The family of Giorgos and Athina Vlachos were awarded the “Righteous among the Nations” award for rescuing members of a Greek Jewish family during the Holocaust. The award ceremony took place at the Acropolis Museum in Athens on Monday.

The title is awarded to those who helped Jews escape Nazi persecution by Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based museum and institute established to perpetuate the memory of Holocaust victims.

In 1943, the family of Minos Matsas abandoned Athens and with the help of Athina Vlachos’s brother reached Dikastro, a small village in Central Greece. For a year and a half the Matsas family was hosted by Athina and Giorgos Vlachos, while fellow villagers, who suspected the Vlachos household’s guests were Jews, kept quiet. The Matsas family eventually fled Dikastro when Nazi forces started conducting military operations in the area.

Speaking at the event on Monday were Ambassador of Israel Irit Ben-Abba, the president of the central board of Greek Jewish communities and Makis Matsas, son of Minos, among others.

Originally published in ekathimerini.com