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What Is True and What Is Right? An Infant Jewish Orphan’s Identity

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Beyond Camps and Forced Labour

Part of the book series: The Holocaust and its Contexts ((HOLC))

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Abstract

In this chapter based on the case of Ester Franko, a child Holocaust survivor from Greece, the author scrutinises the confusion over identity of Jewish orphans rescued by non-Jews who continued living with their foster families after the Second World War while simultaneously being integrated into the Jewish community. The focus is on both Franko’s own experiences within her Greek foster family and her attitude towards the revelation of her Jewish identity. With whom does Ester Franko identify as a child and with whom as an adult woman? How does she deal with what happened to her biological parents? Who were her foster family and were they her rightful guardians? Based on archival sources, oral testimonies and memoirs, this chapter tracks how Franko’s transforming narrative of her survival impacted on her identity and how her loyalties shifted over time, according to the different stages of her life.

And every now and then I heard mom Eufimia saying: ‘They came to get you again’ ... And ‘they,’ the Jews, became the bad ones... In general, the ‘rich’ became very bad... Being asked ‘if they want to get you, some very wealthy people, will you go?’

No!’ I shouted ‘I will not go, I’ll stay here,’ and I knew at that moment, because I controlled almost everything, in a strange way, that they sought to hear this by asking.

They were insecure, afraid that I will go, that I will prefer the rich to the poor ones.

Mine to the others. Because here, they were foreigners, and not us.

So to satisfy them, to reassure them, I kept saying: ‘Here I stay.’

Rejecting for their sake my own people.

—Ester Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon ke i defteri genia tou Olokautomatos [The Game of Roles and the Second Generation of the Holocaust] (2012), pp. 26–27

This study was made possible thanks to generous support of the Center for the Transdisciplinary Research of Violence, Trauma and Justice (grant number UNCE/HUM/009) and the grant project “Beyond Hegemonic Narratives and Myths. Troubled Pasts in the History and Memory of East-Central & South-East Europe” (grant number PRIMUS/HUM/12) funded by Charles University. I am most grateful to Ester Franko for her readiness to share with me her story, to the Sosland Family Foundation Fellowship at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2015/16 and especially to Suzanne Bardgett from IWM and Jacob Maze from Charles University in Prague for their inexhaustible editing.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On Jewish child refugees and their search for belonging see especially Sharon Kangisser Cohen, Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Israel: Finding Their Voice: Social Dynamics and Post-War Experiences (Brighton; Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2005). On Holocaust child survivors and families most prominently Boaz Cohen, “Survivor Caregivers and Child Survivors: Rebuilding Lives and the Home in the Postwar Period,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies : An International Journal 32, no. 1 (2018): 49–65; Joanna B Michlic, Jewish Families in Europe, 1939–Present: History, Representation, and Memory (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2017).

  2. 2.

    Mando Dalianis-Karambatzakis, “Children in Turmoil during the Greek Civil War 1946–49: Today’s Adults: A Longitudinal Study on Children Confined with Their Mothers in Prison” (Karolinska Institutet, Department of Woman and Child Health, 1994); Lars Baerentzen, The “Paidomazoma” and the Queen’s Camps, vol. 2, Modern Greek and Balkan Studies (Museum Tusculanum Press, 1987); Eirini Lagani, To “Paidomazoma” kai oi ellino-giougkoslavikes scheseis (1949–1953): mia kritiki proseggisi (Athens: I. Sideris, 1996); Eutychia Voutyra and Aigli Brouskou, “‘Borrowed Children’ in the Greek Civil War,” in Abandoned Children (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Milan Ristović, A Long Journey Home: Greek Refugee Children in Yugoslavia 1948–1960 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 2000); Tasoula Vervenioti, “The Children of the Greek Civil War Saved or Kidnapped?,” Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Studia Territorialia Supplementum, no. 1 (2010): 128; Kateřina Králová and Konstantinos Tsivos, Vyschly nám slzy…: Řečtí uprchlíci v Československu (Praha: Dokořán, 2012); Loring M. Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten, Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 46; Kateřina Králová, “Die Griechen,” in Minderheiten im sozialistischen Jugoslawien: Brüderlichkeit und Eigenheit, ed. Kamil Pikal, Kateřina Králová, and Jiří Kocian (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Vlg., 2016).

  3. 3.

    Renée Hirschon, Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe; The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Pireaus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Lilika Nakou, The Children’s Inferno; Stories of the Great Famine in Greece (Hollywood: Gateway Books, 1946); Violetta Hionidou, Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944, Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Gonda van Steen, Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid pro Quo? (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2019).

