Vaso Stamatiou, the last Greek survivor of Auschwitz, has passed away. She was one of the few Greek women imprisoned who were not Jewish and survived this terrible ordeal.
She had the number '82224' written on her hand.
Stamatiou was born in Aridaia of Pella and grew up in Thessaloniki. On March 28, 1944, at the age of 19 and while she was a law student, she was captured by the Germans, and on April 1, she was transferred from Pavlos Melas Prison to Banica Prison outside of Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Later, on June 28, she was transferred to Auschwitz in Poland and on September 30 to Ravensburg, Germany. On October 27, the Nazis took her to the Buchenwald camp.
She managed to return after the war to Thessaloniki on September 14, 1945.
After the liberation, according to a Communist Party of Greece (KKE) announcement, she went to Milan, Italy and studied theatre costume design and fashion costume.
Stamatiou returned to Greece and took charge of the wardrobe of the Lyric Theatre. She also received a diploma in scenography from the School of Fine Arts in Athens.
A few months ago, the head of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoubas, had met her at the "Old People's Home - Petri Foundation" in Stylida, where Stamatiou spent the last few years of her life.
"It was shocking for me, I considered it a great honour, a great joy, the opportunity to speak and meet her. She is a woman, a real fighter of life, of our world," he said.
The funeral of Vaso Stamatiou will take place on Saturday at 12:30 at the church of Agia Aikaterini in Stylida.
READ MORE: “Never Again”: The Jews of Thessaloniki and the Holocaust.
