“She told me what had happened to them during the war. She told me how in one moment, strangers changed each other’s lives—saved each other’s lives. She told me what it is like to face the devil himself . . . and to refuse him your soul.”
This was indeed the story that Yia-yia and Nitsa had both mentioned to her. But Yianni’s version seemed different, darker.
“Why am I only learning about this now?”
He smiled at her, as if he’d anticipated this question before he could begin the tale in earnest.
“She wanted to put the past behind her, to forget. She didn’t want you weighed down by those old ghosts like she had been, like your mother was. She wanted you to be free of them, for you to know of only magic and beauty.” His face softened, but Daphne could still see the vein in his temple bulging, throbbing blue under his translucent light brown skin.
“Tell me,” she said. It was time she learned the truth.
“It started in Kerkyra,” he began. “My grandmother, Dora, lived in the old town, in a second-floor apartment just under the Venetian arches. My grandfather was a tailor, the finest tailor in Kerkyra. His suits and shirts so perfectly fitted, his stitches so immaculately precise—people marveled at his garments. They would line up ten deep just for a chance to purchase his exquisite clothes, my grandmother would boast. . . .” His voice drifted for a moment.
“She said everyone, everyone marveled at his gift, agreeing that no machine could match the skill in his nimble fingers—that this gift was a blessing from God himself. His shop was located just below the family’s apartment, on the ground floor in the Jewish quarter.”
“The Jewish quarter?” Daphne had never heard of a Jewish neighborhood in Kerkyra.
“Yes, the Jewish quarter. My family was part of a thriving community of two thousand Jewish merchants and artisans. For generations, Kerkyra was their home, just as it was your family’s home. They were a part of that island, as were your own ancestors. But that was before the war, before the Germans came and everything changed.” He looked down at the floor and inhaled deeply. One hand gripped the wheel as he continued to direct the kaiki toward Sidari.
“It was 1943—the Italians were occupying Kerkyra, and there was an uneasy calm in the city. For the most part, the Italians left our people alone. The Italian soldiers were barbaric all across Greece, but not on Corfu. Here, with the islands so close to Italy, many of the men spoke Italian, and the soldiers looked kindly on the men who spoke their mother tongue, even warning them, telling them to flee as the Germans approached. The Italians were very aware of how this tragic script would play out should the Germans reach Corfu. But sadly, my grandparents and their community stayed rooted in the place they loved, the place they called home. My family had heard that the German troops were indeed getting closer, that they had decimated communities, massacred Greek resistance fighters and Jews across Greece. But my grandparents felt safe in Corfu, among these civilized and cultured people.” He paused. “Among their friends.
“But when the Italians finally surrendered, so did civilization—so did the eyes of God, as my grandmother used to say.” Daphne thought she saw dampness coat his eyes at the mention of his grandmother. Perhaps it was the sea mist—she couldn’t be certain.
“It was June 8, 1944. Just two days after the Allied forces landed on the beach in Normandy. Salvation was close, so incredibly close. But just not close enough. The Germans issued an ordinance that all the Jews in Corfu present themselves in the town square the next morning at six a.m.”
He shook his head and turned to look at Daphne. “Imagine someone coming into your home, the home where your own grandparents were born, where you cooked dinner every night and where your children played and slept. Imagine waking up one day and being told that you were nothing—that your family meant nothing. This is what was happening all across Greece. And it had finally reached Corfu. Many of their friends left that night, escaping to the mountains, to the tiny remote villages. But not my family. They stayed.”
Daphne stared at him, not making sense of his story. “But why? Why would they stay, if they knew how dangerous it was?”
“They couldn’t leave.” He shook his head again. His eye caught a seabird in the distance. He watched her gliding, soaring, flying gracefully around and around before finally diving and plucking a fish from the sea. Only then did he continue.
