The Siege

by Marilyn Baron

  “A Jewish organization with the help of worldwide benefactors offered support in the rescue effort of the children of Chania. The Jewish Agency of Palestine, in Jerusalem, arranged for the dangerous transfer and ‘illegal’ emigration of unaccompanied Jewish children from Greece to Palestine and on to destinations around the world. Their parents had made the ultimate sacrifice to let them go, because otherwise they would see their children face deportation and almost certain death. Eleni was the adult chosen to accompany them as they were smuggled to safety. The Yishuv—the Jewish settlement in Palestine—organized this dangerous rescue of children from Crete to Palestine on Aliyah Bet ships from Greek ports, and Eleni left under cover of darkness on one of the last of the Aliyah Bet ships. Her group was lucky. They didn’t drown on the difficult voyage.

  “It was not until the morning hours of May 29th, 1944, that the Jews in the Old City of Chania were arrested in the Jewish quarter without warning. People were uprooted from their homes, their schools, their workplaces, stores, and their friends and marched out of their neighborhoods and down to the harbor by soldiers. They lost everything they had worked for all their lives, had to leave everything behind, even their photographs. They were herded together and transferred into a convoy of trucks, taken to Ayias Prison, located not far from Chania. When I got back from the docks, your grandfather had been caught in the roundup. My heart stopped when I saw the soldiers take hold of Theo. But there was nothing I could do.

  “The next day, the soldiers carried out everyone’s possessions from their homes—chairs, tables, beds with pillows and linens—and put them out on the streets. Precious photographs were scattered everywhere. There was no time, but I tried to gather up what keepsakes I could.

  “I went there,” continued Sophia, “to the prison. They were kept there in inhuman conditions until June eighth. Many people had nothing to wear except the nightclothes they were wearing at the time of their arrest. Then they, together with Greek and Italian prisoners, were transferred to Heraklion, to the cargo ship Tanais, headed for Piraeus, where they would have joined Jews from Corfu and Zakynthos, headed for Auschwitz. I managed to talk to Theo at Ayias Prison. He was happy his pregnant wife had escaped. That’s all he cared about. It was too late for him and for the others around him, but everyone was happy to have Theo with them. It gave them hope. He was a born leader, a calming influence as they went to their deaths in the deep sea.

  “It was June eighth, 1944. I remember that night the moon was shining. German soldiers herded members of the Cretan Jewish community—some two hundred and sixty-five Jews—along with some Christian resistance fighters and Italian prisoners, on board the Tanais, a requisitioned merchant vessel. At 2:31 on the morning of June 9th, while sailing in a convoy for Piraeus, thirty-three miles northeast of Heraklion, the Tanais was sighted, torpedoed, and sunk by the British submarine HMS Vivid off Santorini. The Jews trapped in its hold and all aboard went down to a watery grave. There was no counterattack. All that was found afterward was wreckage—fifteen floating pieces of wood of various shapes and sizes and twelve forty-gallon oil drums. Of the hundreds of victims, more than one hundred were children.

  “For several years, there was a debate surrounding what caused the Tanais to sink. Many people believed the Germans had sunk the ship themselves, to exterminate the Jewish hostages; the truth of the matter is that the hostages were to be transported to concentration camps. For obvious reasons, the Germans always kept the cargo of their convoys a closely guarded secret. On the other hand, as part of military operations, the Allied Command made indiscriminate attacks on all German and Italian convoys.”

  “What exactly happened in those last hours of the Tanais?” Theia asked.

  “We didn’t know the details of the last hours of the Tanais and the fate of its human cargo for many years. What we did know is that the ship had been sunk on its way from Crete to Athens and that all aboard had perished. Tragically, it was only later learned that the Tanais had been sighted by a British submarine and sunk by its torpedoes.

  “There’s no doubt that the ultimate responsibility for the death of those on board lies with the Germans,” said Wade. “That was their intention, whether they died because they were put out to sea under hazardous circumstances or would have perished at their ultimate destination.”

  “Theo went down with the ship?”

