published in The Faris Newsletter Issue 74,  July 2021,  Page 4
by: Panagiota (Pitsa) S. Katsoulakou (Part I) and
Gerasimos (Makis) St. Katsoulakos  (Part II)

[Note by Carol Kostakos Petranek:  Stories of the German occupation of Greece abide in our families and in our history. The narratives are harrowing, but there are stories, such as this one, which reveal the altruism of humanity. Although there are many accounts of those bravely who sheltered Jews, Dimitris Katsoukakos told me that his family had done so, and that the story was published in Φαρις. It is translated here to acknowledge, with great respect, those who risked their lives to save others.]

Part I:

From the pre-war years [World War II], my uncle Petros Katsoulakos son of Ilias, first cousin of my father, and his wife Eleni Demonti from Smyrna, lived in Athens. They had rented their house in Katsoulaiika of Xirokampi, which was across from ours. Whenever they came to the village, they stayed in our house. Uncle Petros had a brotherly relationship with my father.

Uncle Petros had a good friend in Athens, Victor Kamchi, Jewish by religion. When in autumn of 1943 things became very difficult for the Jewish populations of Greece, Uncle Petros smuggled the Kamchi family out of Athens. He brought them to our house. I was nine years old then. We children did not know who they were or that they were Jewish. I remember they had Christian names. Apparently, they had changed them for safety. We knew they were visitors from Athens, friends of Uncle Petros. My siblings and I gave up our beds to accommodate the visitors. Besides, Uncle Petros often brought guests from Athens to our house.

They stayed in our house for several days; I don’t remember for exactly how long. One day, there came to our house two siblings, Agisilaos and Rosalia Koutsoulieris, our relatives from Kotronas, Mani, the village of our family’s distant origin. The next morning, Uncle Petros, my father, and the two Koutsoulieris siblings took the Kamchi family to the Lykopanagou Inn.¹ Their belongings were loaded onto two mules, ours and Uncle Petros’. From the Lykopanagou Inn, the Koutsoulieris with the Kamchis would leave by truck for Kotrona.

Part II:

The Kamchi family came to our house introduced as the Papadopoulos family. I don’t remember how many days they stayed. Besides, a house in the countryside did not face serious food problems, as happened in cities then. However, the issue of security was paramount. The fear of the Germans was pervasive. I remember that our parents sometimes sent me and Nikos, my older brother, to Ai-Lias of Kamini, a hill of the neighboring village, to observe if there were any German movements in the plain. After some days, the Kamchi family left for Kotrona to stay in the house of our relatives Koutsoulieris for better safety.

The Germans left and the war ended. The Kamchi family survived and returned to Athens. After the war, I also lived in Athens for several years. Together with my aunt Lela (my uncle Petros was no longer alive, as he was executed in the December Events), I visited the Kamchi family several times at their house in Patisia on Drosopoulou Street.

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¹An inn of that time on the western side of the national road from Sparta to Gytheio. Today in this space there is a gas station slightly south of KEEM camp.

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I (Carol Kostakos Petranek) am honored to receive permission from the Katsoulakos family to translate and share articles from The Faris. Translation verification and corrections have been made by GreekAncestry.net. This is the sixteenth article of the ongoing series. Previous articles can be viewed here.