Χρήστης:Niki81/πρόχειρο

Gouramani, Georgos Gouramani, Polixeni Kendrotis, Yanis

As the danger of deportation grew imminent, Mois Eskaloni (b. 1920) fled from Salonika to Exohi in Greek Macedonia along with his mother, his sister Flora and her husband Alberto Safan. They rented an apartment and made friends with Yanis Kendrotis and his mother Heleni. Yanis knew they were Jewish fugitives from Salonika. He warned them of the danger of denunciation and told them to stay at home, while he saw to their needs and arranged for false papers. When Yanis learned that the Germans were about to enter the village he warned the family, and they managed to flee unnoticed.

The refugees reached the village of Hortiatis, 8 km away. At first they concealed their Jewish identity, explaining that their mother (who did not speak Greek, only Ladino [Judaeo-Spanish]), was deaf-mute. The family befriended a neighboring family, Georgos and Polixeni Gourmani and their six children. After some time one of the Gourmani children overheard Eskaloni's mother speak Ladino. However the Gourmanis assured their friends that they would protect them no matter what, and from that moment on took them under their wings. They supplied them with food, and when Flora Safan fell ill and needed an operation they took her to a hospital and made all the arrangements. While she was in the hospital, Yanis Kendrotis came to visit Flora, and took her back to Hortiatis when she was discharged.

The Jewish family stayed in Hortiatis until the end of summer 1944, when Greek partisans killed a German soldier.

In retaliation, on 2 September 1944, the Germans executed 149 civilians – men, women and children – and burned their homes. The Jewish family, helped by Gourmanis, managed to escape in the last minute. After liberation the Eskaloni and Safan families remained in close contact with their rescuers – a relation that is fostered even after the rescuers’ passing by the second generations of all three families. "Even afterso many years I consider them to be a part of my family", wrote Eskaloni to Yad Vashem. On 27 August 2006 Yad Vashem recognized Georgos & Polixeni Gourmani and Yanis Kendrotis as Righteous Among the Nations.

Agelopoulos, Yiorgios Agelopoulou, Paraskevi

After fighting on the Albanian front during the winter of 1940-1941, Yiorgios Agelopoulos returned to his village, Korifi, in the prefecture of Veroia, where he ran a small general store. He resumed his travels to the nearby villages to sell his goods, mostly cloth and sewing notions. Two Jewish firms in Thessaloniki – Rousso and Nahmias – regularly supplied the merchandise. These two families were related to each other by marriage, and they had both migrated to Thessaloniki from Monastir after World War I. Agelopoulos was especially friendly with the owners’ sons, in particular Markos Nahmias. After the German occupation in April 1941, anti-Jewish measures were implemented, culminating, in February 1943, with the ghettoization of Thessaloniki’s Jews, and their subsequent deportation to the death camps, beginning on March 15, and continuing through August. In March, these two Jewish families approached Agelopoulos with the request that he help them escape to the Italian-occupied zone in the south and he agreed. They went in two groups; the first one included the Nahmias – the parents, Markos and his sister. Agelopoulos, being familiar with the roads, led them through fields and byways. He brought them to his own village where he lived with his wife, Paraskevi, and their four children. The next day he took them to a train station in the village of Makrigialos and, from there, they traveled through Methoni towards Athens.

A few days later, Agelopoulos returned to Thessaloniki and took the Roussos – Markos’s sister, brother-in-law and the two children – with the same success. The two groups arrived in Athens. In September 1943, when the Germans entered Athens, the rescued Jews from Thessaloniki escaped to the Peloponnesos. After the liberation in 1944, during the Greek civil war, Agelopoulos, as a member of the EDES underground, was in danger. Escaping to Thessaloniki from Korifi, one day he met his friend MarkosNahmias by chance in the street. Markos was now in a position to offer his help and he offered Agelopoulos shelter and money. On July 16, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Yiorgios and Paraskevi Agelopoulou as Righteous Among the Nations.

Apostolopoulos, Tilemahos

Tilemahos Apostolopoulos (b. 1898) was one of the directors of the Ionian Bank of Athens. In October 1943, following the German occupation of Athens the previous month, he was asked to shelter Yvonne Molho (later Capuano), the niece of his friend, originally from Thessaloniki. Tilemahos owned a farmhouse in Ekali, 30 km from Athens, where his mother and the gardener were the sole occupants. Only a declaration that the mother was mentally ill had saved the expropriation of the house by the Germans. Molho, using an assumed identity, was sheltered there for three months, under the guise of an aide to the ailing lady. Tilemahos came to the house in Ekali two or three times a week, bringing food and other necessities. He had to walk seven km from the terminal in order to avoid the soldiers that were stationed near the farmhouse. One day in January 1944, a neighbor who was hiding a Jewish family was betrayed and they were all arrested by the Germans. Yvonne realized that she and her hosts were also in danger and she had to leave at once. She managed to escape to a nearby forest and one of Tilemahos’s friends took her to a safe place. She survived the war and remained in close contact with her rescuer.