the history of the jews of salonika and the holocaust: an exposé

7/27/2019 The History of the Jews of Salonika and the Holocaust: An Expos

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History of the Jews of Thessaloniki and the Holocaust

2013 Sephardic Horizons page 1 of 43Paul Isaac Hagouel, [email protected]

The History of the Jews of Salonika and the Holocaust:

An Expos1

By

Paul Isaac Hagouel2

Introduction

The history of the Jewish presence in Salonika may be partitioned into the following

chronological periods: A) From ancient times to 1492 CE, B) From 1492 to the occupation of

Salonika by the German Armed Forces in April 9, 1941, C) The period of the German Occupation

(April 9, 1941 to October 30, 1944) and D) From the date of liberation to the present.

When did the Holocaust start and when did it end? How is the Holocaust defined?

Certainly it is not only the chronicle and narration of miseries such as persecutions and murders

inside gas chambers. Moreover, it is not inherently, and should not be harnessed as a pity producing

mechanism. The persecution and physical annihilation of Jews by the Germans is only the

culmination of the process and event that came to be known as the Holocaust. The term Holocaust

incorporates all primal causes irrespective of how far back the past must be traced. Also included in

the definition are actions or failures to react by any individual, group, society and/or state, that

tolerates or worse, kindles activities that may lead to possible Holocausts of communitiesJewishor otherwise. Thus, the Holocaust is a function of both the past and the subsequent time span of the

actual annihilation that was, simultaneously, the crux and the apex of the event.. Remembrance-

memory and its transmission are paramount both as a leverage for the admittance of any guilt and/or

responsibility from the perpetrators, and as a catalyst for teaching humanity the traps of prejudice,

racism and injustice.

Per the partitioning on which this current expos relies, the history of pre-Holocaust JewishSalonika is comprised of two chronological periods: ancient times to 1492 CE and 1492 to the 1941

commencement of German occupation. However, the Holocaust history of the Jews of Salonika

itself is not so precisely partitioned. This history spans rather than being precisely bound. It starts

prior to the German occupation and does not end on May 8, 1945 with the final liberation of all

German concentration and death camps.

The History of Jewish Salonika up to the Annihilation

A. From Ancient Times to 1492 CE

Starting with the first period of history but lacking any precise indications we assume that a

Jewish presence was established with arrivals from Alexandria, Egypt around 140 BCE. Those Jews

that settled the geographic area of modern day Greece came to be known as Romaniotesadistillation of a Jewish community of the Hellenistic and Roman era.3They adopted the Greek

language while retaining and incorporating elements of Hebrew and Aramaic as well as the Hebrew

script. Their names were also Hellenized. The oldest and most insulated Romaniote Community up

to the Holocaust (1944) was the one of Ioannina (or Janina) in the Epirus district.4

There exist early written proofs about a Jewish presence in Salonika (and elsewhere in

Greece) by Strabo () and Philo Judaeus among others.5Still, the written proof of a Jewish

presence in Salonika as a result of the visit by Saul of Tarsus, better known as Apostle Paul, usuallycomes to mind. Apostle Paul preached at the synagogue during his stay in Salonika. The synagogue,

according to tradition, was calledEitz Chayim(The Tree of Life).


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For many centuries Salonika was initially part of the Roman Empire and later part of the

Eastern Roman, Byzantine Empire. The city and its citizens were subject to the fortunes and

misfortunes that befell the Empire. A particularly emotive episode of the first period (i.e. till 1492)

is March 26, 1430: the day when Salonika fell to the Ottoman Turks. In terms of the citysJewishinhabitants, they shared the same fate as their co-religionists from all over the Empire. Of first

order, during the Roman era they enjoyed wide autonomy that was curtailed when Byzantium tookhold with a usurpation characterized by the establishment of Christianity as the state religion. The

gravity of Christianity in Salonika is discernable upon noting that Salonika is second only to

Constantinople (stanbul) in the number and importance of Byzantine monuments, mostlyChurches.6

This first period (specifically 1376) sees the establishment of the first settlement of

Ashkenazi Jews. These persecuted souls arrived from Hungary and Germany, and their influx

continued for the following several centuries.7Even though restrictive measures were instituted

against the Jews by a succession of Byzantine emperors overall, Jews were allowed to live in

relative freedom and according to the laws and traditions of their religion as they continued to

develop and enrich their unique heritage.8They also arrived from Provence, from the mainlandItalian Peninsula, as well as Sicily. This multitude of place origins was reflected in the names of

their respective houses of worship that harked back to geographical origins beyond Salonika.

