[3] On 30 September, the German commandant, Kurt Rikert, summoned Pesach to his office and demanded a list of all Jews and their property within 24 hours, ostensibly for the purpose of determining food rations.

Suspecting the Germans' real motives, Pesach managed to secure an extension of the deadline to three days, and immediately contacted the local Greek authorities: the mayor, chief of police, and the bishop of Demetrias, Joachim Alexopoulos [el].

Provided with false identity papers and with a letter from the bishop to the local clergy to assist however possible, about 700 of the city's Jews dispersed in the countryside, where several joined the partisans.

[1] Pesach himself survived among the partisans in the mountains, but his wife died from the privations, and his two sons, who taught Judaism in Thessaloniki and Didymoteicho, were captured and executed by the Germans.

[7] On 16 April 2015, Pesach's role was commemorated at a special ceremony by B'nai B'rith and the Jewish National Fund at the Forest of the Martyrs in Jerusalem.