Lembessis Yiorgos & Lembessi Litsa

Lembessis, Yiorgos Lembessi, Litsa General Yiorgos Lembessis was a retired pilot of the Greek air force and lived in Athens. His next-door neighbors were the Asseo family – Pepos and Eda Asseo, Eda’s mother and two young children. In spring 1943, the Saporta family came from Thessaloniki and moved in with the Asseo family. Following the Italian surrender to the Allies in September 1943, and the subsequent German occupation of the capital, everyone feared the upcoming measures against the Jews. Through his good connections with the Greek authorities, including chief of police Angelos Evert*, Lembessis was able to provide the Asseo family with identity cards bearing Greek Orthodox names. Lembessis suggested that they move to another section of the city in order to avoid the search carried out by the Germans. Scrambling over rooftops, the family moved to another neighbor for one night, and then Lembessis arranged for the Asseo family to find refuge for a couple of months at his friend’s house in Loutraki. During that time, Yiorgos’s wife, Litsa, brought them food every day. In the meantime, Lembessis contacted the partisans and then managed to transfer the Asseo family to an area controlled by the underground in the Peloponnesos. They remained there until the liberation. The Saporta family continued to live in the Asseos’ apartment for a while and then moved to live with a Greek family. As Spanish subjects, the Saportas ended up in Bergen-Belsen, survived and returned to Greece after the war. The three Saltiel sisters were close friends of the Saportas, and thus acquaintances of Lembessis. When the Germans arrested Mathilde (later Givré) and Eda (later Saporta) and sent them to Haidari prison, Lembessis went to visit them regularly and brought them food. He helped their sister Renée (later Molho) escape to the Middle East. Immediately upon their release from prison, the two sisters stayed in the Lembessis home for a few months. ChristianaLembessi-Papaoikonomou, 16 at the time, recalled that many Jews, especially refugees from Thessaloniki – among them Solon Molho, Nina Hassid-Florentin, Albertos Florentin, and Solomon Sakis – found temporary refuge in her parents’ home in Athens. They used to listen together to radio broadcasts from Cairo, even though radios had to be hidden because it was forbidden to own them. When, during the Greek civil war, the communists arrested Yiorgos Lembessis, it was his friends’ turn to reciprocate with help. They did everything in their power to assist the family. They visited Yiorgos in prison and brought him food. The Asseo family left Greece in 1952, but continued to maintain contact with the Lembessis family. On October 15, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Yiorgos Lembessis and Litsa Lembessi as Righteous Among the Nations.