[Kolokotronis]

Greece lost a bit more than 15% of its population to the depredations of the Nazis during the war and in the civil war immediately following.

Greeks hid Jews all over the country. My own family did down in Peloponnesus. Did yours? Our Archbishop hid them all over Greece and is listed as Righteous Among the Nations. Metropolitan Gerasimos of Zakynthos, when ordered by the Gestapo to write down the names of all the Jews on the island, wrote one name, Gerasimos!

[epow]

I don't believe that anything I said in #17 about the Greeks and their WWII plight under fascist Italian and nazi German occupiers implied that they mistreated Jews or failed to do what they could to protect them as best they could under very unfavorable wartime conditions. However, if you took my comments as an insult to or as criticism of the Greeks of that day and time they certainly weren't intended to be that.

Actually, I have a family connection to a couple of Greek families in Tarpon Springs, FL. One of my aunts, now deceased, married a very congenial and likeable gentleman, also deceased, from a Greek family living in that area. That marriage produced two of my youngest 1st cousins, who AFAIK still live and work in that general area.

As you may know, many Greeks immigrated to Tarpon Springs in the early 20th century in order to harvest the sponges that thrive in that sector of the Gulf of Mexico. The Greek divers who work in that industry have since intermarried with local Florida families to the extent that the two cultures and the people themselves have intermingled to the point where both are now simply Americans. Which IMHO is as it should be in this land of immigrants.