  “What we did know is that the ship had been sunk and none of the prisoners survived,” repeated Sophia. “Evidence surfaced later, from the Foreign Office in London, that showed the Tanais had been sighted by a British submarine and torpedoed, and that it sank within fifteen minutes. That’s all it took to wipe out almost the entire Jewish population of Crete. I sometimes wonder if it was more humane to be blown up, if it was preferable to dying in Auschwitz, where they were headed.

  “We hold an annual memorial service for the lost Jews of Crete who perished on the Tanais, and we read out their names.” Sophia led Theia and Wade down a hallway and to a memorial plaque inside the sanctuary, a shrine listing the names of the Jewish families that had boarded the Tanais and drowned on June 9, 1944.

  “Avigades, Alhanati, Amar, Angel, Akkos, Attia, Belleli, Yannis, Dentes, Depas, Evlagon, Elhai, Fermon, Fortis, Frankis, Franco, Haskel, Hanen, Ishaki, Koen, Konen, Kounio, Leon, Minervo, Minionis, Molho, Osmos, Papousado, Politi, Sarphati, Savaton, Sereno, Sezana, Trevezi.” Theia traced the names and settled finally on the last one, Frangos, her grandfather.

  Here was a concrete tie to her past. She was the link to the next generation.

  “June 9th, 1944,” Theia repeated.

  “Does that date mean something to you?” Sophia asked.

  “Yes, it was the date my mother was born.” Theia’s grandfather had died the moment her mother was born. “My grandmother must have sensed something.”

  “I’ll never forget the liberation,” said Sophia. “German and Italian forces began withdrawing from the Greek mainland in late September of 1944 as Soviet forces advancing into southeastern Europe from the Ukraine threatened to cut them off. British forces then landed in October of 1944. By October thirteenth of the same year, the prefectures of Heraklion and Rethymnon were liberated, and Athens by October fourteenth. Occupation forces fell back to the north of Chania prefecture, where they remained until May of 1945.

  “On May 9th, 1945, the German commander of the Fortress of Crete arrived in Heraklion by aircraft from Chania and was led to the Villa Ariadne at Knossos. There he signed the unconditional surrender of the German troops. The document was to take effect as of ‘ten o’clock Greenwich Mean Time on the tenth day of May 1945.’ This was the final act of World War II in Europe.”

  “What about the other parts of Greece?” Wade wondered.

  “It was the same story throughout Greece,” said Sophia. “There are very many horrible incidents that happened on other Greek islands. Bulgarian and German soldiers dragged Jews off a passenger boat and massacred them, then sank the boat. Then they confiscated all the Jewish properties and possessions.

  “The Jews of Ioannina were deported by the German Army on March 25th, 1944. Almost all of the people deported were murdered on or shortly after April 11th, 1944, when the train carrying them reached Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  “The Nazis took control of Corfu in 1943. In early June of 1944, while the Allies bombed Corfu as a diversion from the landing in Normandy, the Gestapo rounded up the Jews of the city, temporarily incarcerated them at an old fort, and on June tenth sent them to Auschwitz. Very few survived. But two hundred out of about nineteen hundred managed to escape from the Nazis, and the local population provided them shelter and refuge.

  “On July twenty-third, 1944, the 1,673 Jews of Rhodes—men, women, and children—were ordered to march to the port, where they were herded onto three crowded boats after being stripped of all their valuables and their identity papers. On that day, a centuries-old Jewish community ceased to exist.

  “The crossing from Rhodes to mainland Greece took
eight days. People died during the trip. After landing on Piraeus, Athens, and staying at the Haidari concentration camp, they were forced onto trains to Auschwitz, where most of them were murdered. There were only one hundred fifty survivors. Rhodes has a wonderful Jewish museum on synagogue grounds that explains everything.

  “But there was good along with the bad,” Sophia continued. “When the Jews of Salonika—that’s what we call Thessaloniki in Judeo-Spanish—were rounded up for slave labor on July eleventh, 1942, the community paid two billion drachmas for their freedom. But still, fifty thousand people were sent to Auschwitz, and most of their six synagogues and schools were destroyed, along with the Jewish cemetery in the center of the city. Only nineteen hundred fifty survived.”

