Xanthopoulou Efthimia (Gianopoulou); Sister: Dina Melpomeni (Gianopoulou); Sister: Sumbasi Bithleem (Gianopoulou)

Tokatlido (Axiopoulos), Evlambia Axiopoulos, Nikos Axiopoulos, Polixeni Axiopoulos, Petros Ananiadou (Axiopoulos), Makrina Xanthopoulou (Gianopoulou), Efthimia Dina (Gianopoulou), Melpomeni Sumbasi (Gianopoulou), Bithleem The Mordechai family lived in Veria, where Mentes Mordechai owned a thriving business and his wife, Miriam Mari, had a fashion store and gave sewing courses to women in the town. They had four children Sarah (b. 1933, later Yanai), Asher (b. 1935). Shmuel (b. 1938) Rachel (b.1940), and another baby, Yosef (b. 1942, later Mor), was born in 1942. When the war between Italy and Greece broke out in 1940, Mentes was drafted into the Greek army to fight in Albania. The family’s economic situation deteriorated and Marie tried to make ends meet by knitting for the army. Eventually Mentes returned home, but when the Germans occupied Greece in 1941, the persecution of the Jews began. Jews were marked with a yellow star, and soon rumors spread about danger of deportation to labor camps. Marie had relatives in Germany who sent a coded letter. They said that they were well off, but added that the situation of their grandparents was even better. Knowing that the grandparents were buried in the Thessaloniki graveyard, the Mordechai family understood that this was a warning. Before the war Evlambia Tokatlido had worked as a housemaid in the Mordechai family household. After the war broke out, she found work as a helper and concierge in a local school near the Mordehai house. After the Mordechai’s youngest child was born in 1942 and Mari Mordechai did not have milk, Evlambia, who had given birth to a baby girl around the same time, breastfed him, and even offered to take him to her home and raise him with her baby. However, his mother refused to part from her child, so Evlambia came regularly to the Mordechais' home to feed Yosef. When arrests and deportations began in nearby Thessaloniki in March 1943. Evlambia’s brother, Nikos Axiopoulos, took it upon himself to get false identity cards for the Jewish family and left Veria by night, taking a circuitous route to Thessaloniki. Nikos hurried back to warn the Mordechai family that in the next transport, due in a few days, the train would stop in Veria to collect the Jews there. Nikos and the rest of his family were determined to help the Mordechais. Nikos, who was a carpenter, built a wooden ceiling in the attic of the old abandoned Turkish mosque where he was living with his family, with a space for his wards to hide. They moved there around Passover 1943, staying for about a year. While in hiding, they heard the screams when the Jews of Veria were rounded up in the end of March 1943 to be deported. The conditions in the hiding place were very difficult, as the place was very small, with no holes for air or any sunlight. The sisters, Polixeni Axiopoulos, and Makrina Ananiadou (Axiopoulos), along with their brother, Petros Axiopoulos, all contributed to the welfare of the Mordechais. They also shared their meager food rations with them. Eventually, the Mordechais developed health problems, and a new place was urgently needed. It was Efthimia Xanthopoulou who helped the family. Before the war Efthimia had studied to be a seamstress at Mari’s studioin. Since she was very poor and an orphan, Mari did not charge her for the lessons. Efthimia became quite attached to the Mordechais and visited them regularly after they went into hiding. When a new place was needed, she arranged for them to move to her home, where she lived with two younger sisters, 15-year-old Bithleem (later Sumbasi), and 14-year-old Melpomeni (later Dina. There, in one room, she accommodated seven members of the Mordechai family. The three sisters shared their food rations with the Mordechai family and sheltered them, despite the risk. As food supplies were scarce and very expensive, Bethleem and Dina cultivated a piece of land they owned in a swamp near Yiannitsa, at a distance from Veria. When Bithleem returned from working the land, she would carry on her back a sack with provisions for ten people. One day, six-year-old Shmuel became very ill. Bithleem took him and his sister Sara to the hospital, but the child died. However soon someone denounced the family to the authorities, and relatives of Efthimia helped the family to escape. They took the eldest daughter, Sarah, out of town where she hid in the woods, while Asher escaped on his own to the mountains. In the meantime, Mari took the youngest ones, Rachel and Yosef, and set out on foot to look for a place to hide. Bithleem and her sisters supplied the family with clothes, appropriate for hiding in the mountain area of Vermio. The Mordechai family – who, in the meantime, had reunited – stayed there until the end of the war. On Sept 6, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Evlambia Tokatlido and Efthimia Xanthopoulou as Righteous Among the Nations. On April 12, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Bithleem Sumbasi, Melpomeni Dina, Nikos and Petros Axiopoulos, their sisters Makrina Ananiadou and Polixeni as Righteous Among the Nations.