1940 - 45 War and Resistance - Ποιειν Και Πραττειν

1940 - 45 War and Resistance

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When the fascist axis declared war on Greece late in October 1940, a lot of Jews, including many from Ioannina, were serving as ordinary military personnel, officers, or auxiliary personnel at the front, where they and their Christian compatriots gave the whole of Europe a lesson in the meaning of patriotism and self-sacrifice.

When Greece fell to the Axis forces, Ioannina was in the Italian occupied zone. There were at that time approximately 1950 people in the Jewish community. The Italian administration was lenient and placed no restrictions on them. So life carried on as normal for the city's Jewish population. Of course, there were those among the young who joined the resistance forces and took to the surrounding mountains, more out of hatred of the fascist conqueror than out of hope of deliverance. Salvador Bacola and Yosef Matsa were among them and earned a mention here.

German forces led by General Jurgen von Stettner entered the city on 20th April 1943, taking over its occupation in July 1943. The Germans put malicious pressure on the Jewish community right from the start. They approached Sabbethai Kambilis, a prominent member of the Jewish Community who believed that the Jews would be safe from danger and persecution if they obeyed the orders issued by the forces of occupation. Despite initial German reassurances, things took a serious turn for the worse.

The Germans destroyed the new Kahal Kadosh Hadash synagogue. With the help of mayor G. Vlachleidis, the community hid the sacred vessels and cloths of the synagogue in the crypt of the city's old Kahal Kadosh Yashan synagogue, which is how they survived. All those who foresaw the catastrophe tried to find a way to escape. The Christian clergy stood by the fugitives. Metropolitan Bishop Spyridon saved a lot of objects, including a number of sewing machines from abandoned Jewish homes. One ordinary cleric, Father Athanasios, produced fake police identity cards with Christian-sounding names on them and distributed them to as many Jewish people as he could. In mid March 1944 the Jewish families of Ioannina were catalogued and their homes marked with crosses.

In the small hours before dawn on 25th March 1944, the Final Solution was suddenly and without warning enforced in Ioannina. Those who dwelt outside the castle walls were made to gather in Mavilis Square while those dwelt within the Castle were made to gather at the Military Hospital, and from there, on that snow-covered 25th day of March 1944, these 1870 Romaniote Jews were uprooted after twelve centuries of Jewish presence in the city. Taking with them whatever they could carry in bundles weighing up to 40 kilos, they were transported in 97 covered lorries, to Trikala then Larissa, and from there, in shocking conditions, by train to Auschwitz. There, and at many other Death Camps, 92% of the Jewish people of Ioannina were annihilated.

Greek Yanniote Jews in the National Resistance

National Resistance Organizations (EAM / ELAS, EDES and EKKA) were set up in the fall of 1941, following the German occupation of the country. In January 1943 EAM / ELAS called upon Greek Christians to help save their Jewish compatriots from Nazi persecution. The partisans warned community leaders and populations of impending deportations, in many cases saving scores of lives. The Chief Rabbi Elias Barzilay of Athens and Rabbi Moissis Pessach of Volos worked closely with the Resistance to organize safe escape to the mountains for themselves and their coreligionists. The leaders of several Jewish communities appealed to World Jewry to help the Greek Resistance acquire equipment. Early in 1943 many Greek Jews joined Resistance movements. Jewish men and women fought actively with the resistance to avenge the persecution of their kin and to liberate their country. Many were active in intelligence work in Greece, in the Middle East and in other countries, to which they had escaped, while others fought with Greek naval forces and Greek troops in Northern Africa.

Combatants and Intellectuals in Epirus

In Epirus, the dense German encampments, the difficulty of the terrain and cohesion between the communities meant that some Jews of Ioannina and Arta found themselves outside the encirclement in September 1943. The "undisciplined" youths Samuel Cohen and Sion Bakolas from Ioannina took the bold decision to leave the city and, in October 1943, they became the first Jewish partisans in the area of Pogoni. Five months later, they were followed by nine escapees from Larissa camp: Moissis Migionis (Katsampas), Avraam (Ebby) Svolis, Yeshua Matsas, Michalis Valais, Michalis Koen, Iakov Gershon, Haim Matsas, Eliasaf Matsas and Solomon Matsas. All served in the 15th, 85th and 3/40th ELAS Regiments, from Zagorochoria (near the borderline) to Arta. The 20-year-old Iakovos Balestras, perhaps the only Corfiot Jew to make his way Epirus to fight the Germans, was also active in Zagorochoria.

Two doctors served in Napoleon Zervas’ National Republican Greek League/National Groups of Greek Guerrillas (EDES/EOEA): one was the military doctor Errikos Levi, from occupied Ioannina, who sent intelligence to the partisans until March 1944 when he was deported with the whole community, and Michalis Negrin, who managed to escape to the mountains and even assisted wounded Germans at the Battle of Menina (17 August 1944).

Salvator Bakolas

A special figure among the Jewish partisans, he was born in December 1922 in Preveza and raised in Ioannina, from where his father came. Salvator’s path to resistance began in the first days of the occupation. As one of the leaders of EAM Youth in Ioannina, he led about 80 young Jews from the city. He developed a strong fighting spirit. Together with Moshe Dostis, he distributed leaflets on Pargas Square, wrote slogans and openly threatened Jews who had contact with Italian or German soldiers.

He continued his resistance activities in Athens in February 1942, when he enrolled to study at of the university. At the time of the Italian capitulation, he was an active member of EAM’s Student Youth (“Spoudazousa”), under the nickname “Sotiris”. After taking to the mountains, the enthusiastic Ioannina native, saw armed struggle as the only way forward. He remained in Parnitha, initially as an ELAS reservist in the village of Ayios Thomas, and then in the I/34 ELAS Attica Battalion under its legendary captain Theocharis Polychronos, who guarded the gates to "Free Greece". In January 1944 he presented himself at the headquarters of the V ELAS Brigade at Lidoriki and joined the Staff Company, led by Capt. Yiannis Lazaridis. The Company trained in the Mornos valley in May, ahead of a long hot summer. Salvator distinguished himself in the Battle of Amfissa (2 July 1944) and the epic battle at Karoutes in Fokida (5 August 1944), when an elite German mountain unit from the 18th SS-Polizei-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment, was surrounded in the village and exterminated by the Greek rebels. Ninety-seven Germans were killed and 105 captured. Salvator never forgot waiting a whole night, without speaking or smoking in order to avoid detection, for the signal to attack in the morning. He was one of about 50 fighters injured in this remarkable battle: He took a bullet in the right leg as he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Germans. He was admitted to the Brigade infirmary in the village of Pentagioi. When in October the brigade was renamed II ELAS Division, "Sotiris" was one of the 30 partisans selected for EPON’s Model Platoon (“Ypodeigmatiki”).

He was the only one of his family who survived the Holocaust. He was married to Dora Koen and they had a daughter, Ester. He died on 8 July 2012.

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