  Sophia related some other uplifting experiences. “The Grand Rabbi of Athens was summoned to the Department of Jewish Affairs and told to submit a list of names and addresses of members of the Jewish community. Instead, he destroyed the community records, thus saving the lives of thousands of Athenian Jews. He advised the Jews of Athens to flee or go into hiding. A few days later, the Rabbi himself was spirited out of the city by EAM-ELAS fighters and joined the resistance. EAM-ELAS helped hundreds of Jews escape and survive, many of whom stayed with the resistance as fighters and/or interpreters.”

  “What happened to the survivors?” asked Wade.

  “Many emigrated to Israel or to the United States.”

  “How many Jews are left in Greece today?”

  “About six or eight thousand people, mostly in Athens,” Sophia replied. “Did you know that after the war Greece was the first country in Europe to give their Jewish community back the possessions of Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust and the war? Some sixty to seventy thousand Greek Jews, or at least eighty-one percent of Greece’s Jewish population, were murdered.

  “But thousands of Jews like me were saved by the Greek Orthodox Church. Many Orthodox Christians risked their lives hiding Jews in their apartments and homes, despite threats of imprisonment. Although the Germans deported many Greek Jews, many others were successfully hidden by their Greek neighbors. Some, like me, managed to get forged identity cards with Christian aliases during the Occupation, after the Archbishop instructed the church to issue false baptismal certificates to all Jews who requested them. Even the Greek police ignored instructions to turn over Jews to the Germans.”

  “I’ve read that Neo-Nazi groups are surfacing in Greece,” said Wade.

  “That’s a growing concern,” admitted Sophia as she ended their tour in the cramped gift shop.

  “Where did my grandparents’ parents live?” Theia wanted to know.

  “There’s not a trace of it left. It was here in the old Jewish quarter, the Ovraiki, but back then everything was destroyed, if not by the bombing then by the German troops, including your father’s studio. He was so proud of that studio. Which reminds me, I have something for you.”

  Sophie handed Theia a letter.

  “After the war, a representative from the Museum of Modern Art and from Marc Chagall delivered this letter for your grandfather. He asked about your grandfather, and I told him Theo had perished on the Tanais. He asked about your grandmother, with instructions to pass this on to any surviving relative. I never heard from Eleni, and until now no one has returned to claim it. I guess this letter belongs to you.”

  Theia’s hand shook as she took the yellowing letter from Sophia’s wrinkled hands and opened it. In it were specific instructions about who to contact at the National Museum of Modern Art in New York City about retrieving her grandfather’s paintings. According to the letter, Theo’s early paintings in France were sent to the museum in New York, where they still remained. She shared the letter with Wade. “After so many years, do you think any of these people are still there?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Theia grew excited. “His paintings! They have his paintings. I need to call my mother. I have to make a trip there immediately. When I get back to America, I’m going to make a stop in New York and meet with someone in this department to see if I can recover grandfather’s paintings.”

  “I thought we were going to see more of Crete, perhaps visit Venice and Rome and Paris,” Wade said.

  “New York will be my next stop after I spend some time in Chania to learn about my heritage. I want to go to the places my grandparents went, experience their life here, find out more about the people, my people. You don’t need to follow me, Wade. This is my journey.”

  Wade’s eyes dimmed with disappointment. Then he raised his head. “I’m going to stay with you until you go back to the States.”

  “Whatever you wish. But I wouldn’t want you to cut your vacation short on my account.”

  “Theia,” he said, “this is more than a vacation to me.” Theia turned away from him, all her energy focused on visiting her roots in Chania and on the upcoming trip to New York.

  “Did you ever meet the other families besides the one in Atlanta?” Sophia wondered.

  “Now that I know who they are, my mother and I will want to keep in touch. We’re pretty much scattered, but I want us to get to know each other. I can’t wait to talk to them and meet my people.”

  “Of course your grandmother, she was like a mother to them on their perilous journey. She saved their lives. All of the other families have been back to Crete for a visit.”

  “I guess my grandmother couldn’t face returning without her husband. You’ve been so helpful and so very kind. Please keep the pictures safe.”

  Sophia promised she would.

