PACIFIC GROVE, Calif., June 17, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- In dire times, people do what is necessary to survive. The Holocaust has been greatly documented over the decades as survivors describe the deplorable and horrifying facts of Nazi death camps and the millions of innocents who fell victim to the awful genocide. The new book, Legacy of Courage: A Holocaust Survivor Story in Greece (now available through 1stBooks), by Frederic Kakis, is a different kind of survival story, one of resistance.
Kakis tells his true experiences as a Jewish child growing up in German-occupied Greece and his family, who decided early on that the best way to escape deportation was to resist.
"This is a tale of defiance, courage and stubborn refusal to obey the German directives that were designed to lead an entire Jewish population like lambs to the slaughter," Kakis says.
He tells the story through his young eyes as his life went from one of comfort to one of struggle as he assumed roles he was never prepared for, like thief, saboteur, black marketer and resistance fighter. His mother, the heroine of his memoir, became a widow after her husband was killed fighting for the Greek resistance. Despite her affluent background, she was able to adapt to the dire circumstances, take the reins and lead her family through a voyage of constant danger, starvation, hiding and resistance. Their journey was filled with close calls and narrow escapes.
Beginning with the calm, comfortable and affluent times shortly before the Bulgarian invasion of Greece, Kakis guides the reader through a complex escape route that led to being exiled three times, living in constant danger and always running just ahead of their captors. His story is intertwined with little-known facts about Greece's struggle for independence from the occupying armies. Kakis reveals the nature, composition, historic roles, origins and ultimate fate of the major resistance units and Jewish people of Greece.
Kakis is a native of Greece and grew up during World War II. At the end of the war, he migrated to the U.S. He graduated from the City College of New York and later earned his doctorate from Stanford University. Joining the faculty of Chapman University, he served as professor of chemistry, chairman of the chemistry department, chairman of the division of natural sciences and associate vice president of academic affairs. A popular speaker and prolific writer, he has written many scientific papers and contributed numerous articles to national and international journals and publications. He has published a well-known book, Drugs-Facts and Fictions, and was co-author of a book about steroids. He has also written his own forensic column for a number of years in Claims People.
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