Holocaust Survivor Keeps Midtown Looking Good

Editor's note: Eli Sotto died in his sleep in Dunwoody, Thursday, April 13, two weeks shy of his 94th birthday. Patch is running this story from a few years ago in remembrance of him.

Business is booming for Eli Sotto, the 87-year-old proprietor of The Trim Shop in Midtown.

On a recent Saturday at his barbershop in the lower level of the Biltmore Hotel, a steady stream of customers poured in to await their turn in the barber chair facing West Peachtree Street.

“I started getting my hair cut by Eli in 1966,” said Hugh Fordyce, a long-time Midtown resident. “We developed a real friendship.

"He’s not just a barber. Eli is a real inspiration.”

Sotto’s story indeed inspires. Customers old and new learn that the native of the port city of Thessaloniki, Greece, learned the hairstyle trade from his father, who got ill and passed on his comb and scissors to Sotto when he was 17.

Sotto and his older brother were the main breadwinners for the family of 10 when the Germans invaded Greece and moved their family, along with thousands of Greek Jews, into concentration camps.

“They started sending about 3,000 at a time to the [concentration] camps,” said Sotto, who spent the early 1940s imprisoned in seven concentration camps, including Dachau and Auschwitz. Because he cut the hair of Nazi commanders in the camps, Sotto was the only member of the family to survive the war.

“More than once I was in line for the gas chamber,” Sotto said. “They put a sign on me with ‘barber for commander’ and it saved me.”

In 1945, Sotto was on a camp-bound train outside of Prague when the Allies attacked it.

“Civilians came to help the sick on the train,” Sotto said. “The Red Cross and nuns begged the Germans to take the sick from the train, and eventually they did.”

The war ended the following week, and in about six months, Sotto made it back to Greece. There, he met his wife, another Holocaust survivor who lost everyone in her family.

During several years of civil war in Greece during the late 1940s, the young couple dreamed of a new start in the United States.

“A friend of mine came home from Georgia and told me about it,” Sotto said. “He said the climate was like Greece.”

Upon arriving in Atlanta, the couple set up residence near Grant Park, and Sotto hustled to get a barber job. He eventually bought a shop with the assistance of a customer who was a lawyer. The shop operated on Peachtree Street between 6th and 7th streets for 53 years, until construction of a Midtown high rise prompted Sotto's move to the Biltmore seven years ago.

“I lost customers in the move,” Sotto said.

But now he's made new customers, including Gordon Moss of Johns Creek, who works in the Biltmore. Moss recently was in the shop with his 15-year-old son, Ryan, who got a buzz cut for school.

“It’s kind of nice to come to a good old-fashioned barber,” Moss said. “So I came here a couple of times, and now brought my son for the experience.”

After shaving the head of Moss’ son with electric clippers, Sotto stepped back to inform his young customer, “Now you look like Yul Brynner,” which earned him a round of laughter from six customers in the shop.

Sotto said the typical haircut takes about 30 minutes. While working on Peachtree Street, he enjoyed visits from celebrities in town for a Fox Theatre performance. His most famous customer was Mayor Maynard Jackson, whose photo appears in frames and scrapbooks in The Trim Shop.

Sotto’s fondest recent memory was courtesy of Fordyce, who arranged to have a day in 2010 proclaimed “Eli Sotto Day” in Atlanta. You can find a plaque from the city and a gallery of framed articles and photos on the shop walls.

First-time customer Jaime Benedetti said he was always curious about the Midtown establishment.

“I’ve been living in Midtown for five years and always wanted to come in,” Benedetti said.

Sotto replied “gracias” in Spanish, one of nine languages Sotto can speak fluently. He also speaks German, French, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Russian, English and Greek.

Fordyce said that it’s not just the friendship and international exchanges that keep him coming back to The Trim Shop.

“Eli is kind of an institution for Atlanta,” Fordyce said. “He demonstrates the best Atlanta and Midtown can be.”