  4. 4.

    With the exception of some concise work including exhibition catalogues, documentaries and newspaper articles by Zanet Battinou and Alexios Menexiadis. See Zanet Battinou, “Ta krymmena paidia tis Katochis,” in I Ellines dikaii ton ethnon, ed. Photini Tomai (Athens: Militos, 2016); Alexios Menexiadis, Krymmena paidia stin Ellada tis Katochis (Athens: EME, 2003). Karina Lampsa and Iakov Sibi, I zoi ap’ tin archi: i metanasteusi ton ellinon Evreon stin Palaistini (1945–1948) (Athens: Ekdoseis Alexandreia, 2010); Vassilis Loules, Filia eis ta paidia [Kisses to the Children] (Athens: Massive Productions, 2011); Leon Saltiel, “Prospathies Diasosis Evraiopedon Thessalonikis kata tin Katochi: Ena Agnosto Kykloma Paranomon Yiothesion [Attempts for the Salvation of Jewish Children of Thessaloniki during the Occupation: An unknown illegal adoption network],” Sychrona Themata 127, no. B (2014): 75–78.

  5. 5.

    Miriam Novitch, The passage of the barbarians: contribution to the history of the deportation and resistance of Greek Jews (Hull: Glenvil Group, 1989), 117–18, 127–29. More on Novitch in Sharon Geva, “‘To Collect the Tears of the Jewish People’: The Story of Miriam Novitch,” Holocaust Studies 21, no. 1–2 (April 3, 2015): 73–92.

  6. 6.

    Erika Kounio-Amarilio, Almpertos Nar, and Phragkiski Abatzopoulou, Prophorikes martyries Evreon tis Thessalonikis gia to Olokaytoma (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1998), 110–14.

  7. 7.

    Loules, Filia eis ta paidia.

  8. 8.

    Eutychia Nachman, Giannena, Taxidi Sto Parelthon (Athens: Talos, 1996); Mari Alvo-Benveniste, Mnimes Tis Zois Mou (Thessaloniki: Ianos, 2010); Rozina Asser Pardo, 548 imeres me allo onoma: Thessaloniki, 1943 : mnimes polemou [548 days with another name : Salonika 1943 : memories of war] (Athens: Ekdosis Gavrilidis, 1999); Alexandros Simcha, Ta chamena chronia (self-publication, 2003); Nelli Camhi-Seficha, Anamnisis (Thessaloniki: HY Brazil, 2007); Esther Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon ke i defteri genia tou Olokautomatos [The game of roles and the second generation of the Holocaust] (Athens: Odos Panos, 2012); and To pechnidi ton rolon ke i defteri genia tou Olokautomatos (Athens: Gavriilidis, 2010). In this paper I am using the 3rd edition from 2012 which was kindly provided to me by Ester Franko.

  9. 9.

    For all see Christopher R. Browning, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp, 1st Edition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011); Dalia Ofer, “The Community and the Individual: The Different Narratives of Early and Late Testimonies and Their Significance for Historians,” in Holocaust Historiography in Context; Emergence, Challenges, Polemics and Achievements, ed. David Bankier and Dan Michman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008), 519–37.

  10. 10.

    Other Holocaust child survivors also contributed through their writing to reclaim knowledge of childhood under Nazi oppression. For all, see Georges Perec, W or the memory of a childhood (London: Vintage Classic, 2011); Joseph Polak, After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring, Jerusalem, New York (Urim Publications, 2015); Eva Umlauf, Die Nummer auf deinem Unterarm ist blau wie deine Augen. Erinnerungen (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2016); Ruth Klein, Surviving the Survivors: A Memoir (Berkeley: She Writes Press, 2018). For those who became scholars in this field, for example, Robert Krell, Child Holocaust Survivors: Memories and Reflections (Victoria, BC: Trafford Publ., 2007); Susan Rubin Suleiman, Crises of Memory and the Second World War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012).

  11. 11.

    USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony, interviewed by Jaša Almuli. Compare to Kangisser Cohen, Child Survivors of the Holocaust, 89.

  12. 12.

    Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012, 13.

  13. 13.

    Berry Nachmia, Kraugi gia to aurio, 76859... (Athens: Kaktos, 1989), 28.

  14. 14.

    Hans-Joachim Hoppe, “Bulgarien,” in Dimension des Völkermords: Die Zahl der Jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Wolfgang Benz (München: Oldenbourg, 1991), 296–97.

  15. 15.

    Mperry Nachmia, 35270, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation.

  16. 16.

