The life history of Revekka Politi or Flora Ventouri

Flora Ventouri was one of the few Cretan Jews who escaped forced displacement and survived. Just like Iosif Ventouras, Flora was spared thanks to her personal relationship with Christians.

Flora Ventouri’s birthname was Revekka Politi. Her father, Rafail, worked a barge, a common occupation among the people living near the port of Chania, since boats could not actually moor at the port. Her mother, Chrysoula Forte, was a worker. Revekka had three more siblings. The family could hardly make ends meet, especially after the father’s death during the German occupation.

It was most probably the beginning of 1944 when Revekka met Dimitris Ventouris from Kimolos, a Christian naval engineer. Dimitris fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. Naturally, this proposal was met with resistance since mixed marriages would commonly cause discontent on both sides. In the end, Revekka accepted the proposal and took on her new name: Flora Ventouri.

As her husband was travelling for work, Flora spent the first months of her marriage at her family home in Chania with her mother and siblings. On the dawn of May 21, 1944, when the occupation army blockaded the Jewish quarter and started arresting its residents en masse, Flora fled to the house of her Christian godfather.

After that, Flora’s life changed completely. She left Chania, lost track of her family, and started a new life as a Christian. When the war ended and the few surviving Greek Jews started returning from the concentration camps, Flora searched for her loved ones. That’s when she learned about the Tanais, the ship that was carrying the Cretan Jews off the island only to sink and take all its prisoners with it to the bottom of the sea.

Flora gave birth to her children and enjoyed a comfortable life in Athens and London. It was only in the mid-1970s that she revealed her Jewish identity to her friends and family, prompted by the research conducted by an Israeli historian. Few people knew her story. Since 2000, the restored Etz Hayyim synagogue has been commemorating the victims of Tanais every year. Until recently, Revekka’s name was included in the list of the dead. Flora died in 2015.