“They couldn’t leave. My grandmother, Dora, had gone to a clinic in Paleokastritsa. She took my mother, Ester, and her two-year-old sister, Rachel, with her, leaving my grandfather and their four-year-old son, David, at home. Rachel was a sickly child, and she had a fever once again that had not broken for days. The doctor in Paleokastritsa was truly skilled and knew the remedies that always made little Rachel better. Dora never thought twice about making the trip. The Germans were cruel and menacing, but the Jews had learned to avoid them, to stay quiet and out of their way. They lived like that for months, praying the Allied forces would get closer and that soon the Nazis would be expelled from their island. No one saw the trouble coming, but things changed overnight. Corfu became dangerous, and their whole world transformed overnight. My grandfather would never leave his wife and daughters behind. He chose to stay, to defy the order and wait for his wife and daughters to come home.
“The next morning,” Yianni continued, “as Allied bombs fell on Corfu, the Germans gathered all the Jews on the platia, in the town square. They emptied the prisons, the hospitals, and even the mental institutions. All the Jews of Kerkyra—even expectant mothers waiting to give birth—everyone was rounded up in the square. The soldiers went house to house, hunting for anyone; men, women, children, the elderly . . . anyone who dared defy the order. One day they were a thriving community; the next, ripped from their homes as if they were nothing. Imagine being dragged from your home by strangers like an animal being plucked from his cage, plucked like a fish from the sea . . .” He turned and looked at Daphne. This time there was no mistaking the source of his red, wet eyes.
“They stood there in the blazing sun, all morning and all day and into the evening, not knowing what would happen, not willing to believe their fate. Finally the soldiers took them. They were thrown into prison, all of them. Almost two thousand Jews, herded into the Frourio. The same place where they would stroll with their families on the Sabbath became their prison. They were all kept there with no food or water, stripped of their possessions, their identity—their dignity.” He finally looked away from her. His eyes closed, and his head sank to his chest. He sat silent and still for a few more moments before he could finally get the words out. “Before they were sent to Auschwitz.”
His words stung like a slap across the face. “What?” she cried, thinking of the scenic fort, always a symbol of protection, of strength and safety. “What are you saying?”
Yianni ignored her question. “My grandfather and David . . .” He exhaled. Daphne could see his fingers tremble as he grabbed the wheel tighter. “They were in the shop, my grandfather and David, when the soldiers came. They looted stores, arrested everyone, and shot those who dared protest. My grandfather refused to go, refused to leave without his wife and daughters. The soldiers beat him for his disobedience and ordered him to line up with the rest of the men that had been herded like cattle, like sheep to the slaughter. But he refused to let his son watch him being led away like an animal.” Yianni closed his eyes once again. “So they shot him.”
Daphne brought both hands to her mouth, but there was no quieting the sob that escaped from between her fingers.
“They shot my grandfather in the head. Right there in front of his son. They left his lifeless body draped across his sewing table.”
“Oh my god.” Daphne sobbed, breathing deeply yet feeling as if she couldn’t pull any oxygen into her lungs. If he heard Daphne’s cries, Yianni didn’t let on. It was as if he had waited so long to share this story that nothing would stop him now. The words continued to pour out of him, even faster now, even mor
e devastating.
“My grandmother arrived back in the Jewish quarter to find the streets empty. She ran all the way home, clutching her daughters’ hands. They ran into the store and found my grandfather there, cold and lifeless, and David—David, gone.”
Daphne could no longer suppress her tears. She felt them well up and spill over, tears falling down her face; crying for this little boy, crying for his father, for his mother and sisters, crying that Kerkyra was not the paradise she always pictured it to be; that it too had a dark and tragic past.
“That’s how your grandmother found them—my young mother and her sister, collapsed on the floor, caressing, cradling, their dead father’s body as my grandmother ran shrieking through the alleys, searching for her son.”
“Yia-yia found them? Yia-yia was there?” How could this be? It was impossible to imagine that her grandmother had witnessed this horrific scene. It made no sense to Daphne that Yia-yia was even there. She rarely left Erikousa. It was as if Yianni sensed that she had begun to doubt him. Before she could question the validity of his story, he continued.
