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, where his family had lived for over 300 years. During his childhood, he moved to Agrinion, which the German troops invaded in September 1943. He fled with his sister and parents to the free Greek mountains and hid in the remote village of Psilorrahos until October 1944. 126 of his close relatives died in the Holocaust.

Dr. Matsas received his DDS from the University of Athens in 1953 and served as a dental officer in the Greek army and the Military Academy of Athens. In 1956, Dr. Matsas immigrated to the United States and continued practing dentistry. He married his wife in 1960 and has two daughters and five grandchildren. He lives in Maryland.

He has created this website as a supplement to his book, originally published in 1997 and expanded in 2021, to provide more information about the Greek Jews during the Holocaust.