Meet Dr. Michael Matsas, author of The Illusion of Safety: The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War. 

Dr. Michael Matsas was born in 1930 in Ioannina, Greece. From October 1943 to October 1944, he survived WWII in the free Greek mountains with his immediate family. He graduated as a dentist from the University of Athens in 1953 and served as a dental officer for three years in the Greek Army. In his last year, he was the dentist of the Military Academy of Athens.

The Illusion of Safety is a very personal subject for the author. He lost one hundred twenty six close relatives in the Holocaust. They were members of the vibrant Jewish community of Ioannina. Michael believes they could have saved themselves just as his immediate family did.

Portrait of the author’s grandparents Nahoum and Sarina Matsas and their children, Ioannina, 1920.

In 1956, Michael Matsas came to the United States as a postgraduate student at Georgetown University Dental School in Washington, DC. After ten days in New York and Washington, he fell in love with the USA and its people. He accepted the torture of studying for four additional years in order to obtain his American dental degree. Since 1960, he has lived in Maryland with his family.

The author has created this website as a supplement to his book, The Illusion of Safety: The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War, second edition (2021), to provide more information about the Greek Jews during the Holocaust. This includes supplemental information, selected index, and an updated bibliography, Dr. Matsas’ interviews and lectures, and additional resources. The second edition is an update to his original book by the same title published in 1997 by Pella Publishing Co.