    Nachmia, Kraugi gia to aurio, 29.

  17. 17.

    Michael Molho and Joseph Nehama, In memoriam: Gewidmet dem Andenken an die jüdischen Opfer der Naziherrschaft in Griechenland (Essen: Peter Katzung, 1981), 133.

  18. 18.

    Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012, 14. On Pissirilo estate in Kastoria see Thrasyvoulos Papastratis, Stachtes ke dakrya sti limni [Ashes and tears in the lake] (Athens: Kentriko Israilitko Symvoulio Ellados, 2010), 15.

  19. 19.

    Molho and Nehama, In memoriam, 413.

  20. 20.

    Novitch, The passage of the barbarians, 41–44. On Jewish children and aid organisation during the Holocaust in general see Patricia Heberer, Children during the Holocaust (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015), 323–59.

  21. 21.

    AJDC, NY AR 1945–54 / 4 / 33 / 2 / 387, Greece, General, I.-VII. 1945, “Letter from the American Joint Distribution Committee, Rome to the American Joint Distribution Committee, New York Lisbon, Subject: Memorandum on the Present Situation of Jewish Communities in Greece.” (14 January 1945).

  22. 22.

    AJDC, NY AR194554 / 4 / 33 / 2 / 386, Greece, General, VIII.-XII.1945, “Letter from Israel G. Jacobson to Miss Henrietta K. Buchman, Subject: Gifts to Children.” (20 November 1945).

  23. 23.

    AJDC, NY AR 194554 / 4 / 33 / 2 / 386, Greece, General, VIII.-XII.1945, “Letter from Morris Laub to Dr. J. Schwartz, Re: Greece.” (23 August 1945).

  24. 24.

    Shlomo Cohen, 6883, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation. See also Salvator Mpakolas, 41842, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation and “List of members of the Hachsharaoth ‘Patissia’ and ‘Frankoklissia’ on the 15.1.46”, in Registration of Liberated Former Persecutees at Various Locations, 3.1.1.3/0015_78779800_1, ITS Digital Archive/USHMM. Lampsa and Sibi, I zoi ap’ tin archi, 367–77.

  25. 25.

    Ester Florentin, 43029, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation. “Jews who left Greece for Palestine on 8/4/45” (30 August 1945) in Registration of Liberated Former Persecutees at Various Locations, 3.1.1.3.(F 18–56 Griechenland, 045)/0060_78779776_1 - 0067_78779789_1, ITS Digital Archive, USHMM. For Germaine’s daughters, Vetta Mioni, Paylina Matathia and Riketta Koen see Zermain Koen, 48674, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation; AJDC, NY AR194554 / 4 / 33 / 2 / 386, Greece, General, VIII.-XII.1945, Letter from American Joint Distribution Committee Jewish Relief Office to Israel G. Jacobson, Subject: General Report, (December 7, 1945); NY AR194554 / 4 / 33 / 2 / 387, Greece, General, I.-VII. 1945, “The American Joint Distribution Committee’s Program Greece” (1 August 1945).

  26. 26.

    Anita Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1999), 332–34.

  27. 27.

    USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony, interviewed by Jaša Almuli

  28. 28.

    Interview with Esther Franko, interviewed by Kateřina Králová in Athens, 8 June 2016. AJDC, NY AR194554 / 4 / 33 / 389, Greece, Disasters, 1953–1954, “American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service, Inc.” (27 August 1953).

  29. 29.

    Transport from Kastoria, Florina, Macedonia, Greece to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 26/03/1944, Yad Vashem, Transports to Extinction: Shoah Deportation Database at http://db.yadvashem.org/deportation/. Greece suffered during the Second World War under triple occupation of Italy, Germany and Bulgaria. For more on wartime Greece see Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44 (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2001).

  30. 30.

    USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopaedia, ID Cards, Rebecca Pissirilo at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/

  31. 31.

    On Greek-Turkish population exchange see especially Renée Hirschon, Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003).

  32. 32.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016; Ester Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation; USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony, and Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012.

  33. 33.

    Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012. See also Ester Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation, and USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony, interviewed by Jaša Almuli.

  34. 34.

    USHMMC, RG- 45.011, Archives of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, I K TH -02702, the Mizrahi Family, n. 31, in the registration books of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki (19 August 1945).

  35. 35.

    Andrew Apostolou, “The Betrayal of Salonika’s Jews,” Jewish Ideas Daily, April 18, 2013; Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012, 14–24.

  36. 36.

