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Oral history interview with Georgios Nestorakis

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2014.530.15 | RG Number: RG-50.855.0015

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    Oral history interview with Georgios Nestorakis

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Georgios Nestorakis, born in December 1928 in the village of Roditis (formerly known as Proktio, now part of the town of Komotini), describes his experience as a Christian in Greece before and during the Bulgarian occupation (1941-1944); his family, who were refugees from Eastern Thrace (Turkey) and moved to Greece in 1922; his father, who was a farmer and shepherd; his two sisters (one older and one younger) from his biological mother and three step-siblings; attending elementary school in Roditis and starting high school in 1939 in Komotini; being the first from his village to attend high school; the good relations in Komotini between the diverse populations, which included Muslims, Jews, Armenians, Christian Greeks, and refugees from Turkey; the German occupation for a month around April 1941; the Bulgarian control of the area after the Germans left until the end of the war in Greece (September 1944); the Bulgarians’ attempts to absorb the northern part of Greece into Bulgaria, forbid the use of the Greek language, close Greek schools, and bring in Bulgarian Orthodox priests; how the citizens who adhered to the Bulgarian rules were given extra rations of food; his memories of the Bulgarians taking people’s stores, houses, farms, and livestock, including his family’s land and sheep; the Jews, who lived around the crossroads of Maccabi and Athanasiou Diakou Streets in Komotini and worked mostly as merchants; the absence of Jews in the village of Roditis; remembering a Jewish man named Levy who had a novelties store; seeing Jews wearing yellow stars on their chests and arms; hearing from his friend Mihalis Xatzis about the deportation of Jews after they were detained in a tobacco warehouse for a week; the Bulgarians taking the best Jewish houses and moving Greek families to the remaining houses; and the Bulgarian relinquishment of control to the Greek Partisans in September 1944.
    Interviewee
    Georgios Nestorakis
    Date
    interview:  2014 November 17
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Greek
    Extent
    1 digital file : MPEG-4.

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    This is a witness interview of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Witnesses: The Jeff and Toby Herr Testimony Initiative, a multi-year project to record the testimonies of non-Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust. The interview was directed and supervised by Nathan Beyrak.
    Funding Note
    The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 09:33:38
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn610296

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