Relationet Ah Ha 33 Pa Gr

RelatioNet AH HA 33 PA GR

Haim Aharon

Interviewer: Yuval Froman and Dan Gringarten

Telephone: Dan: 09-7456315 Yuval: 09-7654089
Mobile: Dan: 052-3541320 Yuval: 054-6446608
Email: dan.gringarten@gmail.com , yuval_fn269@walla.com
Messenger: dan_gringarten@hotmail.co.il , yuval_fn269@walla.com
Address: Kfar Saba, Israel

Survivor:

Code: RelatioNet AH HA 33 PA GR
Family Name: Aharon First Name: Haim
Father Name: Father Name Mother Name: Mother Name
Birth Date: 29/05/1933
Town In Holocaust: Patras Country In Holocaust: Greece

Interview:

I was born on May, 29th 1933, in Patras, Greece. We were two brothers – me and Sammy, and four sisters – Mary the oldest one, Roza, Alpida and Malka. Everybody called me Mickey which was my nickname. When I immigrated to Israel I found out my real name is Haim. When I was eight years old the war started for me. In October 1940 Mussolini declared war on Greece. He sent Italian forces into Greece starting the Greco-Italian War. After initial success this backfired as the Greek counterattack proved relentless, resulting in Italy losing one quarter of Albania. Germany soon committed forces to the Balkans to fight the gathering Allies. Germany conquered Greece a few days later. When Germany conquered Greece they divided Greece into two parts. The North for the Germans and the South for the Italians. Patras was under Italian's conquest. The Italians were very nice people, they weren't great warriors and even had fun with us and gave us some food. In 1942 Mussolini began to attack Greece from the air. I remember when I was 9 years old, people were walking in the street when suddenly everything started to explode. We lived about 200 meters from my school. My father came quickly and took me, Sami and my sister Alpida, to our home. I didn't have the time to cry or to get excited about everything. All around me was covered in blood and bodies. Due to the bombings we took some necessary things and moved to a village called Ovria. It was 12 kilometers away from our home. When we arrived there we found ourselves sleeping in a school, one on each other, Jews and non Jews together. After a while when the bombing stopped, we came back to Patras. In 1943 Mussolini's regime fell, therefore the Germans started to move to Greece. A lot of the Jews who lived in Patras ran away to other towns, and so did we. We moved to the city Etoliko which was located in the north. The Germans didn't have soldiers in this area because it was in the mountains and the Partisans gathered there. Once in a while the Germens came, chose 10-15 man and shot them. It has come to a time where we were no longer excited by the fact that we were living in a world of massive killing, and all of that happened when I was just a child. While I was walking around the village with my dad the Germans caught us. A widow from our neighborhood saved me by telling them I was her son. Luckily, whenever the Germans arrested my father he wasn't chosen to be killed, so they set him free. When I was in the 5th grade, we learned one day at school how Jesus was born. Holy Mary was cleaning the synagogue in Natzrat, when suddenly three angles came and gave her a Filus flower. One of the angels told her to smell the flower and that in 9 months she would have a child and he would be a great man. On the break we went out, and I was sitting with a good friend of mine named Yeni. He was really excited about the story of Jesus, so I told him that I would buy him any kind of flower that he wanted, and when he was home, he would give his mom the flower to smell. I told him that if in 9 months he had a little brother, I would to give him my head. Right after I told him that he punched me in my nose. When I got home my mother asked me what had happened to me and I told her the story. After a while my father came, and I also told him the story. When I finished, he asked me to bring the small seat. I knew what he would do to me. He broke it on my body. Luckily, his sister came and made him stop. He started to shout at me about the little joke I made, for it was risky for our safety and the other 6 families who lived with us. I gave him all of my clothes, and went outside. The entire village, including the non-Jews, was looking at me while I was hidden in some corner. I was freezing, because it was snowing, and when I saw people looking at me I decided to get out and wait until somebody saw me. One non-Jewish woman found me and took me to her home. She was a widow and she wrapped me with blankets, and after a few days she returned me to my home. It was the third time that the widow saved me. This is how we were living, until one night, they came for us. They didn't say anything, not asking any questions, not saying one word. They put us in carriages and took us to the city. They were the Partisans! The next day the Germans came to the village and murdered most of the men. In 1943 when we settled in a village named Horya the German decided to kill as many Jews as they could, probably because they finally understood the war was about to end. Back in those days, while we were staying in Horya I got a disease called Typhus. I was unconscious a whole month. In this period of time my little brother Semi and my two sisters; Malka and Rosa also got ill. Rosa my older sister was a beautiful girl and my best friend. When I woke up I found out that one day she got a hemorrhage. Due to the fact we were Jews, we couldn't get any doctor to check on her. In 1944 Rosa passed away. My family stayed in Horya where it was safer to live because the Partisans were near the village. My father was a merchant. Every day I went 26 kilometers to Etoliko in order to exchange my father's merchandise for food. As a child I remember we didn't have food. Therefore I ate weeds or boiled them with lemon and oil. In Horya, the village we were living in during that period of time there was a river. When we got tired of eating weeds we went there to catch some fish for my mother to cook. Getting weaker and weaker, the Germans retreated from Greece. Therefore we passed from Horya to Etoliko. After a few months in 1944 three British vehicles approached from the south. They were the people who freed the place. After the Allies conquered Greece all the village went to the central square to celebrate the release of Greece. When we came back to Etoliko we saw our cousin Shlomo with a Greek girl he had married. We were all happy to see him. Shlomo told my mother that his family was murdered in Auschwitz. He told us all the horror that happened in camp. Unfortunately, none of his family survived the camp.