The conquest of Byzantine Salonika by the Ottoman Turks in 1430 transformed in part, the

character of the city. The new Muslim element of the population was, if not generally the most

numerous, always the most privileged and hegemonic, institutionally and socially speaking. Despite

this hegemony, Sultan Murat II introduced pragmatic administrative rules for the city to function.

These included the granting of certain privileges such as communal autonomy and various tax

exemptions to both Jews and Christians alike.

Such changes primed the local Jewish population for the most pivotal event in its almost twomillennia history: the settlement of the first contingent of perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 Jews from

Spain. The word for Spain in HebrewSepharadis the eponymous word for the overarchingcategorization known as Sephardic Jews, the culturally generated distinction to which this first

contingent of settlers belonged. These Jews were forced to either convert to Christianity or leave the

Iberian Peninsula a few years after 1492. This exodus was a direct consequence of the Royal Edict

of March 13, 1492 issued by the Spanish Catholics King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Thus, this

Edict is also known as the Expulsion Edict.9The settlement of those refugees in Salonika

effectively concludes the first time period of the history of Jews in Salonika.

B. From 1492 to April 9, 1941

Spanish Jews settled in all seaside urban centers of the Ottoman Empire after Sultan Vayazit

II extended them a welcome. One of the goals of the Sultan might have been to repopulate and

revitalize Salonika, which by 1492 was in decline and depopulated. The invigoration of the dormant

city by the new arrivals changed again its character. It was now imbued with the Sephardic tradition

and Spanish language that uniquely defines its Jewish population up to the present day.

The 16thand 17thcenturies see, yet again, an influx of various Jewish groups coming from a

multitude of places, among them Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Italy and North Africa.10The

dominant Sephardic element prevailed over all newcomers, Sephardic or otherwise. Cultural growth

along with economic growth lasted until the beginning of the 17thcentury when new sea routes as


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well as the involvement of the Ottoman Empire in military campaigns brought economic malaise

and cultural decline.

The 17thcentury is marked by the appearance of Sabbetai Sevy (or Sabathei Tzevi, or Cevy)

of Smyrna (modern day Izmir) declaring himself to be the long expected and awaited messiah, self

appointed king of Israel and savior of the Jewish people. Jews all over Europe heeded his message

since their yearning for deliverance from oppression facilitated the acceptance of his claim.11

Theresult for Salonika was the splitting of the Community into believers and non-believers. When the

Ottoman authorities induced him to convert to Islam, a few hundred families followed him into

conversion and thus created the complex minority of Judeo-Muslims, orDnme(Turncoats). The

converts are also known by their preferred name, ha-Mamimi.e. the Believers.12Jumping ahead,

this peculiarity of being outwardly identified as Muslims saved them from the Germans wrathsince they were expelled from Greece as Muslims in the 1923 forced population exchange with

Turkey based exclusively on religion.

As was to be expected, this event split the Community with hundreds of families adhering to

their belief in Tzevi. This turmoil, coupled with an economic crisis, ultimately forced the

centralization of the administration of the Community (circa 1680) under the leadership of a singlecouncil comprised of three rabbis and seven secular members.

The stagnation persisted up to around the middle of the 19thcentury. The Community and

the city as a whole emerged from this lethargy and hibernation to its renaissance around that time.

The Industrial Revolution, European Enlightenment, as well as the new socio-political conditions

prevailing in the Ottoman territories are in part responsible for the reversing of the trend and the

ushering of the new environment.13From 1871 onwards the railroad connected Salonika with North

West Europe and Constantinople-stanbulto the East. Modern western industrial products madetheir appearance, further invigorating via commerce, the interaction of the local distinct groups of

the population. The main groups that lent the city its multicultural and multiethnic character were

distinguishable either linguistically, by religious persuasion, or by geographic origin. A snapshot ofthe city would reveal Greek speaking Orthodox Christian Greeks (by ethnicity and origin), Muslims

of predominantly Ottoman origin speaking Turkish and finally Jews, overwhelmingly Sephardic

and speaking Ladino. All groups maintained their own exclusive customs.14Typifying

distinctiveness, the Dnme were also represented.

