Mois Yussuroum

Mois Yussuroum ( Greek Μωύς Γιουσουρούμ ), also Moissis or Maurice Yussuroum (born 1920 ) is a Greek dentist . He was a partisan fighter against the German occupation of Greece and in the civil war that followed .

Life

Yussuroum comes from a traditional Sephardic Greek family who - expelled from Spain in 1492 - originally settled in Smyrna , today's Izmir , in the Ottoman Empire . In today's Greek usage, the term Yussuroum stands for flea market , but even most Greeks do not know that it was originally a family name. One of his ancestors, Isaac, moved in 1830 to Chios , shortly after the massacre of Turks there during the Greek War of Independence . In 1860 the family moved to Kythnos . The grandfather of Mois Yussuroum, Bochor, a son of Isaac, went to Athens in 1863 to work as a tailor. He opened a shop on the corner of Odos Karaiskaki and Ermou. But most people had little money and therefore preferred second-hand clothing. Bochor reworked used clothes and offered them every Sunday at the bazaar at Platia Avyssinias. Business was going well and so, although the bazaar mostly offered antiques, the term “go to the Yussuroum” became popular.

Bochor Yussuroum had seven children. The eldest son, Ilias, expanded his father's business and became a mainstay of Athens' Jewish community. Noah, a younger brother, went to Thessaloniki in 1913 and, together with Abraham Nahmias, opened a shop for hospital supplies. In Thessaloniki, Noah married a Jewish woman from Athens, Mazaltov Habib, who had followed him there. But when the great fire of 1917 destroyed the commercial center of the city as well as Noah's business, Noah returned to Athens with his wife and their first two children. Noah and Mazaltov had a total of six children together. Isaak and Leon were born in Thessaloniki, the following four all in Athens: Moissis, Iakovos, Djoyia and Sterina. Noah Yussuroum shifted his business activities to used military equipment, for example uniforms and tents, now worked with Spyros Kourousis and got his stock of goods at auctions from France to Egypt. In the mid-1920s he was very lucky at an auction of inventory of the Royal City Palace of Athens on Odos Stadiou, which now served as a parliament building. He achieved relative prosperity and was able to build a house for his family in Thisio , an Athens neighborhood northwest of the Acropolis .

Mois graduated from high school and then studied dentistry at the University of Athens . During the Greco-Italian War he served as an anesthetist at the Greek Red Cross and took part - together with his brother Iakovos - in the Battle of Crete (in the Heraklion sector ). Then he joined the Greek resistance against National Socialism and ran the establishment of a Jewish group within the National Liberation Front (EAM), which was mainly recruited from students. In September 1943 he went to Parnitha , the mountain range that separates Attica from Boeotia , specifically to Dervenochoria. There he experienced his baptism of fire when the Germans combed the area. He joined the military arm of the EAM, the ELAS , took the battle name Yiorgos Gazis and served in the Parnassida Battalion in Fokida . His brother Iakovos served in the neighboring 36th Regiment . In January 1944 he was transferred to the Peloponnese and served in the 6th (Corinthian) Regiment. It was there that the most important phase of his resistance activity began. Due to his organizational talent, he was given responsibility for the entire coastal region. He established an ELAS headquarters in Lykoporia , directed and strengthened the bases of Zarouchla and Akrata , built outposts, collected information, had telegraph poles and railway lines destroyed and improved the internal communication structure of ELAS.

Yussuroum's regiment liberated Corinth in August 1944 after the Germans had carried out their final extermination forays . After ELAS laid down his arms in February 1945, he returned to his home community. From 1947 to 1950 he fought on the side of the Greek army in the civil war .

Mois Yussuroum lives in Athens and speaks regularly on current issues.

Honors

• Silver Cross of Honor of the Republic of Greece
• 2015: A garden on the site of the Athens Synagogue was named after his name

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The family name is sometimes also spelled Yousouroum .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Nikos Vatopoulos: Yussuroum, a slang term that hides fragments of history , ekathimerini.com, November 16, 2015, accessed on May 30, 2016.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Jewish Museum of Greece : Mois Yussuroum ( Memento of the original from March 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 30, 2016.
4. ↑ Joanna Kakissis: 'We Are Next': Greek Jews Fear Rise Of Far-Right Party , Interview with Mois Yussuroum, in: NPR parallels, September 4, 2013, accessed May 30, 2016.