Renee Saltiel Molho

Greece
Interviewed in Thessaloniki in 2005 by Nina Molho

Photos: Solon and Renee Molho on their honeymoon in 1946 (left), Giorgos Mitziliotis, who saved 14 members of Solon’s family, pictured in 1952 (right).

Historical note: Every life snuffed out during the Holocaust is a tragedy and a great many predominantly Jewish villages, or shtetls, in Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland, were almost wholly wiped out. The story of Salonika is just as tragic, and not very well known.

This port city on the Aegean Sea had been part of the Ottoman Empire for five hundred years, starting in 14th century. While Jews had lived there since Biblical times, the city received a huge influx of Spanish speaking Jews when they were expelled from Spain in 1492. During the Ottoman centuries (the 14th through 19th centuries), 90,000 Jews lived in the city—they were its largest ethnic population, followed by Muslims, then Greek Christians and then Bulgarian Christians. During these years, Salonika was a free port city, and the port was controlled by the Jewish community, which did not allow ships to unload or load during the Jewish Sabbath, from Friday evening until Saturday evening. By the 19th century, it was not unusual for Salonika’s Jews to hold Spanish or even Italian passports.

Salonika was taken into modern Greece in 1912 during the First Balkan War, and things went downhill for the city’s Jews. Tens of thousands chose to leave over the next few decades. Some 60,000 were living in Thessaloniki, as the Greeks called it, in 1941 when the Germans invaded. Jews were forced into a ghetto, then the deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka began in March 1943. 56,000 Jews were deported; only a handful returned alive.

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“Giorgos took an immense risk, not only for himself and his family, but also for the whole village since he was the mayor and therefore the one in charge.”

Throughout the 1930s, on Saturday afternoons in Thessaloniki, Jewish families would stroll along the quayside and Solon Molho’s mother would sometimes see the three Saltiel girls walking along. She would point to Renee Saltiel and whisper to her son in Ladino, “Esta chica para ti”(this girl is for you). Solon’s mother would not live to see that it would come true; she was deported, with her husband, to their deaths.

How Solon and the rest of his family, and Renee Saltiel, and her family were saved from death can all be attributed to friends and strangers risking their lives for them. Here is what Renee told us in 2005.

Renee begins by describing her own family once the Germans began deporting Jews in the spring of 1943.

All our relatives had Spanish passports. The Germans had no right to take Spanish subjects to the concentration camps but, all the same, they were all gathered and sent to a concentration camp with no forced labor. Later they were taken to a camp in Spain, then to a camp in North Africa, in Casablanca, Morocco, and later they were taken to Israel. All of them were taken away in this way with the exception of our father, my sisters, and I, who had made an application to the German 'commandature' and asked for an exemption because our father was suffering from terminal cancer, and somehow we were left alone.

This Italian man, Neri, who was working in the Italian consulate in Salonika, helped us greatly. When the Germans finally came for us, he managed to put Eda, our younger sister, with our father on a train to Athens, and a few days later Matilde and I were to be sent off, too. Neri prepared all the proper documents for us to travel to Athens and it wasn’t easy. According to these documents, we were Italian citizens, and these documents were to be given directly to the train commander and to no one else, we were told.

Eda and our father left while Matilde and I left the apartment that we had been living in, and went to stay in the place of a girl who was a manicurist. She put us up in a bedroom and we were there all day and all night, with the shutters closed. You see, she was a Christian and her father, who was living in the same house, knew nothing about us. She was bringing us food and we were waiting for when our turn would come to leave for Athens on the train. The girl’s name was Angela, she told us, simply Angela, no last names, please, she said. We stayed there more than a week.

Then someone from the Italian consulate came and told us to come to the railway station at a very specific time. The Italians were in charge of that particular train and of course they knew they were transporting Jews to Athens, and not just us. We had no papers since they were all given to the train commander. We went and got on the train. But shortly the train was stopped by the Germans. It seems that they guessed that something was happening and we knew nothing, not even the names on our false papers or birth dates or anything! The only thing we were taught to say in Italian was, 'The train commander has all the free passages.' Not one other word.

And the moment came when the Germans stepped into our compartment. All the passengers pretended to be asleep, and I can only guess that the train commandant took care of the Germans, gave him the papers and finally they got off the train again.

The three sisters and their terminally ill father reached Athens.

