BENMAYOR

Synopsis

A true story of a Sephardic Jewish mother, Elvira Benmayor Kakkis, in Nazi-occupied Greece in early 1941, and the life and death decision she must make that will define whether her immediate family will survive or die: should she comply with the authorities and register her family as Jews, or defy the order and risk being found out and killed?

She is a sophisticated, educated, multilingual woman raised in a wealthy household in Kavala, Greece, at the turn of the century. She is a community leader and owns the first cinema in town, sings beautifully and supports the arts, but is neither naïve nor sheltered. She is tough, independent-minded, and incredibly insightful into the direction and nature of the world, and she is not intimidated by anyone. Sensing the still unrevealed evil planned by Hitler’s forces based on listening to shortwave radio of Hitler speeches, and despite fierce criticism from her extended family, she chooses defiance with Jewish registration rules and embarks on an effort to disappear in plain sight with her family and other Greek refugees in the big city. Soon after entering hiding in 1942, her husband dies from cancer, and she is left on her own -responsible for herself and her four children.

Relying on her courage, resilience, education, wit, and linguistic skills, she finds a way to adapt to her increasingly perilous circumstances, made more dangerous by the SS officers and other Nazis who commandeer the mansion right in front of Elvira’s rear unit duplex in the big city. After navigating living right under the noses of Nazi officers by helping them with their laundry, knitting, and cooking tasks, and even playing music with one officer, Elvira then orchestrates an escape with her family in 1944 to the Greek island of Skiathos where they can wait out the end of the war. Instead, on the island, they see the tragedy affecting all of Greece, and the family now decides to begin fighting the Germans alongside the Greek resistance.

While two of her oldest are in the mountains fighting the Germans, Elvira joins and becomes one of the leaders of the sixty-woman Skiathos section of the partisans called EAM. With EAM and her two youngest teenage sons, the Greeks captured a cruel German commandant, Joseph Adler, for the Aegean islands at the request of the Middle East Allied Command. The abduction is followed by angry retaliation from the German soldiers who brutally execute, pillage, and murder islanders, and eventually set fire to the entire island. A rainstorm puts out the fire, and the Germans withdraw after failing to recover Adler.

Once Skiathos is freed by the British, and Elvira and three of her children survive the war. When they finally arrive back home, they learn that none of their other relatives, who emphatically pleaded with her to register the family at the beginning of the war, survived after being deported to death camps. Her oldest son Jack is still missing six months after the war’s end and presumed dead by all, except Elvira.When they finally arrive back home, they learn that none of their other relatives, who emphatically pleaded with her to register the family at the beginning of the war, survived after being deported to death camps. Jack finally arrives home 6 months after the war’s end after walking across all of Greece on foot, bedraggled and emaciated with a long beard, but alive.

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