A little while after, when I was 11 years old, in 1945, my father called me and said: "listen Mickey, Sammy, Malka and you are moving to Israel as soon as possible". I went to my mother, begging her to change my father's decision, without any success. She couldn't break his word! Nothing helped and a few weeks later my brothers and I were on our way to Israel. My father took us to Patras where we waited with some more Jews for trucks, to take us to Athens. From Athens we got to a place called Patricia. When we got there, we were taken to a camp of the "Joint" organization. They brought teenagers from all over Greece, and we stayed there for a month. There wasn’t a lot food there. Most of the days we ate bread and jam, but it definitely was much better than the food we ate during the war. After a month trucks came and took us to Soonio. Soonio is a very hilly place and it has a territory of 100 to 200 meters of rocks that go down into the sea. We were kept there so that the British wouldn't find us (at this time the British prevented immigration to Israel). We were there for a month, until one night the members of "Joint" woke us up and took us to a ship that was waiting for us. We went down the hills of Soonio to the sea where a ship was waiting for us. Another boat came from Bulgaria to the harbor, and we sailed to Israel. There wasn't a lot of space in our boat, as we were 300 people, adults and kids together. We traveled two weeks between the islands of Greece until the engine of the boat got damaged. We had to sail to Crete to replace the engine. We hide from the Britons for 5 days until the engine was replaced. When we went back to the Mediterranean Sea I saw more ships on their way to Israel. After a month we arrived in Haifa port where the British discovered us. We attempted to escape but we were too close to shore. They tried to climb up to the boat and we threw everything we had at them. Our resistance forced the British to bring a big ship, bigger than ours in order to pour water in large quantities so we had to surrender. They transferred us to their ship and moved us to Cyprus where they put us in a camp called "Camp 55". The food they supplied wasn’t enough so I started to steal to feed my brothers. We were in an Indian tent that was built from two layers. One of them was a white material that was very useful for making clothes. When I found out that there were Greek workers in camp, I talked with them and they revealed that they were interesting in the white material of the tent. There were a lot of tents in the camp, and every two days they were replaced, so every time, I cut the white material and brought it to the Greek workers for some food. While I was in camp I used to steal food from the kitchen. In Cyprus there was a Rabbi called Yakutiel. He took it on himself to celebrate a Bar Mitzva for every boy who reached the age of 13 years old. When I was 12 years old, I told him that I was 13 years old, therefore he made me a Bar Mitzva.

