Jill Weiner
miyaja415@gmail.com
609.216.0528
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Elvira
My name is Elvira Pipano Pelossof. I live in Athens, Greece with my husband Joseph
Pelossof and was born in Salonica, Greece, where my siblings and four generations of Pipanos
were born. We were a family of five, and my two siblings, Shaul and Buena followed me and
moved to Athens from Salonica and now have families of their own. Shaul and Angele Pipano
have a son, Aaron, and Buena and Aaron Cohen have four children, Sara, Shlomo, Chaim and
Dvora. My parents, Rabbi Aaron Pipano and Doudoun Ezrati Pipano live in Athens now in
Piraeus.
I never had any children of my own. My husband Joseph as the oldest of seven is
entrusted by his father Avraham Pelossof, who is my father Rabbi Aaron’s best friend, with all
the titles and ownership rights for family business concerns and real estate holdings and
properties, both here in Greece and in Palestine where Joseph’s brothers Rafael, David and Levy
manage them. My husband has diabetes along with other health problems and needs me for his
care. Joseph’s sister Sol is married to Albert Amarel who is my brother Shaul’s best friend. My
family and Joseph’s family have been close and intertwined for years. Joseph even accompanied
my brother Shaul as a chaperone when he came to Salonica to meet his future wife Angele for
the first time. My parents have a tea set purchased by my father and father in law together while
on vacation in Switzerland. It is at my parents’ home for safekeeping as per my father in law’s
wishes.
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Salonica, has passed from hand to hand, like Jerusalem. First as part of the Ottoman
Empire, the Turks were good to the Jewish population, then the Greeks took over and forced us
all to learn Greek at school as we all spoke Ladino and French, then the Germans came. During
the German occupation of Salonica, the Italians occupied Athens after I moved there, and then
predictably, the Nazis.
My brother Shaul had a sugar factory using kharoubs as a raw material and obtained
business permits at a Gestapo Office in Athens each morning. Since he was educated for eight
years in Berlin, Germany, where my mother Doudoun’s brother lived, he knew German fluently,
which none of the Sephardic Greek Jews spoke. Shaul had many friends who would do
anything for him. One day when he went to the Gestapo office a Nazi officer who was his friend
in boarding school in Berlin, pulled him aside and told him about all the atrocities in Salonica
and urged Shaul to escape from Greece. Shaul believed him wholeheartedly and warned me, our
parents, my sister Buena, and his wife Angele’s family still residing in Salonica.
From all the alarming news, my father, Rabbi Aaron died of a heart attack. We had a
funeral attended by my husband Joseph’s family, my mother Doudoun, my siblings and their
families. Rabbi Aaron, was the last Pipano Family Rabbi in five generations of Pipano Rabbis to
be buried in Greece. It was the last time I was to see my whole family, all together, all in the
same space at the same time, a last sad reunion.
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Shaul implored me to join him and leave Athens with my family. I was fearful of leaving
and for Joseph as he wasn’t well and I knew tolerating an uncertain clandestine long arduous trip
was not in the cards. The dim prospect of putting Joseph’s life in danger to save my own froze
my feet to the ground. I believed that we would be fine and decided to stay in our familiar but
quickly deteriorating environment. I wished Shaul a good and safe passage asking he contact us
as soon as he was able. Angele’s family in Salonika turned down the chance to escape with
Shaul at a most perilous time. Shaul left Joseph and I and his life’s work and Angele left her
family. Angele sewed gold coins into all their clothes before their departure on a fishing boat
bound for Turkey. From there the plan was to take a train to Alexandria, Egypt.
Meantime, Joseph’s 13 year old nephew Saul Amarel and his parents Albert and Sol and
siblings Sarah and Moshe left Salonica to hide in our home at 24 A Kodrigtonon Street in the
Patissia section of Athens. I gave them 2 of 3 bedrooms and my maid Maria as they’d need her
more than I did. We also had Vasil the gardener who boards with us. They stayed with us
planning their escape and looking for a boat to take them to Turkey. Albert, Joseph’s brother in
law was ill but soon improved. My nephew Saul is busy reading and learning about radios,
electromagnetic transmission, political science and philosophy. When Saul contacts
Conjunctivitis, he enjoys drawing in the dark basement to pass the time. He utilizes pencils,
charcoals and pastels.
It is winter 1941 in Athens and getting harder, bitter cold coupled with small food rations.
We get bobota/corn bread and kharoub cake in the black market. I’m thinking of how Shaul
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switched to kharub to produce sugar in his factory as it was plentiful and much cheaper than
sugar cane thereby saving his company. Saul now ventures to Piraeus, the port city of Athens,
on a daily basis, an 8 kilometer ride, to find bread and wild herbs from farmers, brought by boats.
I am nostalgic about a photograph of Shaul’s extravagant wedding day in Piraeus. The beautiful
white dress and long train Angele wore and how most of the guests were well wishing non-Jews.
How plentiful food was then. Shaul returned with an economics degree from Berlin and boasted
about all the German boys laughing and ridiculing Hitler as he passed them by on Berlin streets.
Now, everyone is fighting for food and in Omnia Square, 2 kilometers from our residence,
people are huddled in the freezing cold, crowding on top of subway grills to warm up from
exhaust air from trains running below them. Out of the window we see carts coming and going
at all hours of the day to take away dead bodies lying in the streets.