Ultimately, exclusive communal identities ostensibly complicated the actualization of

imperial citizenship and a general Ottoman identity.15Attempting to pragmatically deal with such

complications, the administration of the Ottoman Empire had granted some privileges to its subjects

of non-Ottoman origin. Thus, it was in the name of Ottoman imperial citizenship that subjects of

non-Ottoman origin were allowed to benefit from such pragmatic efforts as Capitulations.16In a

pointed way, such allowances did not signify a melting pot and even though this arrangement

served the needs of the Sublime Porte for some time, it ultimately sanctioned the exact tensions

wrought by the existence of various ethnic groups. This sanctioning foreshadowed the

disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19thand early 20thand the rise of various nation

states.

Narrowing our focus once again to the level of the city, it can be said that Salonika boasted a

number of very wealthy Jewish families amidst a majority who were daily bread earners, living a

hand to mouth existence, albeit while retaining their centuries old customs, their language and their

traditions. Thus, next to the dozens of new schools created by the Community, the prominent

factories, wholesale and retail shops named after their Jewish owners, the Community alsomaintained social welfare institutions in order to assist and support deprived, destitute and/or sick


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members. As part of this infrastructure there existed orphanages, health care facilities, and an old

age home.

Many newspapers circulated in Judeo Espagnol (i.e. JewishJudeo Spanish otherwiseknown as Ladino) and in French. Due to the presence of the Alliance Isralite Universelle French

teaching and schooling became available.17Furthermore, a Socialist Workers Federation by the

name of La Federacin was created in 1909.18

The dawn of the year 1912 found a Community, Sephardic to its core, with elements of

cosmopolitanism among its elite. Interestingly, in 1911 David Ben Gurion came to and resided in

the city in order to attend the Ottoman Civil Servant Preparatory School (dadi) because, at thetime, Palestine was still under Ottoman rule and he wanted to acquaint himself with the

particularities of Ottoman administration.

Greek Salonika

The year 1912 is a demarcation point of the second period of Jewish Salonika (14921941). The outcome of the Balkan wars finds the modern Greek state, Hellas, victorious against the

Ottoman Turks and Salonika in its fold.19The incorporation of Salonika in the Greek State had the

following immediate consequences: first, the overwhelmingnear totalmajority of theinhabitants of Jewish religious origin became Greek citizens. Second, Salonika became a border

city of a nation state in contrast to its previous position up until then, that of a major urban center

with a seaport in the crossroads of a vast hinterland of a multinational empire. This fact had long

lasting economic as well as subsequently social and demographic repercussions.

The impact and importance of Jewish inhabitants instantly becoming Greek citizens of the

Greek-Hellenic State requires more subtle analysis and remains of paramount importance. Before

1912, the population was comprised of Jews (religiously and linguistically defined), Muslims(Turks and others), and Greeks identified as both a solid linguistic (Greek) and religious (GreekEastern Orthodox Christian) groupaugmented by the fact of uninterrupted presence for millenniain the geographic region. All were nominally subjects of the sultan, albeit the non-Muslim

populations were dhimms. Such a distinction suggested that they were subject to a reduced legal

and social status on the one hand while being assured protected communal rights on the other.20

After the Balkan wars, Greece was a modern state with a constitution guaranteeing equality

for all its citizens. From its very early beginning, Greece incorporated into Article 1 of its first

provisional constitution of Epidaurus in 1822, full religious liberties. Full civil (political or

otherwise) emancipation for all its citizens was enshrined with the 3rd Protocol of the Treaties of

London in 1830.21

It is interesting to note that all successive Greek constitutions never recognizedminorities; they only recognized that all Greeks are equal under the law. Thus, semantically, a

Greeks adherence or non-adherence to one of the three monotheisms was inconsequential vis--visequality under the law.

