Jonathan Petropoulos, the John V. Croul Professor of European History and director of The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at CMC, will deliver the keynote address for evening ceremonies honoring the Tuesday, Feb. 19 opening of the photo exhibit Hidden Children in Occupied Greece, at the Levy Family Exhibit Center in Los Angeles, 10500 Wilshire Blvd.
Under the aegis of U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos and Greek Ambassador Alexandros Mallias, Hidden Children in Occupied Greece presents the stories of 16 Jewish children form Greece who escaped death with the help of their Christian compatriots during Greece's Nazi occupation. The exhibition, organized by the Greek Consulate General in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Office of the American Jewish Committee, is co-sponsored by the Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel and the American Friends of the Jewish Museum of Greece, and is supported by the Maurice Amato Foundation and the Rhodes Jewish Historical Society. The photos will be on exhibit through April 18.
Petropoulos, whose own Greek father shared with him vivid stories about living in Greece during the Nazi occupation, served as research director for art and cultural property on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, and is an author and international expert on Nazi looting. Petropoulos also recently appeared with a handful of experts in the two-hour documentary The Rape of Europa, a story of the "systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and miraculous survival of Europe's art treasures during the Third Reich and the Second World War," juxtaposed with the story of artist Gustav Klimt's famed Gold Portrait, also known as the Golden Adele.
In addition to Petropoulos, the Feb. 19 ceremony in Los Angeles will include remarks from former Gov. of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis, members of the Consular Corps, representatives of city and county institutions, and leaders of Jewish and Greek Orthodox organizations of California.