Sam Modiano on National Day at the Israeli Embassy

This photo was probably taken on the National Day of Israel in 1955 at the Israeli Embassy in Athens. My father, Sam Modiano, is the second one on the right. There is also the first ambassador, Darrom, and the counsellor. During the Greek-Italian war in 1940, Father became Reuters correspondent to report on the war on the Albanian front. This stood him in good stead after the war when Reuters searched and found him in Athens and promptly gave him a job at a time when we were really starving. After World War II Father worked for Reuters and eventually became the chief correspondent for Greece and Turkey. He was highly respected as an honest and reliable journalist - he was regarded as number one among all the foreign correspondents in Athens. Already before the war he had been made a 'Cavaliere,' a sort of knight of the Italian Crown, and had won the 'Palmes Academiques' from the French Government. He also had decorations from the Spanish and Polish Governments. As a postwar correspondent he was made an OBE, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and received the Gold Cross of the Order of the Phoenix from King Paul of the Hellenes.