大象传媒

My late grandmother Anna Karadima, a taverna owner in Athens, Greece (in the area of Exarchia/ Neapoli) provided shelter to a British soldier (from somewhere in Wales) when he was stranded after the evacuation of the British forces from Greece, before the rapid advance of the Germans. This task was a difficult and a gravely dangerous one. Difficult because the Germans were confiscating all food for their troops, and feeding one more mouth added a lot of strain to the already starved family (200.000 people died of hunger during that winter in Athens alone). Also this soldier was of a very fair complexion and taller than the average Greek and of course he did not speak a word of Greek. Gravely dangerous it was, because any household hiding allied personnel, if caught, was faced with summary trial and execution the next day and that applied for everyone living in the house.
My grandmother was a tough woman, a widower with 2 small children at the time (my grandfather a policeman had died shortly after the Germans entered Athens, due to lack of penicillin) the typical kind of Greek woman of these hard times. She chose to defy the German and Italian forces who were combing the city at in search of stranded allied personnel. She took active part in the resistance, but that is not relevant here.
She dyed the soldier鈥檚 hair and moustache and taught him a few Greek words so he would not be so conspicuous; his favorite was 鈥渒outsouro鈥� (meaning 鈥渓ump of wood鈥�) a word he used to mock the Gestapo every time they came to search the tavern and the house and did not catch him (and they came many times). She contacted the greek resistance so that arrangements could be made for his escape. The soldier (whose name was forgotten with time), stayed with my grandmother鈥檚 family for a while and finally was evacuated to Egypt either by submarine or by boat.
If he is alive now he will be well into his eighties and more than probably is not an internet user. There could not be many Welshmen in Greece at the time, since the allied forces were consisting mainly of Australians and New Zealanders. So anyone who knows him, perhaps a grandchild like myself who has heard the story in front of the fire or during a family dinner, can contact me in my e-mail address: panagoulias.x@wci.gr

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