    USHMM, RG-45.010 Selected records of the Central Jewish Board (KIS) Athens, Greece, KIS 244—Juene juive sequesterée dans une famille chretienne à Salonique (October 24, 1957).

  37. 37.

    Esther Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation.

  38. 38.

    In her memoires, Ester Franko only mentions a survivor, uncle Solon Rousso, who was supposedly safekeeping some jewels for her which were given to him by a non-Jewish school friend of her mother’s. See in Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012, 20–21. This may be the same person. She is also stating that it was her foster parents who won the trial. Also, see the Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016.

  39. 39.

    USHMM, RG-45.010, KIS 244—Juene juive sequesterée dans une famille chretienne à Salonique (October 24, 1957).

  40. 40.

    USHMM, RG-45.010, KIS 244—Israilitiki Kinotita Kastorias pros KIS (9 June 1955).

  41. 41.

    USHMM, RG-45.010, KIS 244—Israilitiki Kinotita Thessalonikis pros KIS (18 December 1956).

  42. 42.

    Isaac Aron Matarasso, Ki omos oli tous den pethanan [And yet not all of them died] (Athens: A. Bezes, 1948), 62–63. Probably a confusion with another Mizrachi, a Zionist recruiting after the war for aliya in Corfu. See Nata Gattegno-Osmo, Apo tin Kerkyra sto Mpirkenaou ke stin Ierousalim, I istoria mias kerkyreas [From Corfu to Birkenau and Jerusalem,the story of a woman of Corfu] (Athens: Gavriilidis, 2005), 134–35. Cf. The testimony of Nata Gatenio in Lampsa and Sibi, I zoi ap’ tin archi, 321.

  43. 43.

    Yad Vashem, Righteous Among the Nations Collection, M.31.2/6070 – Papadopoulos FAMILY (1989–1995).

  44. 44.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016. USHMMC, RG- 45.011, I K TH -02702, the Mizrahi Family, n. 31, in the registration books of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki (19 August 1945); Ester Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation, and Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012.

  45. 45.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016.

  46. 46.

    USHMM, RG-45.010, KIS 244 – Juene juive sequesterée dans une famille chretienne à Salonique (24 October 1957). Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016.

  47. 47.

    Yad Vashem, Righteous Among the Nations Collection, M.31.2/6070 – Papadopoulos FAMILY (1989–1995). See also Israel Gutman, Sara Bender, and Pearl Weiss, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous among the Nations. Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, vol. II (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2011), 55.

  48. 48.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016.

  49. 49.

    “I Evrei Tis Kastorias,” Chronika 20, no. 147 (February 1997): 3–7. See also Papastratis, Stachtes ke dakrya sti limni.

  50. 50.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016, Ester Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation, USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony, and Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012.

  51. 51.

    Moisis K. Konstantinis, I Israilitikes kinotites tis Ellados meta to Olokautoma, apo tis ekthesis tou Kanari D. Konstantini [The Jewish Communities of Greece after the Holocaust, in the essays of Kanaris D. Konstantinis] (Athens: Konstantinis Moisis K. (self-publishing), 2015), 117–18.

  52. 52.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016., Ester Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation, and Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012. There is no mention in USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony.

  53. 53.

    Interview with Esther Franko, 8 June 2016, however the Mizrahi family is completely left out in USHMM, HVT-2780, Esther G. Holocaust testimony.

  54. 54.

    Ester Gkatenio, 44912, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation, HVT. On identity crisis in this regard see Kangisser Cohen, Child Survivors of the Holocaust, 100–101.

  55. 55.

    Joshep Gatenio, 44026, VHA, USC Shoah Foundation.

  56. 56.

    Kangisser Cohen, Child Survivors of the Holocaust, 20–21, 118–21.

  57. 57.

    Franko, To pechnidi ton rolon, 2012.

  58. 58.

    On the ID cards project see Edward T Linenthal, “The Boundaries of Memory: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,” American Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1994): 419; Holly Myers, “The End of the Holocaust Generation and the Implications in the Future of Educational Programming in Holocaust Museums” (Seton Hall University, 2010), 30–31.

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  1. Charles University, Prague, Czechia

    Kateřina Králová

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  1. Imperial War Museums, London, UK

    Suzanne Bardgett

  2. The Wiener Holocaust Library, London, UK

    Christine Schmidt

  3. Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

    Dan Stone

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Králová, K. (2020). What Is True and What Is Right? An Infant Jewish Orphan’s Identity. In: Bardgett, S., Schmidt, C., Stone, D. (eds) Beyond Camps and Forced Labour. The Holocaust and its Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56391-2_7

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