The Decimation of the Jews of Thessaloniki

• By Robert K. StephemSpecial to The Suburban
• Jun 20, 2018
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I was always vaguely aware of the Jewish population in Thessaloniki Greece after several visits to that city. I became more interested when I heard, mistakenly, that there was a Holocaust Museum newly opened in Thessaloniki. The fact is that the Museum is contemplated but construction is not yet underway. It may be 2021 before it is opened.

However, there is a Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki located at 13 Aghiou Mina which is open Monday to Friday from 10-3 and Sunday 10-2. The Museum was founded to honour Sephardic heritage as it evolved in Thessaloniki after the 15th century. They brought printing, medicinal sciences and knowledge of contemporary weaponry with them when expelled from Spain in 1492.

On the ground floor of the Museum are monumental stones and inscriptions that were once found in the great Jewish necropolis that lay to the east of the city walls. Accompanying these stones are a series of photographs showing the Jewish cemetery as it was in 1914.

Central to the first floor of the Museum is a narrative history of the Jewish presence in Thessaloniki from the third century BC until the Second World War.

There is also a Holocaust Memorial on the waterfront at Elefttherias Square and Nikis & Eleftheriou . Venizelos.

It is thought the first Jews arrived as early as 140 B.C. from Alexandria, Egypt. In 1492 Spain exiled some 20,000 Sephardic Jews and the Ottomans who controlled Thessaloniki accepted them. At one point the Jewish population reached close to 70,000. Further influxes of persecuted Jews from Portugal and Italy added to the Jewish population in Thessaloniki.

According to the 1913 census the population of Thessaloniki was 157,889 comprising 61,349 Jews, 39,956 Orthodox Greeks, 45,867 Turks 6,263 Bulgarians and 4,364 “foreigners”.

By 1940 there were some 500,000 tombs in the Jewish cemetery.

The first blow to the Jewish Community struck in 1917 with The Great Fire of Thessaloniki that left more than 50,000 Jews homeless and virtually destroyed the entire Jewish quarter. The fire destroyed the office of the Chief Rabbinate, sixteen synagogues, administrative offices, welfare offices and 11 schools including the Alliance Israelite University. This caused many Thessaloniki Jews to immigrate to Paris. In fact, the former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy is a descendant of the Thessaloniki Jewish immigrants.

The beginning of the end started with the entry of the Germans in 1941. In July of 1942 just about the entire population of 50,000 Jews were assembled in the main square and publicly forced to undergo humiliating acts. In March of 1943 the transport of Thessaloniki Jews to Auschwitz/Birkenau began. Some 50,000 Jews were transported to the camps. The Greek train engineers driving the trains were forced by the Nazis on pain of death to drive the transport trains. One person I met explained how his relative never recovered from driving those trains. Some 50,000 Jews from Thessaloniki were transported with most being exterminated. 96.5% of Thessaloniki Jews died in the death camps in Poland.

Thessaloniki was liberated in 1944. Today there remains a synagogue serving an estimated population of 1,000 Jews.