History of Greek Jewish Community
Conclusion
The entire story of the almost total
destruction of Greek Jewry can not be written here. It can only be said
that in 1939 there were over seventy thousand Jews in Greece living in
communities that had histories stretching back over two thousand years
or whose family memories took them back into the rich brocade of medieval
Islamic Spain. In 1945 the total Jewish population of Greece was given
as ten thousand. Those who had not returned had died in Poland. In some
towns a few Jews either survived the deportations, emerged from hiding
or even survived the camps, but returned to find emptyness. Of the Jews
from Crete none survived and Chania has only an empty synagogue, abandoned
by Jews and Christians alike and not even a monument to commemorate the
tragedy. In Zakynthos all the Jews were saved through the efforts of its
archbishop and mayor while in Corfu the mayor and chief of police declared
a public holiday on the day the Jews were deported. From Salonika 15 train
loads over a period of eighteen months emptied the city of its Jews. The
Bulgarians in the manner of Pilate handed the five thousand Jews of Thrace
to the Germans on the Danube. Their fates were sealed at Treblinka.
It is said that the few remaining Jews of Greece
are now vanishing and it has been predicted that within twenty years there
will be no Jews, only individuals living isolated and secularized lives.
This remains to be seen. Unlike the Jewries of Europe, the Jewish presence
in Greece is old, more than two thousand years and with the exception of
the Second World War there has never been a moment of unrelenting persecution.
There have been times when they all but vanished only to suddenly witness
the rebirth of communities or the arrival of Jews from elsewhere, for the
Jews of Greece have more than once offered haven to those fleeing from
far-off lands.
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