A pedantic gaze at the grammar of naming illustrates such equality. In Greek grammar and

syntax, like in English, the adjective precedes the noun that it defines or characterizes. Therefore,

from 1912 onwards, the correct form to use when we refer to the Jewish inhabitants of the State of

Greece who are Greek citizens is Jewish Greeks and not Greek Jews. Such usage is politically,

grammatically, and constitutionally correct.22Therefore, when we refer to non-Jews we should be

using the term non-Jewish Greeks and neither simply Greeks nor simply Christians. We should

keep in mind that although during the interwar years, the post World War I creation of many nation


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states exacerbated the problems of the minorities inside their respective national borders, this did

not hold true for Greece in most instances.23

Now existing as a nation state with non-Christian Greek populations (mainly Jewish and

Muslim) Greece understandably and expectedly embarked on an attempt at Hellenization of the

newly acquired territory and especially of Salonikathe latter until 1923.24The process accelerated

right after the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the subsequent forced population exchange on areligious basis between Greece and Turkey. All of which was instigated by the defeat of Greece by

Turkey in the coastal region of Asia Minor that included Smyrnazmir in 1922. Prior to this, in1919, Greece had been awarded jurisdiction of this area inhabited for millennia by ethnic Greeks,

following Turkeys defeat in the First World War.25This nexus of events foregrounds the Dnmeonce more. Even though they were neither bona fide Muslims nor considered themselves to be so,

they were perceived as such by the Greek state. Thus, they were subject to the population exchange

faced by the rest of GreecesMuslimsexcluding those in Thrace. The countervailing componentof this population exchange was the ethnic, linguistic and religious, Greeks or Ionians of Asia

Minorexcluding those in Constantinople (stanbul) and the Islands of Imvros and Tenedos.Hellenization, visvis the Jewish inhabitants entailed compulsory education in the official

language, i.e. Greek, compulsory military service, closing of the stores on Sunday instead of

Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and in general, a gradual inroad of the Christian Greek element to

predominance in almost all spheres of activity, especially economic. This trend accelerated when

the population imbalance became even more pronounced in favor of nonJewish Greeks after theinflux of Asia Minor refugees.

For a nation state with a population that was at the timecirca late 1920smore than 96percent nominally composed of Christian Orthodox and Greek speaking inhabitants, managing to

incorporate and accommodate the Jewish minority in the fiber of the state must have called for

conscientiousness. As I mentioned above, the modern Greek state had incorporated in its

constitution from the beginning, all those principles that guaranteed equal rights, civil andotherwise, equal treatment, and full emancipation. Official state or religious (Greek Orthodox) antiJudaism was both nonexistent and alien by contrast with for example, Romania.26However, isolated

individual manifestations of anti-Semitism did occur and still do.27

Hellenization of the Jewish population had the beneficial effect (intended or not) of turning

second-class subjects of the Ottoman Empire into full-fledged and full-righted citizens of a modern

state. If the German annihilation had not taken place who knows what the vibrancy of this populous

Community today could have meant for the benefit of both itself and the whole nation. Maybe with

the use of mathematical tools and virtual reality visualization simulation algorithms we might

discern a hint of what could have been.28

Unfortunately the Hellenization process could only be applied to the progeny of the time. At

the eve of the Second World War the majority of the Community members had only a rudimentary

knowledge of Greek. After all, the duration between the constitutional events of 1913 and the

Second World War was only 30 years. Therefore, their constitutional Greekness was not matched

with the linguistic requisite, that of the fluent command of the official language. 29Thus they stood

apart from the rest of the population in two obvious ways, first by their linguistic and cultural

difference and, second, by their sheer numbers. This set of defining characteristics was unique to

this Community and unparalleled by the Jewish Greek Community at large.

The inter-war years were not conducive to the welfare of the Community. As the world atlarge faced financial and political turmoil, Greece faced a sudden population increase of almost

1,500,000 human beings (one fourth of the previous total) and as a result there ensued a struggle to


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absorb them and come to grips with this new social reality. The Jewish population was still reeling

from the devastating effects of the 1917 fire that destroyed many Jewish neighborhoods and

engulfed synagogues. Many emigrated for economic reasons, others due to isolated anti-Semitic

acts e.g. the Campbell incident.30Furthermore, the mandate of the Constitution (i.e. all Greeks are

equal) was incapable from its conception of ensuring the acceptance and consideration of Jews by

non-Jews. Pointedly, the mandate could sanction but could not enforce Jewish Greeksrecognition

as either identical equals or equals in their own right. This is a productive distinction and the statedid not ensure with its misguided, injudicious and shortsighted decision to initially segregate the

