War hero’s remains recovered
The remains of the first senior Greek officer to die in battle during World War II have been located in southern Albania and are to be flown to Thessaloniki for burial next week, a newspaper report said yesterday. Colonel Mardokaios Frizis, a Greek Jew born in Halkida, was killed on his horse during an Italian air raid on December 5, 1940, while leading his troops 30 km (18 miles) inside Albanian territory – where Greek forces had pushed back the Italian advance that started on October 28. Having for years ignored appeals by Frizis’s son, Iakovos, in January the Foreign Ministry instructed the Greek Embassy in Tirana to coordinate efforts to recover the 47-year-old colonel’s bones, the Eleftheros Typos daily said. The search was facilitated by one of Frizis’s comrades-in-arms, who described the site where the colonel was buried by his men. And a few days ago, the remains were located under an oak tree near the village of Tremist. They will be flown by military aircraft to Thessaloniki on October 23, and reinterred the following day in the city’s Jewish cemetery.
