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Book Cover for: The Illusion of Safety: The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War, Michael Matsas

The Illusion of Safety: The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War

Michael Matsas

The Illusion of Safety chronicles the little known history of the Holocaust in Greece. Through a collection of personal memoirs of survivors and resistance fighters and wartime reports from the U.S. State Department and Great Britain, Michael Matsas recounts the tragic loss of Greek Jewry. Late in WWII, while the Allied governments knew about Hitler's "Final Solution" and had the means to disseminate information in Greece, the Greek Jews were kept uninformed of the death camps and lulled into complacency. 87% of this historic community was destroyed. In addition, the author recounts his own survival story, as a boy of 13, of his year in a mountain village with his parents and sister, the villagers, and the partisans who saved them.


Book Details

  • Publisher: Vrahori Books
  • Publish Date: Apr 6th, 2021
  • Pages: 482
  • Language: English
  • Edition: New Revised and - 0002
  • Dimensions: 8.50in - 5.50in - 0.97in - 1.22lb
  • EAN: 9780578877075
  • Categories: MemoirsModern - 20th Century - HolocaustEurope - Greece (see also Ancient - Greece)

Praise for this book

"The first extensive study of the fate of the Greek Jews to include both State Department and OSS reports. Sadly and indisputably, those reports reveal the hypocrisy of both Great Britain and the United States." - Fotine Z. Nicholas


"The last major collection to be derived directly from those who experienced the war period in person. " - Professor Steven Bowman


"The Illusion of Safety is a magnificent fusion of objective history with impassioned testimony. It is difficult for us to conceive that in 1943, after more than half of Poland's 3 million Jews had been murdered, the Jews of Greece had no idea what was about to occur." - Professor Curt Leviant


"Michael Matsas has written a major book. The result of thirty years of investigation, research and interviews." - Willard Manus