While we were still all together, taking care of our father, there was this lady, Mrs. Lembessi, who was the wife of an air force officer, who was helping us continuously. She happened to live in the same apartment block as a friend and she took us under her wing, always trying to help us.

Mrs. Lembessi was following closely my father's deterioration. She communicated with the doctor who was following his condition almost daily.

Then one day while he was in terrible shape, German soldiers came in. Someone had squealed on us. They took my sisters away and seeing that my father was close to death, they said that they would come back for me in a few days.

He died exactly 13 days after my sisters were taken away. It happened early in the morning, while I was feeding him in bed. He refused to open his mouth. He turned his head aside and died.

Mrs. Lembessi was there. She told me not to worry. She went to telephone the Spanish Embassy. A little later some men came on behalf of the embassy; they told us to undress the body, wash it and put it in a sheet. Once again Mrs. Lembessi told me not to worry and did whatever was asked. Then we waited for a little and they took the body. They didn't tell us where they were taking him.

Mrs. Lembessi took me, almost by force, since I was in no position to think, to stay at her place telling me that I should never return to this apartment. That same night the Germans returned for me, but I had gone.

Mrs. Lembessi asked her daughter to sleep on the floor so that I could have her bed. I cannot recall how many days I stayed there but she took very good care of me and even her husband was pressing me to drink some wine with my lunch every day since I was very weak. I saw to it that Mrs. Lembessi and her husband were included on the list of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Sebastián de Romero Radigales was the Spanish ambassador, and it was he who saw to it that my father would be buried in the Athens Jewish cemetery. Then he brought food to my sisters and let the Germans know that as Spanish citizens, he was carefully watching out for them. It saved their lives. And finally, it was Mr de Romero who stamped all of my papers so that I could leave Athens.

As for my husband Solon’s immediate family, they were all deported to Germany: Solon's father and mother, Yvonne, his sister, and her husband and child. The same goes for all the rest of his relatives. The only one left was Victoria, her husband Youda Leon and their family.

Here is how they were saved: one day Victoria and Youda were at a drugstore and a Doctor Kallinikides was there. He was talking about the dreadful things that were happening to Jews and he was saying that he would be willing to save a family. When they heard that, although they didn't know him, Victoria and Youda approached him. Dr. Kallinikides went directly to their place to take the children to his house. Later he managed to get in touch with the people who were illegally transporting Jews to Athens under the very nose of the Germans.

In this way, very quietly, Dr. Kallinikiedes saved first the children and then arranged for someone to pick up the Victoria and Youda from another place, and he arranged their journey to Athens. They left together with the youngsters, Niko and Nina, who were five and two years old, respectively. They were very lucky and Dr. Kallinikides remained a friend of the family forever.

By this time, Solon had already made his way to Athens. In Athens, when he found Victoria and Youda, they started manufacturing soaps just so they could earn a bit of money to survive. Youda had had a soap manufacturing factory in Thessaloniki and knew all about it. Selling them from house to house they were making a living. Later the Germans occupied Athens, so they were forced to go and hide themselves elsewhere.

So they went to this island, to Glossa Skopelou because they had a friend there. Giorgos Mitziliotis, the mayor of the village, who was one of the suppliers of Uncle Youda's factory and had been providing him with olive oil for his soap. All of Youda’s family, the grandfather and grandmother, Maurice, Jackos, Youda and his family and Victoria's brother made their way there, or Giorgos went to fetch them. Fourteen persons were brought to Glossa. During the entire occupation and until the liberation of Thessaloniki they all stayed there.

Giorgos took an immense risk, not only for himself and his family, but also for the whole village since he was the mayor and therefore the one in charge. The ones that could help did so. They were going out with Giorgos, cutting trees, assembling wood, looking after the animals, etc.

The first period in Skopelos was a period with no Germans but when they arrived, the family was forced to move from place to place, so that the Germans would not notice them. What a life full of anxiety!

They also listened to a hidden radio so that they knew what was going on and what was happening in an effort to be in front of all that was going on. When the war was over, they all came back to Thessaloniki and Solon went directly back to his family’s bookstore and took it back from the collaborator who had taken it in 1941. The British Army moved in and set up an office there, too.

Giorgos Mitziliotis and his brother Stephanis are on the list of the Righteous Among the Nations.