Jewish voters in Salonika from the Christians ones in separate polling stations, an act blatantly

unconstitutional.31Transubstantiation of the de jure incorporation into the national corpus to a de

facto one did notand could notoccur overnight.32This was a Community in transition.33

The eve of the Second World War found Salonika with a Jewish population of around 55,000 souls,

a bit more than a fifth of the total population (See Figure 1). 34At its religious helm was a nonGreek and nonSephardic Chief Rabbi, the German born and educated Dr. Tzevi (Zwi, Cevy, Zevi)Koretz.35The Jewish cemetery was a thorn in the plans of urban renewal and sprawl of this city

whose original centuries old character has changed irrevocably by the settlement of the refugees. If

we exclude the Jewish Greeks, the city was now totally homogenized in comparison with itsprevious multi-ethnic and multi-cultural image.

Italy declared war on Greece on October 28, 1940 and fighting erupted on the Albanian

front. Greece was victorious and thousands of Jewish Greek conscripts and officers battled valiantly

alongside their non-Jewish (Christian) fellow Greeks.36Hitler was compelled to assist his

adventurous ally Mussolini and, on April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Greece from the North via

Bulgaria.37After fierce battles, they occupied the whole country. These events effectively conclude

the fascinating narrative of the two millennia entrenched Jewish Salonika, bode a taste of the

upcoming tumultuous upheaval of the Community, and mark the end of the second period in the

history of Jewish Salonika. The declared aim of the occupier, if only thinly veiled, was the eventual

annihilation of the Jews. A particular annihilation that in world history came to be known as theHolocaust: the Genocide of the European Jews. In less than three years time Jewish Salonika ceased

to exist.

The Holocaust of Jewish Salonika

C. From April 9, 1941 to October 30, 1944: German Occupation

The dawning of April 9, 1941 brings along the German occupier. This momentous event

ushers the Community, brusquely, to the third time period of its historythe history of theHolocaust of the Jews of Salonika: April 9, 1941 to May 8, 1945. A priori it should be noted here

that the period of German occupation (more precisely of regions occupied by either the Germans, orthe Italians, or the Bulgarians) was characterized by extreme hardship and famine for the whole

population, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Also, the events that took place and the procedures

applied for the purpose of exterminating the Jewish Community of Salonika were repeated by the

Germans. At a later date, with minimal variations, the extermination procedures for the Jews of

Salonika provided a template for the annihilation of all other Jewish Communities in the rest of

Greece. What makes Salonika stand apart is the fact of its sheer numerical strength and that it was

the first Jewish community in Greece to experience the consequences of the implementation of the

Endlsung(Final Solution) by the Germans (the Bulgarians deported Jewish Greeks first).38Events

and ideas that shaped European anti-Semitism and its subsequent genocidal strain in the 19thand the

first half of the 20thcenturies may have been foreign to mainstream Greece, but that fact did not

impede the perpetrators in proceeding with their murderous plans.39


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Figure 1: Number of Jews in Salonika as presented in the

Final Report on the Activity of the Rosenberg Special Assignment Detachment in Greece40

Upon their arrival the Germans imprisoned many notables and arrested the Chief Rabbi Dr.

Koretz who was sent to and incarcerated in a concentration camp near Vienna. They appointed a

new communal council headed by Sabbetai Saby Saltiel as president of the Community, a man oflimited abilities but boundless ambition. For a span of almost 15 months nothing occurred, in termsof the severity that was akin to the life threatening or total hardship and complete destitution that

was taking place in the Warsaw Ghetto. Still, the Jewish press was silenced, and Communal and

private book collections were plundered and confiscated by theEinsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg

Kommando(Special Assignment Detachment) along with all religious items of great historical

value.41In addition, the German occupiers proceeded in the outright plundering and pilfering of all

merchandize in stores of Jewish ownership and expropriated the best houses for their use. The

culmination of such actions and measures created the conditions for penury and destitution for a

large part of the Jewish population.

This period of relative calm and normalcy was shattered by an announcement from theGerman authorities published in the newspaperApogevmatini(Afternoon). Edited by a collaborator,


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the announcement called all adult male Jews from 18 to 45 years old to appear for registration at

Plateia Eleftherias(Liberty Square) on Saturday July 11, 1942. The subtext of the announcement

revealed that registration of the pool of available men was done in the name of forced labor work.

