Andreas L. Seficha

Andreas Seficha was born in Thessaloniki in 1929. The only child of Lazaros Seficha and Daisy Matalon, Sephardic Jews, he grew up in an environment that combined Jewish traditions, Greek education, and the cosmopolitan customs of Thessaloniki's early 20th-century aristocracy. During the German Occupation, his family found refuge on a Christian family's farm in Argos. He attended the Experimental School of Thessaloniki and studied Economics in Lausanne, after which he returned to manage the family industrial goods trading business "HEPHAESTUS." Actively involved with the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki (JCT) since 1975, he served as its president from 1993 to 2001. His tenure was marked by significant initiatives (the monument to the Greek Jewish Victims of the Holocaust, the establishment of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki) that embodied his vision of restoring the city's historical memory. He was married to Nelly Kamchi-Seficha, with whom he had Daisy, Larry, and Vicky. He passed away in November 2007.