  “You must be hungry by now,” Sophia said. “I can recommend a fine restaurant. You can sample some of the local foods.”

  Wade jumped up. “I’m starving.”

  Theia laughed. “Tell us where we should eat, what sights we should see. We want to do everything. I want to walk where my grandparents walked, see the sights they saw, eat the food they ate, and just explore the town.” Sophia listed some restaurants and sights to see, and Theia wrote the pertinent information in a notebook from her purse.

  “You’ll see old charming buildings that have been restored as hotels, restaurants, shops, and bars,” said Sophia. “But the most distinctive area is the harbor and the medieval lighthouse. Your grandfather loved to paint the seafront.

  “Agriculture, mostly olive trees and citrus, and tourism are our two big sources of income. Other important products include wine, avocados, and dairy. Apart from the traditional ways of cultivation, some of the producers have concentrated on practicing new methods in order to promote organic food.”

  Theia hugged Sophia and thanked her. She wondered if this was possibly the last time she would see the woman alive.

  A cat slipped by Theia and Wade as they left the synagogue, and Theia laughed. They looked at menus posted outside restaurants primarily serving seasonal products from natural sources. They picked up fresh fruit and dried fruit from the local market that also sold wild herbs and aromatic plants. They enjoyed the olive oil that was used in salads and in cooking. They ate appetizers and local specialties, drank red wine, and for dessert enjoyed yogurt, traditional honey pastries, and fresh fruit.

  Together Theia and Wade strolled down picturesque Kondilaki Street, the main street of the Old Jewish Quarter, that started at the harbor and extended up to the southern walls of Chania’s Old Town. It was wider than the other alleys of the quarter. Theia read from the guidebook: “The Venetians who built the city made this street wide enough so the carts that carried supplies and munitions from the ships could pass through the city toward the south city walls. During the summer, Kondilaki Street and the surrounding alleys are some of the busiest streets of the Old Town of Chania.”

  She pointed to the surrounding streets on the map of Chania’s Old Town—Chalidon, Zambelious, Skoufon, and Portou.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll retrace my grandparents’ paths,” Theia promised. “Our first stop will be the beach.”

  Chapte
r Seven

  Theia and Wade lay on beach towels, bodies lightly touching, soaking in the warm rays of the summer sun. Both wore sunglasses. Theia’s face was also covered with a straw hat for extra protection.

  Their tour guide had dropped them off for a picnic on a deserted cove in a private bay in Chania, near where Theia’s grandparents used to live. She wondered if they had ever come here to be alone, if her grandfather had ever painted this exact scene. If Theo and Eleni had made love on this very spot. She’d dreamed of these sandy, secluded beaches, with their colored pebbles—Balos, Falassama, Elafonissi—before she ever knew they existed. She’d painted those beaches, too, without ever having seen them. She was determined to visit all the places her ya-ya had mentioned in her letters, all the places she had been with her lover, her husband, Theia’s biological grandfather. She’d dreamed of a man, too. But she could never recall his face. He was an illusion.

  Tomorrow, she was going to take her camera, capture the beach scenes as closely as possible, and start to bring her dreams to life on her sketch pad. And now she had a face to put with the man in her dreams. Wade’s face. But today was all about relaxing, letting the stress seep out of her body, unwinding, no thoughts of terrorists or world wars or the time when she and Wade would have to part. She knew that day was coming soon. She’d already begun pulling away from Wade in her mind, and then she would have to let him go physically. She’d started at the synagogue, when she announced she was going on alone to New York. She would have loved to have his company, but nothing permanent could come of their relationship, so it was better to let him go now.

  Theia removed her hat and looked through her giant sunglasses at the crystal blue waters of the paradise in front of her. She wriggled her toes in the soft sand and closed her eyes. She wore a white two-piece bathing suit to show off what few curves she had, and she’d finished off her outfit with gold strappy sandals, which would kill her ankle but exuded sex appeal, she hoped. She had to admit she’d wanted to look appealing for Wade, even though she and Wade could never end up together. He was wrong for her in every possible way. She removed her sunglasses, stole a look at Wade, and closed her mouth around her teeth, a fallback habit. The pull was strong.