After six months in Cyprus a ship came that took us to Israel. The British allowed kids until the age of fifteen because the Arabs in Israel didn’t want the British to bring men that could fight against them. When we arrived in Israel, we were taken to "Keriat Samuel" to an immigrant's camp which belonged to the "Joint" organization. There we had warm sheets, good food and they even gave every two people a room. After coming from such horrible conditions, this was like heaven for me. They checked us all to see if we had lice. After 4 days we were taken to Nahalal. The children that arrived in the settlement were divided at groups. One of those was for children below the age of 13, who could still go to classes, like my brother Sammy and my sister Malka. I was in the older children's group. In Nahalal there was a committee which gave individual care to each of us. My problem was that I, as a kid, was stealing and fighting for no reason. We were criminal children. We grew up in those situations and had survived that way for 3 years. In Cyprus I had been stealing and punching people to survive. In the committee there were 5 people. The head of the committee was Moshe Dayan's mother, Dvora Dayan. Actually, she liked me very much because she understood that was acting according to my own inclinations. She had a very good sense of distinguishing between children. At a certain point the committee gathered and decided by a majority of 4 against Dvora to kick me out of the settlement. After this decision I was involved in another incident in which I had a rough argument with the school principal. In this "argument" I quarreled with him and even threw rocks at his office that broke his windows. After that incident Dvora came to my room and told me everything about the decision that was taken, and that she was taking me to a psychologist. She took me to a psychologist in Haifa in an armored vehicle because on the way there were Arabs who threw rocks at cars and shot at them. When we arrived at the psychologist he had asked me many questions and after that told Dvora about his conclusions. When we left the psychologist Dvora laughed because his conclusions were the same as hers. The committee decided to let me stay in Nahalal. Thanks to Dvora my life was changed for the better. In 1949 my parents immigrated to Israel to Bet Shehan so I went to live with them. After half a year I came back to Nahalal. In 1951 I served in the army, in "Golani" brigade, until 1953. I fought all the wars until 1973. After I was released from the army Dvora sent me to be a guide. I did the tests but they didn't accept me. Dvora didn't give up and she took me to the responsible person. Dvora told him that I should participate in the guidance course. We had a conversation and he agreed to send me to the course. After two years I became a beef trader and I even had my own driver.During one of the courses I met a friend who introduced me to Avigayl. In 1968 I retired from the business and married Avigayl. In 1972 I moved to Kfar Saba where I live until today with my wife. I have two daughters Oshrit and Mary and two granddaughters.

Town - Patras

Patras is the capital of the prefecture of Achaea and Greece's third largest urban which situated in northern Peloponnese. Patras located at the foothills of the mountain Panachaikon, viewing the Gulf of Patras. The city populates about 171,616 people. The Patras metropolitan area is a conurbation of 222,460 residents. The Gulf of Patras is a branch of the Ionian Sea. From the east side, it is blocked by the Strait of Rion between capes Rio, Greece and Antirrio. From the west, it is closed by a line from Cape Araxos to Oxeia Island. The gulf length is 40-50km long and 10-20km wide.

Before World War II, the Jewish community of Patras was very small, it contained only 350-400 people, and was disconnected from the other Jewish communities in Greece. Most of the community worked at cloth traders. During World War II, after Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany, 86% of the Greek Jews perished owing to enemy actions, extermination and execution, and in many cities where flourishing Jewish Communities existed, only a few individuals stayed. As the majority of their members were murdered at the death camps. Out of 77.377 Greek Jews, only 10.000 survived the Holocaust. In the years 1943-1944, some Jews of the community in Patras managed to hide in the villages near the city, but 113 of them got murdered by the Nazis, and another four survived and got back.
After the war, in 1946, the community included 120 people. Afterward the community became smaller since the Jews immigrated to other cities, until 1991 then the community of Patras completely dissolved.

The community in Patras had one famous synagogue that is exhibited until today in the Jewish museum of Greece. The synagogue had three floors. At the first one, Johanna, the rabbi, lived with his wife and four daughters, who were took care of the synagogue (cleaning, organizing et cetera). They didn't work and had no livelihood, but the community donated and helped them. Children from the age five and up, learned Hebrew at the synagogue with the rabbi twice a week, and those from the age seven and up, learned four times a week. On the second floor was the synagogue itself. It has a torah book which was 500 years old, and was about 1 meter high. There was also a balcony, which had a vine tree that grows to 4-5 meter above the ground. Beside the tree, there was also a flag of Israel that hung all time. The non Jews didn't care because they loved the Jews, and loved to spend time with them in their holidays.

Exterior view of the Synagogue of Patras

1935
Haim - in the lower right corner
Alpida - in the lower left corner
Sammy - the baby in the middle
Roza - above Alpida
Mary - above Haim
Eftichia Aharon, daughter of Shmuel and Hana Vital (Haim's mother) - holding the baby
Moshe Aharon. son of Haim and Miryam(Haim's father) - the highest person in the picture