Lampros Karamertzanis: The Pharmacist Who Fleeed Thousands of Jews of Athens to the Mountain

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He is a relative of the activist Lela Karagiannis, who helped save many Jews throughout the Occupation

The era of the Nazi occupation of Greece constitutes one of the darkest periods in recent history. Executions, imprisonment, torture, concentration camps, starvation, surrenders. The majority of the world lived under constant terror. In an even worse position, however, were the Greek Jews, who followed the fate of their co-religionists in the areas of Europe conquered by the Nazis.

In this darkness, there are many examples of people who defied danger, took part in the resistance and saved people from the Nazi killing machine.

A case, not so well known, is that of the pharmacist Lambros Karamertzanis, a relative of the fighter Lela Karagiannis, who helped save many Jews throughout the Occupation. For his heroic attitude, he was included in 1991 in the Pantheon of the Righteous Among the Nations[1].

Of the 77,377 Jews living in Greek territory before the persecution began, 10,226 survived (population reduction rate -86%). In some areas we find high rates of rescue (Athens, Volos, Larissa, Zakynthos etc.), while in others almost total annihilation (Thessaloniki, Veria, Corfu etc.). “The criteria that played a role had to do with the relations between Jews and the local population, the size, the geographical location, the economic power and the degree of assimilation of each community, the attitude of the Greek authorities and the presence of resistance groups in the area”[2].

Karamertzanis at that time ran a pharmacy at 145 Patision Street, Kefallinia stop, while he was president of the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association and director of the newspaper “Efimeris ton Farmakopoi”. His pharmacy “was a social center of the time” and “many intellectuals were regular patrons”[2]. An eminent scientist, he could seek to enjoy special privileges from the conquerors, but he himself chose to take the right side of history. That is why when he died at the age of 58, in 1950, his funeral was a public expense. He was a central and active member of EAM, while he is characterized as “very careful and very competent in his actions” having “connections with all circles”[3].

The rescue of the Jews of Athens

In September 1943, the persecution of the Jews of Athens began. “At the beginning of the German Occupation, the Jewish population of the capital, which numbered around 3,000 souls (about 3.3% of the general population) exceeded, with the arrival of refugees from Thessaloniki and other cities, 10,000 people” [3]. Some escaped Greece with the help of the Greek resistance network, mainly the EAM, the British, the Greek government in exile in Cairo and the Jewish Agency in Palestine. Thousands of others were saved because they hid, fled to Palestine, Evia, Turkey and elsewhere, joined the guerillas, obtained false identities, secretly became Christians through marriages and baptisms, etc. However, several did not succeed, as on March 23, 1944, when the Germans trapped 350 people in the Melidoni street synagogue, after they had first announced that they would be distributing flour to them in view of Easter. They rounded up others and put about 800 people on the train to Auschwitz, “where Dr. Megele selected 320 men and 328 women for his experiments. The rest were immediately sent to the gas chambers.”

The escape of 2,000 Jews from Athens to the mountain

A very important moment was in September 1943, when Karamertzanis, as a liaison of the EAM, organized the escape of about 2,000 Jews from Athens to the mountain, in Free Greece. According to the rabbi of the Israeli community of Athens, Eliau Barzilai, about 3,000 were saved with the help of the Greek guerrillas within a year and a half, until the end of the war, in October 1944.

It was preceded by the order of the Gestapo to Rabbi Barzilai, to hand over all the lists of Jews, with their names, their home addresses, their assets, their bank deposits, etc. Barzilai delayed by asking for time credit, he burned the books of the community and notified as many Jews as he could to leave Athens. Barzilai simultaneously contacted EAM and their escape was initiated by Karamertzani. And Barzilai himself and his family escaped to the mountain under false names.

Lambros Karamertzanis also collaborated with Lela Karagiannis, for the flight of the Jews of Athens. “In this effort, he also sensitized other pharmacists to enter into virtual marriages with Jewish women, in order to hasten their rescue”[2].

Also, in the basement of his pharmacy, there are testimonies that he had hidden a young Jewish woman.

Lampros Karamertzanis

The rescue of Judge Siaki and his family

“When he found out [Ο Καραμερτζάνης] that on October 7, 1943 the Germans ordered the Jews to be registered and that Hezkyia Siaki, a judge at the Athens Court of Appeal at the time, refused the registration, he decided to offer them his help. He already knew that the family had been separated for security reasons, that’s why he suggested to him to flee them through his lawyer brother, Panagiotis Karametzanis, to his native Livadia.

He saw to it that the Siaki family received fake identity cards bearing Greek names – the wife Gianna, the two twelve-year-old twin boys Peretz and Eliachou and the 2-year-old Hana. The journey was particularly difficult in the middle of the cold winter of 1943-44 in an open truck, but also dangerous, since a German convoy was heading in the same direction. The family remained in Livadia in a loft until the end of September 1944, when the city was liberated.”

All this time, Lambros Karametzanis, with whatever connections he had, supported the Siaki family.

The above data on both the rescue of the Greek Jews and the actions of Lambros Karamertzani are drawn from the book by Antigoni Pavlidis, “The Pharmacies of Athens”, and the award-winning book by the Academy of Athens, “The Rescue” by Karina Lampsa and Jacob Sibi.

Notes

  1. “The Pharmacies of Athens”, Page 17, 354
  2. The Righteous Among the Nations is an honorary title awarded by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Foundation, on behalf of the State of Israel, to non-Jews who, during World War II, at risk of their lives, they saved the lives of thousands of Jews.
  3. “The Rescue,” pp. 284, 258

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