History of Greek Jewish Community
Germans
The first Jewish community in Greece
to feel the full weight of the Final Solution was Thessaloniki. The Nazis
occupied Thessaloniki on 8 April 1941, and almost immediately started a
discriminatory policy against the Jews of the city. Means were taken to
arouse what anti-Semitic sentiments were present in the Christian Greek
population, and several anti-Semitic publications which had been suppressed
during the dictatorship of Metaxas were revived. A week after the arrival
of the Germans in the city, on 15 April, the entire council of the Jewish
community was arrested and replaced by a new council under the presidency
of Saby Saltiel. This was the first official act in the series culminating
in the annihilation of almost the entire Jewish population of Thessaloniki.
In June 1941 the Jewish Affairs Commission (Judenangelegenbeiten),
generally known as the Rosenberg Commando after the Nazi ideologist Alfred
Rosenberg, arrived in Thessaloniki. Almost immediately its members began
confiscating rabbinical, school, Beth Din, and private libraries, as well
as manuscripts and priceless pieces of liturgical art. All of this was
systematically catalogued, crated, and sent off to the Institute for Jewish
Studies in Frankfurt.
The winter of 1941/2 drove refugees down from Thrace and eastern
Macedonia towards Thessaloniki and Athens. The Bulgarians added to this
flow of refugees by expelling as many as they could of the Greeks living
in Bulgarian territory. The arrival of the refugees caused the already
diminished food supplies in Thessaloniki to give out. Starvation and typhus
exacted their toll, as did summary arrests and executions. The Jews were
not the only people to suffer during these months, but an indication of
the harsh conditions is the contemporary estimate that about 60 Jews died
every day.
The only apparently positive sign for the Jews of Thessaloniki
during this bleak winter was the reinstallation of Zvi Koretz as Chief
Rabbi. Koretz had been arrested on 15 April with the other members of the
council and had been sent to Vienna. His return brought a ray of hope,
soon proven futile, to the community.
The next important incident occurred in early July, 1942. All
Jewish males between the ages of 18 and 45 were ordered to assemble in
Plateia Eleftherias at 8:00 A.M. on the morning of 11 July. It was almost
an act of black humor. Freedom Square had been named to commemorate one
of the first acts of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 when the freedom,
rights, equality, and brotherhood of all subjects of the sultan were declared.
Approximately 3,000 Jewish men assembled as ordered on the hot
and humid Saturday morning. They included every aspect of the Jewish population:
stevedores, laborers, lawyers, doctors, directors of banks, and representatives
of foreign firms in the city. Until late in the afternoon they were forced
to do gymnastics, doused with water, and flogged, all of this under the
gaze of German military and civilian personnel as well as those Greeks
who came to watch. Newspapers the following day proudly described the indifference
of the Christian Greek observers, an indifference reinforced by the silence
maintained by all the city’s professional organizations.
Having tested the public reaction, the Germans recalled the Jews
two days later to repeat the ‘exercise,’ but this time it culminated in
the registration of all present. On the basis of this registration, three
days later, the men began to be called to forced labor in various parts
of Macedonia and Thrace.
The conscriptions had a catastrophic effect on the community’s
already considerably shaken morale. Families were suddenly bereft of their
sole source of support, as well as deprived of family unity and security.
This almost satanic comprehension of Jewish family cohesiveness was the
key to the success of almost every ‘action’ against the Jews in Greece
in the next two years. Individuals chose to be united with their families
in confronting an unknown future rather than be divided in pursuit of their
own survival.
The community did all it could to alleviate the sufferings of
its men. At the end of October a two and one-half billion drachma
‘ransom’ was set, towards which payments were made during the following
months. This extortion absorbed what little remained of the community’s
wealth, for private wealth had long since disappeared. On 6 December the
Jewish cemeteries of the city were confiscated and systematically pillaged
for building material. The Jews were now separated even from their dead.
On 6 February 1943, Dieter Wisliceny, with his assistant Alois
Brunner, arrived to take over the Rosenberg Commando. Within a few days
of his arrival, he ordered the Chief Rabbi, Zvi Koretz, to appear. Koretz
was told that Jewish affairs in Thessaloniki were no longer in the hands
of the Gestapo but had been transferred to the Rosenberg Commando and that
certain of the (anti-Semitic) Nurnberg Laws promulgated in 1935 were to
be put into effect. Jewish identity was defined. Each Jew was to be marked
by a Star of David. Each Jewish store and residence was to be marked both
by a conspicuously apparent Star of David and a sign, in both German and
Greek.
Three ghettos were established, the main one centered around
the Baron Hirsch Hospital compound. All of the Jews of Thessaloniki
were required to move out of their homes into the new ghettos. Jews were
forbidden to belong to any professional or corporate organization and Jewish
organizations were to cease functioning. On 1 March the head of every household
was given a set of forms, so complete that it included room for dogs, cats,
and canaries, in which he was required to list all personal and family
belongings.
On Sunday, 14 March, Rabbi Koretz announced that a series of
convoys, the first of which was to leave the following day, were being
readied to transport the Jews to resettlement in Cracow. The following
morning, as scheduled, 2,500 Jews from the Hirsch Ghetto were herded onto
forty freight cars. Subsequent convoys left on March 17,19,23, and 27.
Convoys left on April 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 20, 22, and 28. Two convoys
left on May 3 and two left on May 9. The 19th and last convoy left Thessaloniki
on August 19. In three months 45,649 people were sent from Thessaloniki
to Auschwitz. Among them were more than 2,000 Jews who had been arrested
in Verroia, Didimoticho, Florina, and Nea Oresteia. Only a handful escaped
the crematoria. Malkhah Israel, the Queen of Israel, as Thessaloniki had
been known for five centuries, was no more.
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