Israel's ambassador to Greece, Pninat Yanai, has awarded the "Righteous Among the Nations" distinction to two Greek citi...

Israel's ambassador to Greece, Pninat Yanai, has awarded the "Righteous Among the Nations" distinction to two Greek citizens, Ilias and Maria Machaira, for sheltering a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece. The honor, conferred by Yad Vashem, is one of the highest the State of Israel and the Jewish people can bestow on non-Jews who risked their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust. The ambassador described the Machairai as "a young Greek couple who had only just married and were at the beginning of their life together." In 1943, when Nazi forces entered Karditsa, the Jewish Venizelou family, Solomon, Esther, and their three children, were forced to flee. After a long and dangerous journey, they found refuge in a small mountain village called Mastoriani, known today as Amarantos. There, Ilias and Maria opened their home without asking for a single drachma in return. For seven months they sheltered all five members of the Venizelou family, fully aware of the deadly risk they were taking. The ambassador described the situation simply: seven people with one hope, to stay alive. Ilias also made trips back to Karditsa to bring goods that Solomon could sell, giving the family a way to keep an income while in hiding. The village of Amarantos sheltered 82 Jews in total during the occupation, and not a single villager betrayed them to the Germans. Victor Venizelou, one of the children who survived that journey, was present at the ceremony. He later became president of the Jewish Community of Karditsa, and in 2017 helped create a monument at Amarantos in honor of the people who saved those 82 lives. Ambassador Yanai closed her speech with a direct message to the Machaira family: "We remember. We are grateful. And we will never forget." About 67,000 Greek Jews were murdered in the Holocaust out of the six million killed across Europe. #Greece #Holocaust #RighteousAmongTheNations