One-Man Crusade

Local restaurateur touts Greek Jewish war hero.

BILL CARROLL

a

Special to the Jewish News

Greek war hero
Mordechai Frizis as
a captain

"Col. Frith was
an unsung hero
who deserves
to be better
known and
remembered."

reece's Memorial Day is not
until Oct. 28 — commemora-
tion of the day in 1940 when
Greek military leaders said "no" to sur-
rendering to fascist Italy. But over this
weekend, when the United States histor-
ically has remembered and paid homage
to its war dead, restaurateur Stefanos
Becharas is on a crusade to make sure
no one forgets a Jewish Greek hero of
the early part of World War II.
Becharas, owner of the Gallery
Restaurant in Bloomfield Township,
points out that Col. Mordechai Frizis
won the first major military victory of
the Greek Army against Italy's
attempted invasion of Greece in late
1940. The 47-year-old Frizis was
killed later in an air attack.
"Frizis was an unsung hero who
deserves to be better known and
remembered," said Becharas, who's
doing all he can to make that happen.
Becharas is disseminating informa-
tion and photos of Frizis and his fami-
ly, contacting newspapers and televi-
sion stations and trying to get him a
place of honor in the Holocaust
Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
He became strongly interested in
Frizis when he saw a film about him
last Oct. 28 on one of three TV chan-
nels he picks up from Greece over a
satellite dish at his Troy home.
Frizis, one of 13 children and once
an aspiring lawyer, served as a young
lieutenant in campaigns in Macedonia
and the Ukraine prior to 1920. Sent
by his commander to find supplies for
the troops, he stunned Jewish mer-
chants by speaking to them in
Hebrew.
"They were surprised to learn that a
Jew had become a Greek officer,"
Becharas said, drawing on his knowl-
edge of Greek war history.
Frizis then fought in the Turkish
War of Independence in the 1920s
and spent 11 months as a Turkish
prisoner. Released after the war, he
was promoted and studied military
matters in France. His big battle came
when his ill-armed forces repelled
Mussolini's well-armed Italian fascists .
invading from Albania, leaving hun-
dreds of them dead and taking 700

Stefanos Becharas visits Greece in 1984, stopping at a sign erected by German
tourists apologizing for the atrocities of their German forefathers.

"Col. Frizis always
stayed on his horse in the
battles, riding among his
troops and encouraging
them, even after he
ordered them to dismount
and seek cover.''

prisoners, whom Frizis insisted on
treating humanely.
"This victory was significant because
Hitler then had to send his Nazi
troops to invade Greece to make up
for Italy's failure," Becharas explained..
"This diverted a lot of German man-
power and resources away from .
Germany's battles with England and
Russia, and let them hang on until
America entered the war a year later. It
then took the Germans almost three
months to overrun Greece, longer
than any other county they occupied."
The Nazis annihilated about 70,000
of the 85,000 Greek Jews during the
war; about 5,000 Jews live there now.
Becharas refers to Hitler as an
"anthropomorphic beast," based on

the Greek description of an inhuman
person.
"Col. Frizis was everyone's hero," he
said. "He always stayed on his horse in
the battles, riding among his troops
and encouraging them, even after he
ordered them to dismount and seek
cover.
Buried on the battlefield, Frizis'
fame — and Jewishness — spread in
Greece in recent years, and he was
reburied with honors in Stavroupolis
in 2002. His grandson, a rabbi, who
was named after him, officiated at the
services.
Becharas was a youngster during the
war and saw his brother shot and
wounded by the Nazis. Becharas
served in the Greek Army in peace-
time, coming to America at age 25 in
1961. Married and the father of two,
he has operated the Gallery since
1983.
"Many of my Jewish customers
think I'm Jewish because I know a lot
of Yiddish expressions and tell them
Jewish jokes," he mused.
"Incredibly, 65 years after Col.
Frizis' heroism, I find myself, an
American Greek, fortunate enough to
say that much of my well-being is
owed to the friendship and support of
the local Jewish community."

❑

%TN

5/26
2005

25