Growing up, Yvette Manessis Corporon would often hear the incredible story of her grandmother's bravery during World War II. A child of Greek immigrants from the main island, Corfu, Corporon wouldn't come to understand or appreciate just how amazing her grandmother really was until Corporon became an adult and started doing some research into her family history.
During Nazi Germany's occupation of Corfu, Jewish residents were rounded up and sent to their deaths at Auschwitz. But Corporon's grandmother and a group of her fellow islanders worked to keep a Jewish tailor named Savas and his family safe until Corfu was liberated from the Nazis.
"The Nazis came to search my grandmother's home when my father was 9 years old," Corporon tells Guideposts.org, "and the Nazis said, 'We will kill you all and your entire family.'" Still, no one in the community gave up that Corporon's grandmother was hiding the Jewish family, and the Nazis never found them.
"My grandmother risked her life, risked everything simply because it was the right thing to do. She had nothing to gain. Despite that there was famine on the island, they barely had enough food for themselves, but every day she would put food aside to make sure this family had something to eat. Those moments, those nuggets of information really put a new perspective on things."
The Emmy Award winning-writer and producer was so inspired by her grandmother's story that she turned it into the plot of her novel, When the Cypress Whispers. Using the ancestry website MyHeritage.com, Corporon was not only able to dig deeper into her own family history, she was able to find and contact the descendants of Savas but was surprised to learn that they knew nothing of the trauma their ancestors had gone through on account of the Nazis in Greece.
"[The family] had no idea what I was talking about. They never discussed the War [or the Holocaust]. But through MyHeritage.com, I was able to find two families my grandmother helped 70 years after the Holocaust. I was able to fill in the blanks for them about what happened back then. It's simply incredible."
As a result of finding her roots, Corporon now feels a new sense of purpose and encourages everyone to find out as much as possible about their ancestry.
"As a child of immigrants, it’s not unique to want to be all-American and I wasn’t; we were very Greek. And I was a little embarrassed by that. I wanted to have Rice Krispy treats and my grandmother made fishead soup. She wore black and didn’t speak a word of English. So I wanted to be like everyone else, I wanted to blend in. So when I look back on what I thought of her and how I really didn’t take the time to acknowledge and recognize just how really magnificent she was, it makes me really sad. It also makes me really inspired to make sure other people don’t make the same mistakes I did, to value where we come and celebrate it."
This holiday season, she says, is a perfect time for families to start making these connections to the past. "Everyone’s gathered around the table, lots of generations. Maybe this is the one shot a year so take advantage of it. I have two children and there are no phones allowed at our dinner table ever, except…to record their grandparents. I want them to record video of them asking their grandparents, getting to know them, what their childhood was like. I want the kids to be involved. Other people should do that as well."
"Get in the kitchen, document those wonderful family recipes that have been passed down for generations. Many years down the line, they’ll all be really grateful that they have that."
Find your family history at MyHeritage.com and get 30% off using Corporon's code "CYPRESSWHISPERS".
