundrel. Well, Mousis, next time I'll introduce you to the Archbishop. What did you want me to introduce you to? The Metropolitan? That is, it's a fact, the airplanes came, were refueled, flew, went.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: How long did you stay in England as a student?
Raphael Mousis: In England I must have stayed two and a half years and in Manchester four.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: So you returned to Greece.
Raphael Mousis: No, I didn't return to Greece.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Ah, what did you do.
Raphael Mousis: Then I went to MIT.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: To America.
Raphael Mousis: To America.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: When you decided to become an engineer and not a textile manufacturer, how did your father take it.
Raphael Mousis: Very well. He wrote to me, I had a letter. I have determined that you have abilities. And I understand that textiles is not something that suits you. That was it.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And therefore you went to MIT with his blessings and all that.
Raphael Mousis: Phew. With purpose. Now here begins my personal story. Which is my other transgression, that my late wife was a Christian Orthodox.
Raphael Mousis: That was it. A big mistake. So. Well.
Raphael Mousis: Dido. Her surname Sourapa. The father, Vasileios Sourapas was the founder of EVGA. The first dairy industry, the first company which brought the concept of pasteurization to Greece and also the first who brought the concept of franchising to Greece because the EVGA outlets which were the neighborhood EVGA in those years were not owned by EVGA they were franchising, a new concept. The term franchisee didn't exist yet.
Raphael Mousis: She was from Psychico and I was from Psychico and we met when she was 13 years old and I was 17 years old and our romance begins from this age innocent of course completely but innocent in deeds but not at all neutral in thoughts so we plan because Sourapas had as a small child illegally immigrated to America and there he made his money as an ice cream vendor in Chicago and came and built EVGA he was an American citizen and consequently my late wife as his daughter had American citizenship.
Raphael Mousis: Civil marriage is forbidden in Greece. She had been born in America. No she had been born in Greece but from American citizen father and mother so the children acquire American citizenship. Well she had American citizenship. Consequently the plan is devised that you must be able to enter an American University. So.
Raphael Mousis: And when I complete my 21st year of age when I'm allowed to travel without parental permission then I will come to America in order to have a civil marriage. We plan it from childhood and we cultivate it and we carry it out.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: What year.
Raphael Mousis: 1956. Sorry 1958.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: The civil marriage that took place.
Raphael Mousis: In Boston. And then there was a religious one, Dido became Jewish.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: When did her conversion process begin.
Raphael Mousis: There.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: In the USA.
Raphael Mousis: Ah no here in Greece.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Of course not because there was no reason.
Raphael Mousis: There. Look. There our purpose was to have a civil marriage. To have. My father. Look. They tried to stop it obviously. Both sides. Both the Sourapas. And the Mousis. Who had learned of the existence of the relationship. And they even met. Sourapas and Mousis. To discuss to find ways. To prevent this event. When it happened. That is she eloped. She left secretly from her house. Got on the plane and left. The day after her 21st birthday when she turned 21. In '58.
Raphael Mousis: Well, when they learned that what had happened had happened. Aser Mousis with my mother. Took a bouquet of flowers. And went and knocked on Sourapas's house. In Psychico. Who received them with open arms. And they said now what shall we do. It's over. And a telegram came which had shocked poor dear late mother. Because when the telegram came her hands were shaking to open it. And it said. We opened a bottle of champagne and drink to your health. Thus the reconciliation happened and they became very good friends afterwards. The Sourapas and the Mousis.
Raphael Mousis: The idea that we had to have a religious marriage too. Came when we began to cultivate the possibility of returning to Greece. From America. I was then an adjunct professor at MIT. I taught thermodynamics and heat transfer. But there was EVGA. And EVGA needed someone like me.
Raphael Mousis: And so we began to talk. So there had to be a religious marriage too. Of course it was Reform. The process was much simpler. She took some lessons with a very nice rabbi Shapiro. He gave her the name Ruth.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Do you remember the name of the synagogue.
Raphael Mousis: No, because it didn't even take place in a synagogue. The Rabbi came to the house. And performed this ceremony and then named her. It didn't happen in any synagogue. We went to synagogue afterwards. We liked the synagogue, the service, the Reform.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Do you remember which synagogue this was.
Raphael Mousis: In Boston it was Reform. I can't remember. I remember approximately where it was. I say, if you really insist, I'll look it up. But I don't remember it. Rabbi Shapiro. And he gave her the name Ruth. The civil one is 1958. The religious one. Perhaps 1959 or 1960.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did this satisfy your parents.
Raphael Mousis: No, they didn't care. They had accepted the... Of course what satisfied them was the fact that we could return to Greece. The religious marriage, because the civil one wasn't recognized. Exactly. Not for my reasons or hers. Of course, as it's not at all strange for me to tell you that my late wife was a much better Jew than me. Because she had gone through some catechism. While I had not.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And when did you return to Greece.
Raphael Mousis: We return to Greece in 1962. With a one-year leave from MIT. And this one year never expired. Because things were such here, that in the end we decided to stay.