大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the people鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from CSV on behalf of Mary Agrafiotou and has been added to the site with his permission. Jack fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions鈥�

I was ten years of age living in Thessaloniki Greece when the war broke out on 28th of October 1940.

At four o鈥檆lock on a Monday morning two Greek officers came to our house to take my Father away who was a Major in the Greek Army during the First World War, then later a lawyer.

He鈥檇 actually had a heart attack at ten o鈥檆lock the previous night but he had to get up and go and we lost sight of him for some time.

The following Friday at 11 o鈥檆lock in the morning we heard noises, banging and the sound of our window panes breaking. That was the Blitz. Bombs fell very near to where we lived. I was terrified I didn鈥檛 know what to do my Mother told me go under the table. It was Italian planes that came disguised and they hadn鈥檛 been recognised and they started bombing Thessaloniki.

A lot of people got killed whom didn鈥檛 have time to get to the shelter and after that the centre of the city had to be evacuated, we didn鈥檛 know where to go. Fortunately a kind Uncle was able to take us to stay with him in the outskirts of the city. We took what precious possession鈥檚 we could in the back of a cart. Another Aunt also joined us who had a shop but it had been destroyed and she had lost everything. That鈥檚 how the war started for us, a lot of friends were killed in the blitz.

The daughter of a Jewish family living next door to us who was about 17 almost the age of my sister said to my mother 鈥淢rs Athena now that the War has started the Germans will come and we are going to be taken away and we won鈥檛 come back again鈥�. And that was how the Jewish community started thinking.

The War went on and the Greek Army advanced in Albania against the Italians. Day after day we had lots of victories to celebrate during the night and during the day. The papers were writing a lot in our favour with cartoons of Mussolini and his son in law, Tiano, He was the ambassador in Greece who gave the ultimatum to the Prime Minister.

That went on till the end of March and on the 6th April the German War broke out. My father in the meantime had to come back to Thessaloniki because of his heart condition, he had had three heart attacks. When the German war started my father was in hospital and the Greek army had had to leave the city and go South to Athens and then on to Egypt to meet the British forces. The Greek army stopped the Germans for a week on the Western side of the country and then the Germans came through to Thessaloniki, I was there I saw them coming in and all the doors and all the windows were closed, nobody went out then, but I was the only one to go out, I was very curious because I was a child. I saw them coming looking very cheeky and very arrogant.

I saw a lady who was a neighbour of ours clapping her hands, she was the only one to applaud. After the war when the Germans went away she was killed, she was a traitor. The Germans came to Thessaloniki, but Bulgaria was on their side and they always had their eyes on Greece, it was very close to them. For their allegiance to the Germans, the eastern part of Greece went to the Bulgarians, they did an awful lot of atrocities, burnt houses and raped women, a lot of them had to come to Thessaloniki as refugees to avoid what was happening.

We had a very strong Jewish community in Thessaloniki, 50,000 Jews were there and they were all taken to Auschwitz and other camps, we had friends who we missed a lot, and only 1800 came back.

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