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Elli Stassinopoulos

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When did Elli show courage?

Arianna Huffington
One other thing to add to the story Agapi told below (read first). When the soldiers asked her if there were any Jews among them, she unhesitatingly replied, 'no.' When she had told this story to my children once, I remember one of them asking, 'So, Yaya [Greek for grandmother] -- you lied?' [Her answer:] 'To save two lives? You bet I did' ... giving them an important lesson in ethics and courage.
Agapi Stassinopoulos
My mother had joined the Greek Red Cross as a nurse when the Second World War broke out. ... In the remote cabin where they tended the wounded, they were also sheltering two Jewish girls in flight from the Nazis and their Greek collaborators. One night, my mother was sitting combing her hair ... when three German soldiers burst in with their guns and opened fire, shouting orders to give up the Jews they were hiding. The woman next to her was hit and fell to the ground. In an instant, without a thought for what might happen to her, my mother rose up and in fluent German said, "Put your guns down! You have no right to shoot -- we are Red Cross!" In the next instant, she saw the three Germans lower their guns.