Before the Holocaust, Thessaloniki had 50.000 Jewish residents. After that only 1.900 remained. Of the 77.000 who lived throughout Greece, 67.000 perished in the concentration camps.
The number of Greek Jews who boarded the wagons without turning back is a piece of history that is not even mentioned in school books, perhaps because we lived in a society that did not tolerate diversity, especially in religious matters. "Bracelet of Fire", a series that you can watch on Ertflix if you have a very strong stomach, came to state television this year to change many stereotypes thanks to its truth since it is about the family history of the author of the book Bettys Magrizou.
Her father lived two years in the concentration camps, first in Auschwitz and then in Buchenwald, until liberation in 1945. He never spoke of this experience to his children until one day, a month before he died, he called his daughter close to him. The book will also be published in French, while the series will be shown on TV5.
How can you grow up with an Auschwitz survivor and not know the details?
My father avoided bringing this up. My brothers and I used to see the number on his hand when we were little, we would ask him "what is it" and he would simply answer "the Germans". When he started to tell us something, his asthma would attack him, he would choke and stop, just like the character played by Christos Loulis on TV. We knew what had happened in the Holocaust and watched the films in the cinema, but he did not tell us his own experience.
In fact, he was a very happy person, he was always laughing, you can imagine at Halloween he dressed up as Comaneci and danced for us. My mom didn't know everything either. When "Bracelet of Fire" came out she was shocked because my father had already died, but then she learned the details. He told me, “he never talked to me about what he went through. If I had known, I would have hugged him more, I would have loved him more, I would have kissed his hands all the time." They were a very beloved couple, madly in love.
When did you learn his true story?
When I was older and published my first novel, he decided to tell me about his journey so that I could write it and make the atrocity known. He called me in Thessaloniki from Larissa where I lived with my husband to talk to me. He told me everything in detail and a month later he died. He was 69 years old.
Is the story as you describe it in the book?
Yes exactly. On April 14, 1943, my grandfather and his three sons left Thessaloniki with mission 9, one of whom was accompanied by his wife and their nursing baby. On the first day they arrived at Auschwitz they separated those able to work from those unable. The grandfather, his bride and their baby were taken straight to the crematoria. So my father and his two brothers survived. My dad was the youngest, 16 years old, but he was the most courageous and told them "no guys, we will live". He would go and steal potato skins from the kitchens of the Germans to feed his brothers so that they would have strength and be selected for the forced labor, not the gas chambers. Even when he was operated on for appendicitis without anesthetic in Mengele's experiments he said "I was lucky in my misfortune because the others beside me were dying". He saw the positive everywhere, that made a big impression on me. He told me that he took courage from the thought of his mother who loved her so much.
Did they last until the end of the war?
Yes, all three brothers were freed when the Russian troops entered. My uncle Davikos was saved on the last day. As the Germans killed those who were left and made a mountain of corpses, my uncle was buried underneath but alive. When the Russians arrived they saw that something was wrong and took him out. He lived like this and returned to Greece, but the shock was so great that he remained sullen for a long time.
Then he spoke again, fell in love with a neighbor who had also returned from the camps, and they started their lives all over again. My other uncle, the one who had lost his wife and daughter, found a very sweet girl and they had a baby girl. My father met my mother at a wedding, he loved her very much and they got married. Those who returned were in a hurry to start a family because they wanted to put new life in place of the death they experienced.
Was your mother's family in the concentration camps too?
My mother had a different story. He grew up in Larissa and when it became known that the Germans were loading the Jews of Thessaloniki onto the trains, some Christians took the nearby Jews into their homes and hid them. My grandfather had a grocery store in the center of the city and one of his suppliers from Sykourio said to him: "come, my house may be small, but you will stay with us to save yourself". That's why I always say it doesn't matter the religions, people can give love no matter what god they believe in.
When your father returned with the liberation to Thessaloniki, how did he survive?
Nothing was left of the family fortune. To earn money in the early years he became a professional boxer. In fact, because he liked all the minorities, a lot of people came to his matches, he was especially popular among the Gypsies. He had even defeated a champion of the time, Nikeftidis. With his savings, he opened a small optical and jewelry shop at 1 Diikitiriou, in Vardari, which he ran all his life and now my sister owns it.
After the Holocaust, those Jews who returned experienced a second tragedy because they found their properties trampled. Did the same happen to yours?
Yes, in their father's house they found some others living in, but after many courts and many attempts they got it back. But most of them in Thessaloniki did not achieve anything. Looted shops, occupied houses, falsified property transfers, many scams in collaboration with notaries. But can I tell you something? I don't want to think about that. Material things have no value. God will judge them. I care about the lives that were lost. The children, the grandmothers, how could they not feel sorry for them? And all this why?
Have you visited Auschwitz?