The picture that follows says it all (Figure 2).42Nine thousand adults gathered in the square. The

Germans did not allow them to cover their heads or drink water in the sweltering heat, made them

stand for hours under the blazing sun, and some Germans even forced many to perform calisthenics.

This was the first major omen of worse things to come.43

Plateia EleftheriasLiberty Square, Saturday, July 11, 1942Figure 2. The first person from the right, the one wearing eye glasses and standing in front of the German soldier, is the

late Sam Rouben from Oakland, California.


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Figure 3: Check #2 of Drachmas 134,000,000 in part payment of the ransom.

This is the second of seven checks and it is signed by President of the JCT (Oct 29, 1942) Sabbetai Saltiel. It was

countersigned by Max Merten as Head of the Administration & Economic Section (Abteilung) of the SalonikaAegean Command. The check was transferred to the Reich accounting office on November 4, 1942 deposited and paid

in full at the Bank of Greece the same day.

After the completion of registration many were conscripted for forced labor in various parts

of the country. Hard labor, harsh conditions and insufficient food coupled with the fact that most

were already not in the best of health or acclimated to intensive manual exertion led to an

accelerated attrition of the ranks by death and severe illness. This deplorable situation forced theCommunity to seek negotiations with the German authority as represented at the time by Dr.


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Maximilian MaxMerten, Civilian War Advisor to the SalonikaAegean Command. Thenegotiations led to an agreement where the Community agreed to pay a huge ransom of

2,500,000,000 drachmas or around 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 current U.S. dollars, in order to

extricate its members from further compulsory and onerous forced labor. The following figure

shows the front side of a cashiers check payable to the order of the German Command(Befehlshaber) with a sum of 134,000,000 drachmas, from the Jewish Community of Salonika,

signed by President Saltiel and dated October 29, 1942. The backside shows the signature of MaxMerten and the official seal as well as the Bank of Greece stamp as paid. The date is November 4,

1942 (Figure 3).44This check is thesecond one out of a total seven. This set of documents touches

on another issue of the Holocaust of the Jews of Salonika, specifically that of the financial audit of

the money, fortunes, etc. that were involved. To determine such losses conclusively, forensic and

sleuth financial investigative methods most probably will have to be called upon. Such research is

beyond the scope of this current expos.

In the meantime Rabbi Koretz was released from custody during January 1942 and returned

to Salonika where he regained his post as Chief Rabbi. During this period Dr. Pohl of the

Rosenberg Special Assignment Detachment continued the plundering of archives, libraries and

collections of Judaica both in Salonika and in nearby towns with a sizable Jewish presence andcollections. He sent everything to Germany.45The Soviets later captured these looted treasures and

considered them war trophy, subsequently shipping all the archives to Moscow where they remain

to this day. Dr. Pohlsfeeble punishment after the war was a year and a half (May 1945 to October1946) internment by the U.S. forces.

After the July 11, 1942Platia Eleftheriasevent, the collaborationist local pressnewspapersApogevmatiniandNea Evropi(New Europe)multiplied in frequency of appearanceand degree of vitriol in terms of their editorials, articles and propaganda concerning the Jews. Along

with the ransom, during the end of the year 1942 and continuing in 1943, the German occupier

accelerated the expropriations, requisitions and seizures of all kinds of valuable merchandize from

Jewish owned stores. The usual stratagem was to simultaneously incarcerate the owners forimaginary infractions. As for paper and cardboard, both very precious and hard to find commodities

and useful for propaganda purposes (newspaper printing, flyers, journals etc.), they created a new

corporation bearing the grandiose title of the German-Greek Paper Industry (Deutsch-Griechisch

Papier Industrie) whose inventory was simply the sum-total of all the paper absconded from all

Jewish print shops and warehouses. The German-Greek Paper Industry worked hand in hand with

the German propaganda office in allocating paper to various individuals and entities, in whatever

quantity and price. This way, they had full control on all printed matter and made life difficult for

resistance printing.

