The House by the Sea: A Portrait of the Holocaust in Greece - Softcover

Fromer, Rebecca

3.75

12 ratings by Goodreads

9781562791056: The House by the Sea: A Portrait of the Holocaust in Greece

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1562791052 ISBN 13: 9781562791056

Publisher: Mercury House, 1997

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A compelling Holocaust memoir exposes the little-known annihilation of the Jewish community in Greece

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Fromer, cofounder of the Judah L. Magnes Memorial Museum in Berkeley, Calif., recounts one of the less-known episodes of the Holocaust: the destruction of the vibrant Jewish community of Salonika, Greece. Fromers tale focuses on one man in particular: Elias Aelion grew up in Salonika and its environs, the son of a comfortably self-reliant but not wealthy Jewish family. After working in the family's wine business, he served in the Greek army in its futile attempt to stave off the invading Germans at the outset of WWII. After that, he found himself forced into hiding along with many members of his family and his friends as the Nazis began to persecute Greek Jews. It wouldnt be until 1943 that the notorious Nuremberg racial laws would be put in force in Greece, and for a while Jews could still seek refuge in Athens, initially under Italian control. Aelion tells of shuttling back and forth between Athens and Salonika in a desperate effort to raise money for his many relatives to survive the occupation. When Italy surrendered, the Germans seized the remainder of Greece and soon there would be nowhere that Greek Jews could hide. Aelion recounts vividly his experiences hiding with guerrilla bands in the mountains and his eventual bittersweet return to Salonika at war's end. Salonika's Jewish population was devastated, 96 percent of them murdered in Auschwitz. Fromer has turned Aelion's story into a compulsively readable tale that moves swiftly between poignant memories of growing up in a warm and sometimes eccentric family and the suspense of hiding from the Nazi juggernaut. In a crowded field of Holocaust memoirs, this one has something a bit different to offer. (24 b&w illustrations) -- Copyright �1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Although this biography does not offer the wide scope that its subtitle promises, it does work as a look at one man's experience. Elia Aelion was from Salonika, a major Sephardic center that claimed a Jewish population of 56,000 before WWII. Of those, 96% died, but Aelion was one of the lucky few to survive. After a helpful introduction into the history of this era, Fromer (The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando) jumps into a contrived first-person account: "I have not used a tape recorder, and we were not conducting interviews. In invoking the past, we spoke as the storytellers of old, without impediments, and in earnest to inform." Unfortunately she tells her subject's story with this same cloyingly artificial tone and thereby robs it of a more natural dignity and clarity. Still, the details are moving. Aelion lived a rather cloistered life as a child, mostly traveling from his grandparents' house (the idyllic family home mentioned in the title) to his own parents' house and to a private Jewish school. Eventually he moved from Salonika to Athens, and when the city became occupied by Germans he struggled across the mountains to reach free Greece. Photographs and small details of his family's daily life give individuality to an often incomprehensible loss, while informative sidebars help clarify the history.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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