Awards

• Winner of Academy of Athens Winner 2017 (Greece)

Overview

"Distributed by University of Exeter Press. 266 duotones. A touching photographic journey, captured in over 500 stereoscopic glass plates by the doctor and photographer Nissim Levis, a member of a prominent family in the Romaniote Jewish community of Ioannina, a city in north-western Greece. They were found by chance, in a historical corner of the city, in the possession of a street vendor who invited passersby to examine them for a fee by looking into a wooden box - ""one frank for the panorama, ladies and gentlemen!"" A charming voyage in time that starts during the last fifteen years of Ottoman rule in Ioannina, with stops along the way for the city's major historical events and for visits to some of the world's most cosmopolitan locales of that period. Most of all, however, it is a small tribute to the memory of a group of individuals who would otherwise have been remembered only as simple rows on the Holocaust Museum's list of victims. At a time when people take photographs on the slightest occasion, take selfies with smartphones and upload all kinds of events to social network pages, the click of the camera seems to have been lost. Thousands of photographs are stored on computer hard drives, may never be viewed again and drift into oblivion in the digital universe. Photographs in fact have their own life, that encompasses living memories and sentiments - just like the glass photographic plates that form the basis of this book. Not only do we see important historical events unfold over the years, but we also see the everyday life of residents from different ethnic and religious groups - Christians, Jews and Muslims - with their various occupations and attire. More than that, the rescued photographs contain valuable information on the diplomatic background and the battle leading to the liberation of Ioannina, and on the historical background and prevailing atmosphere in Europe and in Ioannina between the two World Wars."

Full Product Details

9786185209124

Table of Contents

Reviews

"In March of 1944, the Jews of Ioannina, north-western Greece, Romaniote Jews who had been an essential part of the city’s fabric since Byzantine times, were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. Nine out of ten did not return. Hiette was one of the only members of the Levis family who survived, having gone into hiding on the outskirts of Athens. When she returned with her husband, Asher Moissis, in 1945 to see what had happened to the family house, she found the building had been looted and torched. Only the façade was intact. But that is not the end of the story. This painstakingly researched book, a collection of the restored images, [...] has captions in English and Greek, a pithy and poignant preface by the historian Mark Mazower, and an introduction by Moissis, who describes himself, charmingly, as one who ""reads in French, works in English and multiplies in Greek"". -- A E Stallings"

In March of 1944, the Jews of Ioannina, north-western Greece, Romaniote Jews who had been an essential part of the city's fabric since Byzantine times, were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. Nine out of ten did not return. Hiette was one of the only members of the Levis family who survived, having gone into hiding on the outskirts of Athens. When she returned with her husband, Asher Moissis, in 1945 to see what had happened to the family house, she found the building had been looted and torched. Only the facade was intact. But that is not the end of the story. This painstakingly researched book, a collection of the restored images, [...] has captions in English and Greek, a pithy and poignant preface by the historian Mark Mazower, and an introduction by Moissis, who describes himself, charmingly, as one who reads in French, works in English and multiplies in Greek . -- A E Stallings * Times Literary Supplement *

In March of 1944, the Jews of Ioannina, north-western Greece, Romaniote Jews who had been an essential part of the city's fabric since Byzantine times, were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. Nine out of ten did not return. Hiette was one of the only members of the Levis family who survived, having gone into hiding on the outskirts of Athens. When she returned with her husband, Asher Moissis, in 1945 to see what had happened to the family house, she found the building had been looted and torched. Only the facade was intact. But that is not the end of the story. This painstakingly researched book, a collection of the restored images, [...] has captions in English and Greek, a pithy and poignant preface by the historian Mark Mazower, and an introduction by Moissis, who describes himself, charmingly, as one who reads in French, works in English and multiplies in Greek . -- A E Stallings

Author Information

Alexander Moissis grew up in Greece, close to his father's Romaniote Jewish and his mother's Orthodox Christian families. He studied electrical engineering, computer science and management science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gaining four degrees before moving to Silicone Valley. He lives in California, where he works in English, reads in French and multiplies in Greek. Difficult to describe in one word - rather like his great-grandmothers' uncle, Nissim D. Levis. Mark A. Mazower is a British historian and writer, specialising in modern Greece, 20th century Europe and international history. He is the Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University, and is also currently the director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia.

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