In the summer of 1942 Jewish men in Salonica are taken to forced labor camps. Few
Jews are coming from Salonica to Athens, as it’s possible, but difficult. Athens is in the Italian
occupation zone, known not to go along with execution or racial laws instituted by the German
authority. Emmanuel Pipano, Angele’s brother journeys back and forth from Salonica to Athens
to see Angele and his nephew Aaron who is now 6 years old, but Shaul cannot convince
Emmanuel to join them and escape Greece. He cannot leave his 3 younger sisters, Sarah, Rita
and Yvonne, and parents Hananel and Giangia in Salonica, the German occupation zone.
Emannuel meanders between the two worlds of his parents’ home and Angele’s home,
undecided, until he becomes the last Naar family member Angele sees during her lifetime.
When Angele gave birth to Aaron in October 1935 it was in Salonica, in her parents’ home as
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she wouldn’t have it any other way. She told me how Emmanuel came in her room after the
delivery of her only child and said: “Look Angele, come see your son, he even has curly payos,
he’s fully developed, he’s complete, and he’s here!” Aaron was named after my father, Rabbi
Aaron Shaul Pipano following family tradition. In April 1972, Aaron would have a son of his
own, named Shaul after my brother, and in March 1978, he would lose his son, the last Shaul
Pipano of our family in a horrific accident.
We are illegally listening to BBC in the fall of 1942. Saul goes back to the 8th grade at the
Gymnasium of Athens in the upper Patissia region, continuing to read politics and philosophy,
and enrolling in French Literature classes at the University in Central Athens. The Gymnasium
has underpinnings of “Ethnicos Apeleutheretico Metopo”, the National Liberation Front of
Greece, an underground resistance formed by the Greek leftists, which gained popular support
with time. Their military arm was “Elinicos Laikos Apeleutheroticos Stratos” meaning Greek
Popular Liberation Army, and partisan forces and students are busy writing anti occupation
graffiti on Athens’ walls.
In April and May 1943, about 50,000 Salonican Jews are put on cattle trains bound for
Auschwitz and executed. I had no knowledge of what became of Angele’s family, lifelong
friends of the Pelossofs. Our beings were completely immersed in daily living of wartime
Athens. Albert was trying to stop deportations of Salonican Jews using Jewish and non Jewish
Athenian friends through official channels while I was taking care of Joseph and ongoing health
issues exacerbated by anxiety. Albert with the assistance of the Archbishop Damaskinos
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(of the Greek Orthodox Church) worked to change the course of the Germans in order to contain
the German killings of Jews. The Greek/German Government of Rallis remained firm in its
purpose but Albert was optimistic since Istanbul’s Red Cross presented evidence from Salonica
of specific events to the Vatican Pius II. The Vatican’s apathy to Nazi atrocities allowed the
Germans to take over Athens as well. We are no longer under the Italian occupation and as of
September 8, 1943, Athens’ Jews are under racial laws and must be registered in five days as per
the German SS Commander, Stroop. Any Jews hiding and those who help them are to be treated
most severely, sent to concentration camps or executed.
The Pelossofs and the Amarels collectively face fears coming to the surface after months
of suppression and denial. The inevitable occurred and there’s no out except going underground
with Athens under German occupation. The Amarel family left our home, dispersing to multiple
hiding places and I remained with Joseph at our home. That day was our last day together. After
over two and a half years since mid-1941 we were accustomed to having Joe’s sister Sol and her
family, they were sorely missed. We often thought of Saul, Moshe and Sarah being thankful for
not having children of our own to protect.
In March 1944 we are rounded by the Germans and put on cattle trains to Auschwitz.
We’re comforted by thoughts of our families being safe somewhere in Turkey and praying for
the war to end. We are isolated in the camp during cold harsh conditions with no nourishment or
warm clothes, as we, the Salonican Jews are the only ones who speak Ladino and French. All
that remains is each other, clinging to each other, for warmth, for love, for familiarity and for
sanity.
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No evidence exists in Athens or Salonica of our dwellings, businesses, communities,
tombstones or generations of Pipanos and Pelossofs. When the Greek government finally
received German reparations set aside for the Jewish population of Salonica, they spent it all on
non-Jewish Greek concerns. We became two of the 48,500 voices muted underground in
Auschwitz, and only 1,500 survived to tell our tale.
Two boats made it to Turkish shores, first the Pipanos and then the Pelossofs. The first
boat contains Shaul, Angele, Aaron and my mother Doudoun, my sister Buena, her husband
Aaron Cohen, and their children Sara, Shlomo, Chaim and Dvora, and Doudoun’s tea set along
with gold coins sewn into our clothes. Much later the second boat docks releasing Albert, Sol,
Sarah, Moshe, Saul, 5 Romanos, 4 Ovedices, Booby Nissim, Haym Benouziglio, 2 Molhos, 4
Hanens and 2 Matarassos, and 4 others that Sarah, the oldest remembers. 41 souls who know of
our existence and carry our legacies in their hearts. Doudon is her grandson Aaron’s roommate
for the last 10 years of her life in Israel and tells him about her life and loved ones and Aaron
remembers every word uttered and tells his first born daughter Yael about me, Elvira. I am still
here.