Mordechai or Mordechaios Frizis (January 1, 1893 - December 5, 1940) was a Greek Romaniote Jew, the first senior Greek officer who was killed fighting heroically in the Greco-Italian War. Mordechaios Frizis was born in 1893 in Chalkida to a large family. His dream was to become an officer. He took exams at the Evelpidon School but dropped out. There are two versions of this, a) that he considered it derogatory that he did not come first and b) that because of his Jewish religion he was not accepted [3]. He took exams at the University and succeeded in Law.

At 3 a.m. on the morning of October 28th, 1940, Emanuele Grazzi, the Italian ambassador to Greece, delivered an ultimatum from Benito Mussolini to Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas. “Il Duce” demanded that Metaxas allow the Italian army free passage to enter and occupy strategic sites in Greece unopposed.

The bones of 573 Greek soldiers that fell in the mountains of Albania during the 1940-1941 Greco-Italian war, at the start of WWII, will finally be laid to rest on Friday and receive a proper burial after 70 years, during a funeral ceremony to be held at a new Greek military cemetery in Kelcyra, Albania at noon.