It was 75 years ago this week when the Nazi forces occupying Greece perpetrated a horrible crime: the deportation of 46,000 Jews from Thessaloniki. The Macedonian capital, Greece’s second largest city, had been the home of more than 50,000 Jews who were sent to the concentration camps – and to their death. This turn of events has had a significant impact to the city’s fabric, forever changing its nature.
Once heralded as the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’, a true multicultural centre of commerce and arts, Thessaloniki became largely monocultural. No more than four per cent of those sent to the camps managed to survive; some of them returned to the city where their ancestors – mostly Sephardic Jews chased out of Spain in 1492 – had lived and thrived for centuries, only to see their properties devastated and belongings appropriated, even by their neighbours.
Despite all that, there has been little talk about the city’s Jewish past and affiliations – up until recently. Five years ago, Mayor Yannis Boutaris established an annual day to commemorate the plight of the Thessaloniki Jews and this year’s 75th anniversary was an opportunity for the largest turnout yet, with hundreds of people marching in the street.
“The memory must remain alive, not only to pay tribute to the victims of this atrocity but to always keep alive before us the image of the horror that we can find ourselves living again, if we do not learn from the past,” said Deputy Economy and Development Minister Stergios Pitsiorlas, addressing the crowd on behalf of the Greek government. “These are days when we must take action to avert the hatching of many ‘serpents’ eggs’ that threaten us. Nationalism, racism are great problems that have not been eradicated and can easily return to the forefront. We must refuse them the way so that humanity does not again live through the horror that the Jews of Thessaloniki and the world once did.”
Mayor Boutaris also delivered a speech, as well as Israel’s Ambassador to Greece Irit ben Abba and the head of the Jewish community David Saltiel, who said: “the voices of 50,000 deported Thessaloniki Jews must not be forgotten. It is time for Greece to delve back into its memory.”
Among the participants were members of the city’s Jewish community (which now barely numbers a thousand people), residents and many visitors, making testament to the growing importance of memorial tourism to the city (in 2016, half a million Israelis were reported to have visited Greece). One of them particularly stood out: 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Moshe Aelion defied his frail health and flew from Israel to the rainy Macedonian capital, leading the march from Elefterias Square to the Old Railway Station, from where the first train left for the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau on 7. April 1943. He was 18 at the time, and was sent to Auschwitz along with his mother and his 16-year-old sister. He was the only survivor and he vividly remembers the day the U.S. soldiers came to the rescue. “When an American tank came there was a little Greek flag,” he told the Greek media. “The soldier inside was Greek living in the US with his family. We sang together the Greek National Anthem.”