Erika Myriam Kounio-Amariglio (1926–2010)

Erika Amarilio, née Kounios, was born to a Jewish family in Thessaloniki, Greece. Before World War II, there was a thriving Jewish community of some 50,000 people in the city. In 1943, the Nazis wiped out virtually the entire community by deporting them to the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Erika and several members of her family survived in part due to a series of coincidences, including the fact that they were on the first transport to Auschwitz and that they spoke fluent German. In 1947, she married Rodolfos Amarilios, with whom she had two children. In 1989-1991, in collaboration with Alberto Nar, she interviewed the few remaining Jewish survivors for a book published in 1998 called Personal Testimonies of the Jews of Thessaloniki About the Holocaust, edited by Frangiskis Abatzopoulou. Erika Kounio-Amarilio's personal memoir, first published in Greek in 1995, describes her two-and-a-half years in Auschwitz; the long death march back to Germany; her family's escape to Yugoslavia; and their eventual reunion in Greece. It concludes with her return to Auschwitz many years later as a delegate to an international conference on the Holocaust. The English translation, From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back, appeared in 2000. The book also was published in German, French, Hebrew, and Serbian editions.