“Your grandmother had just come from Erikousa and had not yet heard about the raid and the arrests. She was merely coming to the Jewish quarter to pay a debt. She owed my grandfather money. It had been months and months, and Evangelia still could not pay her bill. She walked into the shop with a basket of eggs and a bottle of olive oil, hoping he would accept them as payment. Instead, she walked right into my family’s hell. Thea Evangelia got down on her knees and pulled the children away from their father’s stiff and bloody body.”
It was as if Daphne could see the blood, smell it. She stopped breathing for a moment and listened, feeling as if she could hear their sobs still reverberating across the island.
“But David, what happened to David?”
“They took him away . . . but your yia-yia tried . . . She tried . . .” His voice trembled as he repeated the words.
“She dressed my grandmother as one of her own, placing her own black headscarf on Dora and draping her in the black sweater taken off Evangelia’s very own back. They took refuge in the church of Saint Spyridon, your yia-yia praying to the saint while my grandmother and her girls cried in each other’s arms in a heap on the floor. Your yia-yia told them to stay and pray with her. She told them Agios Spyridon would protect them. And he did, he did protect them. They hid there in the church for more than a full day, listening to the gunfire and chaos just outside the church door. But no German entered the church, not one. Finally, when the screams and the shooting stopped, your yia-yia told Dora to stay in the church, not to move and not to speak to anyone. Evangelia stepped outside and ran all the way to the Frourio. She planned to speak to the police and claim that there was a mistake, to say that David was her own son, a Greek and not a Jew. But it was too late. The Frourio had already been emptied, and the Juden, as the soldiers called them, spitting in disgust as they said the word, had been taken away.
“That night, under the safety of darkness, your yia-yia took Dora, my mother, and little Rachel to Erikousa. At first my grandmother refused to go—she refused to leave until she found her son. She vowed to die before she abandoned hope of finding her boy. But your grandmother made it very clear that there was no hope of finding David. Her little boy, her David, had been taken away with all of her friends, all of her family—it was too late to save him. It was too late to save any of them.”
Yianni brought his large, rough hand to his face and tugged at the whiskers of his beard. He turned to look at her. “Daphne, you are a mother. Imagine having to tell another mother to give up hope of finding her child. Imagine your Evie, the beautiful child you carried, gave birth to, nursed, and nurtured. Imagine walking away and leaving her for dead. Knowing that as you still live, breathe, and walk this earth, that you have left your baby in the hands of godless, soulless animals intent on making her suffer, intent on murdering her. Imagine your beautiful Evie discarded like a piece of trash. And now you can begin to imagine my grandmother’s hell.”
Daphne pictured her beautiful baby girl, her Evie—immediately willing the image of her daughter out of her head. She couldn’t bear the thought. . . . It was too much to contemplate . . . even from the safe distance of decades gone by. All she could do was shake her head. No.
“And imagine your own grandmother, Daphne. Having to tell another mother to forget this child—to forget her own child in the hopes of saving the others.”
“No, I can’t.” Her whisper was barely audible.
Yianni raised his head again and looked at Daphne dead on. “But your yia-yia did this, and it saved their lives. She saved my family’s heritage, our legacy. That morning, as your yia-yia dragged them from the tailor’s shop, Dora ran back in. She knew she could take nothing with her, that Evangelia was right, they needed to leave immediately, before the soldiers returned. But Dora grabbed one thing, the one thing that would bear proof that her family did indeed exist. It was her family menorah, the one her own father had carved of olive wood and given to her on her wedding day. Knowing they would be killed if anyone saw them carrying it through the streets, your yia-yia wrapped my grandmother’s menorah in her apron and hid it under the folds of her own skirt.
“Evangelia traded the eggs and olive oil for the passage back to Erikousa. It was all she had, but she gave them to a fellow islander to keep quiet and take them in his kaiki. She risked everything to help my family. The Nazis knew that Jews had escaped, that they were being hidden by Greek families all around Corfu, in the villages and on the smaller islands. They issued a proclamation that any Christian found hiding or helping a Jew would be murdered. That they, and their entire families, would be shot and killed for defying the order and helping the Juden. But despite this, despite the risk, the threats, and the knowledge that she could be killed, Evangelia hid them, she protected them. She saved them.” He paused. “She saved us.”