Yes, my sister and I went when my father had already passed away. It was spring, but it had that biting Polish cold, and the first thing I thought of was my dad in his striped pajamas and clogs. We saw the crematoria, the place where they slept, the toilets, the chamber where the experiments were done, tons of hair, mountains of suitcases and shoes. When we were taken to a basement with a hole in the wall that could only fit one standing person, I remembered that they had locked my dad there as a punishment and I gasped and cried hysterically. I wanted to take all the hostages and hug them. The prisoners who got out of there alive and got on with their lives were heroes.
The series also touches on the issue of intermarriage when the older sister falls in love with a Christian and her parents declare that she is dead to them. Why was there compulsion to marry Jews?
I believe this is how minorities survive. I believe this is true for all minorities, to perpetuate themselves they must marry within their own society. In the Jewish community it was considered taboo to marry a Christian and that is why my aunt Frieda who married Constantine was initially expelled. The same was true of my generation. The funny thing is that my sister left to study in Israel and met a co-religionist there, but ended up falling in love with the only Greek Christian in the university. I didn't even have time to worry. He had somehow anticipated the Central Israelite Council of Greece that organized a trip for young people to Israel every year. When I was 16 I also went and there I met my husband who was 21 years old, from Larissa. I was lucky because I knew that I don't want to upset my parents and that I will marry a Jew. I was lucky because I fell in love with the right person and we are still together almost 50 years later.
Is religion in your daily life?
No, we are not religious. We keep the tradition. We do Pesach, we eat unleavened bread, we have Hanukkah, which is a happy holiday, and we light candles. But I don't fanatically go to the synagogue every Friday. Of course, it is not mandatory for women. For men it is necessary because it takes at least ten for the synagogue to function. We're not retro like in 'Unorthodox', nor are the women shaving their heads. I used to feel that the place of our gender in religion was degraded, but I discussed it with the rabbi and he explained that we are leaders in the home, we cannot leave the family to go to the synagogue. Indeed, the Jewish mother is the pillar of the home.
Your religion also has a homeland that many Jews dream of reaching. Do you feel that way too?
Because our prayers speak of Jerusalem, all Jews feel a connection to the land of Israel. I love this country and I have relatives who worked from the first moment to build it. I believe that if Israel existed, the Holocaust would not have happened. But we are Greeks to the bone. In fact, another brother of my dad, Zakinos, was killed in the war in Albania.
Do you feel you are treated differently because of your religion?
No never. Of course, sometimes people come and say to me, "Are you Jewish? Oh, you don't think so." But what do I think? All people are the same. Now with the serial I happened to hear "do Jews have such nice families?". But all families in the world are like that. With their joys, with their sorrows. I see that both the book and the series managed to show that we also exist and are normal people. The world did not even know that there are so many thousands of Greek Jews who were killed in the concentration camps. Many who have seen "Bracelet" tell me "sorry we didn't know".
How did you start writing?
I studied Economics, tried various professions but nothing suited me until shortly after forty I started writing. I finished my first book, "Polyxeni", in 25 days. Like there was a tape inside me that kept playing and dictating to me. I didn't realize when I finished it. If you look at the handwriting, it doesn't have a single smudge. Just like I gave it to Kastaniotis, it was published. You can't imagine my joy when it was printed and I got my hands on it. I would put it in different parts of the house and pass by it supposedly randomly to look at it out of the corner of my eye and show off.
That's when my dad decided to talk to me. Then I started writing his story, but that's where I got stuck because it was too heavy. At that time I had the pleasure of hanging out with Freddy Germanos and I told him what was happening to me. "Leave it in the drawer and at some point you'll feel ready and pick it up again," he advised me, and finally it happened. I also wrote my second book, "Nestor po Tori called her", then "Identity with fate" and then my legs took me and I finished "The Bracelet of Fire".
What dreams do you have for your job?
I enjoyed the series so much that I'm thinking how much I'd like to see more of my books adapted to television or film. However, the transfer to the theater is a unique experience for the creator. When I saw a monologue of mine at Studio Mavromichalis and my heroine standing on stage, I started to cry and only stopped when it was over. I cried for an hour.
I imagine you cry at "Bracelet of Fire" too. Anyway, I can't help myself.
Not only am I crying. I'm shivering already. Think of seeing your grandmother alive in her home, the grandmother you never met. The work that the director Giorgos Gikapeppas has done is of a cinematic level. You know where I got the most excited? On the shoot. I didn't go many times, only four. Christos Loulis and Dimitris Arianoutsos (who plays the hero at a young age) came and told me "what a priceless gift you gave us". I can't describe it to you, it was like seeing my dad. Lulis hugged me and I wanted to kiss his hand where the number is.
Which god do you believe in?
I believe in a power up there, I don't know what it's called. But I know that twice in my life when I had lost my faith and for a period of time I did not believe in anything, I felt unhappy. Only when I started believing again was I able to feel better.
SOURCE: website MARIE CLAIRE, 24.4.2023