Yvette Manessis Corporon - Something Beautiful Happened: A Story of Survival and Courage in the Face of Evil

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Howard Books

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Copyright 2017 by Yvette Manessis Corporon

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Howard Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Howard Books hardcover edition September 2017

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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco

Jacket design by Jason Gabbert

Jacket art Babak Tafreshi/Getty Images (Island); Maggie Mccall/Arcangel (Woman)

Author photograph By Eroula Dimitriou

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-5011-6111-7

ISBN 978-1-5011-6112-4 (ebook)

For my children, Christiana and Nico.

For the children of my heart, Reat and Lukas.

And for the children who made my heart burst when we found them, Inbar, Sapir, Maayan, Tal and Maiyan.

Live life to the fullest and never give up.

REAT GRIFFIN UNDERWOOD

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

JOHN 1:5

New York

April 13, 2014

I t was 1 a.m. when I walked into Nicos room. His back was to me, but he was still awake. I knew he would be. We all were.

Earlier that day we had gotten a call that didnt seem real. It still doesnt, and I imagine it never will. My 14-year-old nephew, Reat, and his grandfather, Bill, were dead.

Bill and Reat had gone to the Jewish Community Campus in Overland Park, Kansas, so Reat could attend a singing audition. They were shot and killed by a white supremacist neo-Nazi as they exited their car. The man who killed them shouted Heil Hitler! when he was arrested and said he wanted to know what it felt like to kill Jews before he died. He murdered three beautiful people that day, none of whom were Jewish.

I sat on the edge of Nicos bed and reached my hand out to stroke his hair. My sweet nine-year-old boy rolled over to face me, his big brown eyes brimming with tears. And then he spoke, breaking my heart for the second time that day.

Im so sad, Mom, Nico said. I dont understand. When you told me about our family and what they did, you told me the Nazis were gone and that the people were saved. How could this happen?

Nico was right. I did tell him that the Nazis were gone. And I did tell him that the family was safe. Id thought they were. But then I was branded a liar that day, our familys history rewritten by a hate-filled man on a mission to kill Jews.

Nico knew the story as well as I did. Again and again Id told him how during World War II, my Greek grandmother, my yia-yia, was one of a group of islanders who helped hide a Jewish tailor named Savvas and his family from the Nazis. Despite the risk, despite the danger, and despite the fact that they were told that anyone found helping Jews would be killed along with their entire families, not one person on our tiny Greek island gave up the secret of Savvas. Not one. Savvas and his girls were saved and they all survived.

For the past several years, Nico had witnessed my personal journey, my search to find Savvass family, the girls my yia-yia had risked everything for. After countless dead ends and disappointments, I had finally found them. They were a beautiful family, including five people who are alive today because of what happened on our tiny island 70 years ago. We had celebrated with the descendants of Savvass family. We celebrated and cried, because they had survived; goodness had prevailed and the Nazis were gone. That was on Thursday, April 10, 2014.

Three days later, on Sunday, April 13, 2014, we cried again, because Bill and Reat were dead and we realized that the Nazis werent really gone after all.

I dont understand, Nico asked. How could this happen?

How do you accept that tragic irony is a cruelty reserved not merely for Shakespearean plot twists?

How do you admit to your son that monsters exist outside of fairy tales?

How do you explain to a child something you cant understand yourself?

New Rochelle, New York

Spring 1981

Y ou have to roll it out thin; otherwise it will be like biting into bread. And its not bread. Its phyllo. And thin phyllo makes the best pita.

Yia-yia sprinkled more of the fine white flour onto the kitchen table and then rolled out the dough with the old broom handle that she had brought with her from Greece so many years ago. Despite all the gadgets available to modern cooks in America, Yia-yia insisted her trusty broom handle was the secret to perfect pita every time. This time it was patatopita , potato pie, the signature dish of Erikousa, the tiny island where my yia-yia and my father were born and raised.

You want it thin, thin enough to let the light through, but with no holes. Her black dress was covered in a film of white flour. Even the black head scarf she wore knotted under her chin was spotted with white flecks. But Yia-yia paid no mind to her appearance. Her phyllo was perfect. And that was what mattered.

See? Her brown eyes crinkled as she smiled and held up the phyllo for my mother, Kiki, and me to inspect. The afternoon light filtered through the pale beige sheet. Not a single hole. Perfect.

As my mother and yia-yia examined and admired the dough, I stared out the window to the trees in the yard swaying in the summer breeze. I could hear the shrieks and splashing of the neighbors children swimming next door and the laughter of friends riding their bikes and the unmistakable gritty whir of big wheels riding up and down the street. I wanted nothing more than to join them. Or at least to go to the family room (in my friends homes it was a den, in ours it was a family room), lie on the matted, green shag carpet, and watch The Brady Bunch . Maybe even go to my room and read Are You There God? Its Me, Margaret , for the hundredth time. I wanted to be anywhere but there, sitting at that kitchen table watching as my mother and grandmother made food my friends couldnt even pronounce.