Daphne stared at Yianni. She felt torn—torn between calling him a liar for daring to conjure up such a horrific fairy tale, or embracing him, clinging to him, and thanking him for finally sharing the truth.
“How?” was all she could manage.
“They lived like that until the war was over. The two widows and their children, scraping by on what little they had, living in Evangelia’s house. Dora taught Evangelia the art of sewing, of making beautiful clothes from the few scraps they could find, and Evangelia taught Dora and her girls the ways and customs of the island women so they would blend in . . . so they would live. They spent night after night talking, teaching each other the stories, traditions, and culture of their people. They learned that despite what they had always heard in their lives, they were more similar than different—the Greeks and the Jews. Evangelia told everyone on the island that my grandmother was a cousin who had come to stay, but everyone knew better. Everyone on Erikousa knew who she was—what she was. They all knew my grandmother was hiding, that she and your grandmother and perhaps they themselves would be killed if the Nazis found them. But no one told. No one on the island gave away the secret. Despite the risk to themselves, to their families, and to the entire island, no one told the Nazis. Not one adult, not one child, Daphne, no one. At first, they stayed away and simply let the widows live in peace. But Dora said that as time moved on, the islanders embraced them. They helped them, protected them, and, along with Evangelia, made them feel like part of their island, part of their family.”
Daphne wrung the white fabric of her skirt in her hands, the cotton twisted and knotted around and around and between her fingers. “But how—how did they manage to hide from the soldiers?”
Yianni stopped for a moment and smiled. “Your yia-yia is a brave and special woman, Daphne. Whenever my grandmother would tell me about her, it would always be in hushed tones, with respect and reverence.”
“My yia-yia . . .” Daphne pictured her frail yia-yia, who seemed dwarfed even by her black uniform. The same Yia-yia who spoke no English, had never been formally edu
cated, and had never stepped onto an airplane or even outside Greece. “How could she know what to do?”
“When I would ask that question, my grandmother would simply say she knew. She could feel it. She knew when the soldiers would come. She knew when they would leave. She would dress Dora and the girls in peasant skirts and blouses and send them off with a sack of bread and olives and water, and always my grandmother’s cherished menorah wrapped in an apron and hidden in the folds of my grandmother’s dress. They would hide in the hilltop caves on the wild, uninhabited side of the island until the soldiers were gone again. She always knew when they would come, and she always knew when they would go. She was the only one who did. Somehow, she could hear them coming. At first it was just Evangelia who would make the dangerous trip to bring food and water when they were hiding. But then, one by one, the islanders began to come. They brought food and supplies and even crudely made dolls from scraps of fabric and corn husks for the girls.” He smiled at this, his eyes crinkling at the thought of little girls playing so innocently in such dangerous circumstances. But then the smile disappeared, as he remembered again what came next in the story.
“The Germans never occupied Erikousa, but they would visit, usually once a month, and stay for only a few days, always searching for Jews who had escaped. Those days always seemed endless and the Germans were brutal, beating even small children who dared not greet them with raised arms or whose Heil Hitlers were not loud enough for the soldiers’ liking. But Dora, Evangelia, and the islanders had settled into somewhat of a routine, as routine as things can be in times of war. Everyone knew where Dora and the girls were hiding, and as difficult as it was for them on the mountainside, they never went hungry. Someone would always come and bring them what they needed . . . clothing, food, companionship and conversation to fill the scared and lonely hours. But one time, the Germans stayed longer than usual. It was the last days of summer, and a terrible and stubborn storm rolled in and would not leave. It rained for days upon days, and the sea rolled and churned. No fisherman’s boat dared attempt to sail, and neither did the Germans—even their big, modern boats were powerless against the angry sea. Dora said they waited and prayed for what seemed like an eternity to be told it was safe to return home, but that message did not come. It never came.” He shook his head, his shoulders slumping farther and farther down, weighted by Dora’s fear and desperation.
When the Cypress Whispers Page 15