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Stories of death and annihilation are usually those associated with
the Holocaust. But included are also those stories of humanity, when
people across the continent risked their own lives to help a friend, a
neighbor — even a stranger.
Included in these stories are several high-profile Greek Orthodox
Church leaders who risked their own faithful, as well as the safety of
their Christian flock, should their efforts to help Jews had been
uncovered by the Nazis.
DAMASKINOS, the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece
“I have made my cross, have spoken with God, and decided to save as many Jews.”
The leadership role of the high-profile head of the country’s Greek
Orthodox Church, the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Damaskinos,
was unprecedented in all of Europe. Not hiding behind cowardly
“neutrality” of his counterparts at the Vatican and other European
churches, Damaskinos openly and unabashedly opposed the deportation of
the Jews of Greece and took drastic, and sometimes life-threatening
measures to fulfill his mission.
With the support of the police chief of Athens, Archbishop Damaskinos
oversaw the creation of several thousand “baptismal certificates”, and
provided more than 27,000 false identify papers to desperate Jews
seeking protection from the Nazis.
The forged papers gave them Christian names and allowed them free
passage through Nazi checkpoints. The Archbishop also ordered
monasteries and convents in Athens to shelter Jews, and urged his
priests to ask their congregations to hide the Jews in their homes. As a
result, more than 250 Jewish children were hidden by Orthodox clergy
alone.
Damaskinos also spearheaded a direct protest to the Germans, in the form of a letter in a bold defense of the Jews who were being persecuted.
The letter incited the rage of the ferocious Nazi General Jürgen
Stroop— the man responsible for the brutal suppression of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising and the loss of 50,000 lives who had since been
transferred to Greece. He threatened the Archbishop with death by a
firing squad.
Damaskinos’ response was, ”Greek religious leaders are not shot, they
are hanged. I request that you respect this custom.” The simple courage
of the religious leader’s reply caught the Nazi commander off guard.
The appeal of the Archbishop and his fellow Greeks is unique; there
is no similar document of protest of the Nazis during World War II that
has come to light in any other European country. It reads, in part:
”In our national consciousness, all the children of Mother Greece
are an inseparable unity: they are equal members of the national body
irrespective of religion… Our holy religion does not recognize superior
or inferior qualities based on race or religion, as it is stated: ‘There
is neither Jew nor Greek’ and thus condemns any attempt to discriminate
or create racial or religious differences. Our common fate both in days
of glory and in periods of national misfortune forged inseparable bonds
between all Greek citizens, without exemption, irrespective of race…”
”Today we are… deeply concerned with the fate of 60,000 of our
fellow citizens who are Jews… we have lived together in both slavery and
freedom, and we have come to appreciate their feelings, their brotherly
attitude, their economic activity, and most important, their
indefectible patriotism…”
JOACHIM, the Metropolitan Bishop of Volos
“I am a Jew”
On September 30, 1943, the Jewish New Year, the chief rabbi of the
central Greek city of Volos was ordered to report to the German military
leader, Kurt Rikert, and submit a list of the names of the city’s
Jewish community within 24 hours. At the time, there were 872 Jewish
residents.
The rabbi turned to his friend, Metropolitan Joachim (Alexopoulos)
who presided over the Greek Orthodox flock of the region and didn’t even
blink an eye when asked to help.
He ordered every priest in his diocese to help any Jew who asked for
it and signed his own name to a letter of introduction that the rabbi
used to seek hiding. The letter read in part “I heartily recommend the
teacher, bearer of this letter, and I ask every brother who is going to
meet him, to listen to him carefully and in good will, and to give him
any kind of assistance for anything he may be in need of for his life as
well as for his flock, so they do not become victims of this difficult
situation.”
Joachim mobilized the underground of the region and within 24 hours,
702 Greek Jews fled and were taken into the protective hands of
strangers in the villages of the mountains surrounding the city. When he
was asked for information about Jews from the Germans he firmly refused
their requests for lists of Jewish residents, answering them, “I am a
Jew”.
The 130 Jews who decided to remain behind were arrested by the SS and
sent to Auschwitz. The Nazis blew up the synagogue and looted and
pillaged the shops and homes in the Jewish neighborhood.
In November 1944 after the liberation of Greece and the Jews came out
of hiding, Joachim issues a statement urging all local inhabitants to
return to the Jewish residents any valuables they may have either taken
during the looting or left in their hands for safe-keeping.
For saving the lives of some 700 people, he was recognized
posthumously, in 1998, by the State of Israel with an inscription in the
Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and on the Righteous Honor Wall at
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
CHRYSOSTOMOS, the Metropolitan Bishop of Zakynthos
”I will march together with the Jews straight into the gas chamber.”
Of course, there is also the timeless survival story of the ONLY
Jewish community in all of Europe that didn’t lose a single soul during
the Holocaust, on the Greek Island of Zakynthos— thanks to the efforts
of the Metropolitan Bishop of the island, Chrysostomos.
When asked for the island’s Jews, he offered his own name, and that
of the Mayor’s, as the island’s Jews and proceeded to tell the German
commandant that he was prepared to march with his Jewish neighbors
straight to the gas chambers if that were his destiny.
“The Jews of Zakynthos are Greeks, peace-loving and industrious. They
are pure-blooded Zakynthians and totally harmless. I beg you to rescind
the criminal order.”
When the commander remained persistent and threatened Chrysostomos
and the mayor with their lives, and severe reprisals against the
civilian population of the island, they handed him a scrap of paper with
their own two names scribbled on it.
“I am at your mercy,” Chrysostomos told the Nazi. “You can arrest me,
not them. If this does not satisfy you, then know that I will march
together with the Jews straight into the gas chamber.”
Three Greek Orthodox hierarchs, each with high-profile positions of
moral authority, spoke to their God and responded with what they
believed to be their moral and ethical responsibility to save fellow
humans— regardless of religious background.
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