Photographic archive of persons – Jews of Kastoria

People and family highlights before and after the Holocaust. A wandering along the people’s lives that boosts our memory and describes the impact of that era with the stories of the people and the respective atmosphere.

Isaac Menahem Zaharias, rabbi of Kastoria from the end of the nineteenth century until 1916 (Michael Molho Archive)
Menahem Bohor Mevorach and Boenna Rousso’s wedding, which took place in the Monastiriotes Synagogue in Thessaloniki, in the summer of 1949. The family they created after the wedding continued to live in Kastoria until 1964, when they moved to Thessaloniki (Mevorach Family Archive)
Mois Rousso and Lina Eliaou’s wedding, which took place in the Monastiriotes Synagogue in Thessaloniki on March 22, 1953. After the wedding the couple settled in the United States of America. There, they created their family (Russo Family Archive)
Mois Rousso and Lina Eliaou at their wedding reception on March 22, 1953. Lina’s brother, Beni Eliaou, is in the background. These two siblings were the only survivors of Kalef Eliaou’s family (Russo Family Archive)
The Kastorian survivor Mois Rousso in Milan in front of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in 1950, shortly before he married Lina Eliaou (Russo Family Archive)
Survivor Benjamin Eliaou rowing one of the traditional karavia (Kastorian boats) on Lake Orestiada in Kastoria in the early 1950s. (Russo Family Archive)
Lina Eliaou in Belgrade after the liberation in the 1940s, stopover during her return to Greece from Germany. (Russo Family Archive)
Beny Eliau was born on 8th August 1928 and was a child of a seven-member family. His father Kalef Eliau was the last president of the Jewish community in Kastoria before the Holocaust. He was 19 years old at the time of persecutions and suffered the bitterness of parting his family on the platforms of Auswitch, the concentration camps, the death forced march towards Germany, where he lost his father but also Bergen Belsen where he lost his older brother. He managed to live and discover that he and his sister Lina were the only survivors of his family (Russo family Archive)
The Kastorian Jew Pepo Konfino in his military uniform. The Kastorian Jews, like all Greek citizens, performed their military service in the Greek army, and in the Second World War they fought against fascism. (Russo Family Archive)
Albert Russo was born around 1925 and was the oldest son of an eight-member family. In 1941 he was a young man who worked in the neighboring pharmacy and had many dreams for the future, which unfortunately didn’t materialize because of World War II. He was deported then and went to a concentration camp in Poland. He managed to survive and see liberation against all the odds. Finally, he lost his life later because he ate sharply after so many months of undernourishment (Mevorach Family Archive)
The Jewish family of the merchant Emmanouil Mevorach at the end of 1920. Seated in the center are the parents, Emmanouil and Matilda Mevorach. The mother and the two younger boys of the family wear traditional clothes of that era. On the left is the firstborn son of the family, Menahem Bohor Mevorach, who wears Western-style clothes. On the right stands Albert, the second son. These two sons were the only survivors of the Holocaust from the Mevorach family. Their parents and the other four boys of the family were guided straight to the crematorium in April 1944. (Mevorach Family Archive)
Children of the family of Kalef Eliaou in the beginning of 1930. From right to left: the oldest daughter, Lina; Beni (seated); the young Moshiko; and the oldest son, Vital (Russo Family Archive)
The family of the last president of the Jewish community in Kastoria (before the deportation in 1944), Kalef Eliaou, in the late 1920s. Seated in the armchair is Κalef Eliaou (who died in 1945 in the death march from Poland to Germany). On the left is Alegra Konfino-Eliaou, his wife; on the right is Lina Eliaou, their daughter; and between the couple is their son Vital Eliaou (who was beaten to death in the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945) (Russo Family Archive)
The couple Abraham and Delicia Rousso (Russo Family Archive)
The couple Kalef Eliau and Alegra Konfino (Russo Family archive)
A large number of Kastorian people at some rally in the center of the town of Kastoria (Rousso Family Archive)
The last rabbi of Kastoria, Solomon Mevorach (1874–1944), who was the religious leader of the Kastorian Jews from 1916 until 1944 and the Holocaust (Michael Molho Archive)
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