EXCERPTS FROM THE PRESENTATION BY ARGONAUTʼS ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT A ZOUPANIOTIS
Greek News, New York
Feb 5 2007
Today we remember dearly the sacrifice of the 155 of our Jewish
compatriots that lost their lives in the Nazi death camps. And at
the same time we celebrate the spirit of humanism and solidarity
shown by the people of Volos, who saved some 750 Jewish people,
or more than 83% of the Israelite Community of our home town.
Greeks are a people that through their long history have suffered a
long period of slavery and persecution. More than 1,5 million Greeks
of the Asia Minor and Pontus were the victims of one of the worst
genocides of our century. A genocide not recognized by Turkey, same
as they do with the Armenian Genocide.
When we expect from others to recognize this injustices done to our
people, we have to be equally sensitive to the pains and suffering
of our brothers and sisters that have suffered, just because their
different religion, or ethnicity, or race.
They say, a good deed is always repaid, one way or another. In August
1922, when the flames set by the Turks were burning the beautiful
City of Smyrna in Asia Minor and its Greek population were dying by
the thousands, there was a tobacco manufacturer, named Herman Spirer.
His parents were Swiss Jews. Besides Smyrna, he also had business in
Volos, Drama, Kavala and Salonica. Spirer hosted hundreds of Greeks
in his factory, raised the Swiss flag for protection and paid for the
ships that carried them to safety. Some of those refugees landed in
Volos and even worked in Spirerʼs tobacco factory.
I donʼt think people of Volos ever forgot this gesture of
humanity and kindness. Maybe this is the reason why our hometown is
an example of tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Maybe this is the
reason even the German consul in Volos at the time, Helmut Scheffel,
told Metropolitan Ioakeim that the danger for the Jews of Volos
was imminent. Metropolitan Iakeim and Mayor Saratsis helped them,
as well as the municipal clerk Zissis Mantidis and the police Chief,
Ilias Agdiniotis. The partisans of the National Liberation Front,
EAM, coordinated a huge evacuating operation and in only one night
all nine hundred people left town. My father, a 16year old partisan
at the time, was telling me of some of his Jewish comrades. And of
course it was thanks to the leadership of the Israelite Community of
Volos who didnʼt trust the German lies and left.
Thatʼs why the majority of the Jewish Community of Volos survived.
Asher Matathias, our speaker, and his parents were some of these
survivors. He is a caveman, because he was born in a cave of Mount
Pelion, in December 3 1943. He immigrated with his parents to
America, in 1956, where he ʽs got an excellent education; he
is a professor at the St Johns University and we are proud to have
him and his lovely Voliotissa wife and my neighbor in Volos, Anna,
as members of our association. And we all together contribute in
sending to every one in the world this strong message of tolerance,
brotherhood and understanding.