Ms. Corporon reminisces of the stories she heard from her Yia-Yia and other family members about Greek life in their region, and especially during World War II. The first regional occupation was by the Italians, who did some looting but mostly left the residents alone. When the Nazi occupation began this story gets darker, and rapidly so. The island residents’ lives became punctuated by the sound of Nazi boots, which sometimes came close and faded into the distance, but other times not.
In the foreshadow of even deeper darkness to come, it happened that Corfu had a significant Jewish population of about 2,000 people. They had lived there for centuries. In these people the German occupiers took an immediate interest, and for the most evil of reasons. In June of 1944, the Nazis started rounding up Corfu’s Jewish population and holding them at gunpoint. Some who resisted were executed on the spot. The rest were headed to camps.
On the island of Corfu lived a Jewish tailor, a widower named Savvas Israel, and his four daughters, Nina, Julia, Vittoria and Spera. Savvas was a skilled artisan whose specialty was clerical robes for the local Greek Orthodox clergy. Daughter Vittoria married first and moved to Trieste, Italy. As the Germans began removing the Jewish population, the family of Savvas Israel, along with a young girl named Rosa, somehow escaped Nazi incarceration. They made it off Corfu and found their way to neighboring Erikousa, all with the help of Greek Orthodox clergy and hierarchs, Christians like Anastasios (the author’s great grandfather), and, of course, Yia-Yia Avgerini. All involved risked their lives to protect the tailor Savvas and his family. In October 1944 British soldiers liberated Corfu and the surrounding area to the relief of everyone.
Of the decades that subsequently passed, Ms. Corporon writes: “… I grew up and got married, but my heart never left Erikousa.” Her husband, David Corporon, loved the island of his wife’s ancestry and on a visit in 2011, the couple started seeking information on the whereabouts of Savvas Israel and his family, but to no avail.
A few years later, an unthinkable tragedy struck Yvette’s marital family. On April 13, 2014, in Stilwell, Kansas, Dr. Bill Corporon (Yvette’s first cousin by marriage), a doting grandfather to his talented grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, was taking Reat to a singing audition at the local Jewish Community Campus when shots rang out in the parking lot. A demented antisemite and KKK member with a gun shot Dr. Bill and Reat, not yet 15, dead in the parking lot.
Ironically, the author’s family, once involved in hiding Jews from Germans and risking their lives in so doing, was now scarred by the same hatred it had once stood up against. Her family lost two loved ones simply because a morally depraved person thought they were Jews. But from the echoes of the shouts of “Heil Hitler” from a murderous voice in Kansas, the author was reconnected to her own ancestral history and the support of the Jewish community.
Indeed, something beautiful did finally happen through the author’s personal contacts and the MyHeritage organization in Israel, which helped people trace their ancestry and fill in the missing branches of family trees. But we will let the author tell you about that in person when she comes to Cleveland.
Dean Peters, HPS President
Dear Friends of HPS,
It is an honor to have been asked to write this letter to you. I was one of the founding members of the Hellenic Preservation Society over 33 years ago. I am proud of the success it has made in having the Greek American presence in Northeast Ohio. HPS has supported major institutions that focused on our rich Greek heritage. We have worked with Kent State University, Case Western Reserve University, The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Science Center, Cleveland Greek Cultural Garden and the Cleveland Home and Garden Show when their theme was Greece. This could not have been done without your financial support.
Our Archives and Collections Committee has collected more than 600 items that recall the Greek Immigration experience and HPS’s Collection continues to grow. HPS has provided many programs such as the Book and Author event. A few of our speakers in the past have been Harry Mark Petrakis, the great storyteller of the Greek Immigrants, Eleni Gage, author of the “North of Ithaca”, Marilyn Rouvelous’s book on Greek traditions, and Charles Moskos, sociologist, who studied the Greeks in America and their accomplishments.
This year, we are proud to announce as our 2024 speaker, Yvette Corporon, an internationally bestselling author, and Emmy Award winning producer. She is a first-generation Greek American with deep family roots in Corfu. To date, her books have been translated into sixteen languages.
This is a multi-generational event and we look forward to your attendance on November 2, 2024. Please consider a donation listed above that will assist us toward this event.
Thank you,
Helen Collis
HELLENIC PRESERVATION SOCIETY 