ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — Mario Modiano, a Jewish-Greek journalist who chronicled some of the most turbulent times of modern Greek history, died at the age of 86.
Modiano, whose family survived the Holocaust that decimated the historic Jewish community of Thessaloniki by fleeing to Athens, died Monday. He was 86.
He covered Greece and Turkey for The Times of London newspaper for 38 years and also worked for the BBC. His work covered the rise and fall of the military dictatorship in Greece between 1967 and 1974, and tensions with Turkey over the invasion and partition of Cyprus.
Modiano was awarded an Order of the British Empire from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Born to a prominent Jewish family in Thessaloniki in 1926, Modiano and his immediate family hid from the Germans in Athens during World War II.
After retiring from journalism in 1990, Modiano spent his days researching his family’s history of more than 400 years in Thessaloniki, eventually publishing the book “Hamehune Modillano — the Genealogical Story of the Modiano Family from 1570 to Our Days.”