The year-end brought a calamity of another sort, that of the destruction of the centuries old

Jewish cemetery with more than 500,000 tombs, most of them of priceless historical value. The

Governor General of Macedonia at the time with the assistance of the German occupier succeeded

in completely obliterating anything that might remind someone what existed there for centuries. The

Aristotle University of Salonika has since been built on these holy grounds. This is both a very sad

and shameful chapter in the history of the city as a whole.46December 1942 also brought a change

in the Community administration: The Germans demoted Saltiel and put Dr. Koretz at the helm of

the Community.47Thus Koretz assumed both posts, that of the President of the Community, while

retaining the post of chief religious leader, that of Chief Rabbi. His native fluency in German

facilitated his deliberations with his German masters. He was their persona grata and having

experienced firsthand the treatment of the SS and the Gestapo in Vienna was eager to oblige.

The day of reckoning was near. On the military war front things were not going very well

for Germany and the other Axis powers. The New Year of 1943 finds General Paulus6thArmy


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encircled in the Cauldron of Stalingrad. Field Marshal Paulus surrenders to the Soviet Armed

Forces on February 1st, 1943.48This marked a turning point on two fronts: A turn for the worse for

the Axis powers with defeat starting to loom very probable in the not so distant future and an

intensification of Germanys war against the Jews where each single day that the German Reichremained undefeated has as outcome the addition of thousands of victims to the grand total.49

Salonika now had the dubious distinction of being the first major community destined forannihilation right after the military defeat at Stalingrad. The machinery of death was put into gear.

The events follow one another in rapid succession, culminating, as we shall see, in the near total

extinction of Jewish presence in Salonika and the extermination of more than 90 percent of its

members.

On Saturday, February 6, 1943, arrived the Special Assignment Detachment of the Reich

Security Service in charge ofascertaining enemies of the Reich.The Detachment was headed by

Dieter Wisliceny SS Hauptsturmfhrer (rank equivalent to that of Captain in the US Army) and his

subordinate Alois Brunner, also an SS Hauptsturmfhrer. The organization of the leadership of the

Special Assignment Detachment reveals that initially in their careers, Adolf Eichmann was

subordinate to Wisliceny. However, Eichmann was ultimately more zealous and hard working andat some point in the course of time outranked Wisliceny. Thus, Adolf Eichmann, the technocrat

bureaucrat genocidist par excellence wrought upon Salonika two of his best and most competent

operatives.

It is a bitter irony to state that Eichmann during his interrogation by Israeli police captain

Avner Less and the infamous Dr. Max Merten in his testimonial affidavit for the Eichmann trial of

1961, both reproached and blamed Wisliceny for taking the initiative and acting outside orders.

Such action is a paradigm of obfuscation where the superiors blame the inferiors for performing

better than ordered. The circle of recriminations among the former Kameraden started with

Wislicenys testimony, in 1946 during the Nrnberg Trials.50There, Wisliceny blamed the others inthe same way as Eichmann attempted to persuade the court and stood fast during his own trial. Thefacts that emerged prove conclusively that all of them worked diligently to bring their task to

fruition. A document that I am presenting for the first time proves that the initiatives that Wisliceny

took had as sole purpose the expediting of the resettlement to the Eastprocess (see Figure 4).

The chain of events started with the call to Koretz to confer with the SD Detachment. This

took place on Monday, February 8, 1943 and, immediately, he was handed the first order signed by

Max Merten that introduces the German Nrnberg Racial Laws. The mockery of it is that the order

was antedated to February 6.51The order decreed that Jews should be distinguished as such, i.e.

marked with a distinctive sign, and that they should concentrate and live in specific areasghettos.

Wisliceny was empowered to enforce these directives and issued his implementation orders.

These orders commanded that all Jewish shops should be marked as such and the distinctive mark

for all Jewish Greeks but not non-Greek persons, aged more than five years should be the yellow

Star of David. It was to be made out of cloth and sewn on garments and overcoats. Wislicenysorder stipulated that, along with the garmentsdistinctive mark, all Jewish Greeks should be issueda Community identity card numbered sequentially and identifying the holder as Jewish. The same

number appearing on the ID should also be stamped on the cloth stars. Below is the authorization

document for the release of cardboard for the printing production of 55,000 identity cards for the

Jewish Community of Salonika with index identification number 2788 ab . Revealingly, the release

was further authorized on top of the regular officer of the German propaganda office, by none other

than Wisliceny (Figure 4).52

The print shop was theImprimerie David Gattegno.


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This document substantiates the fact that 55,000 identity cards were printed. Considering

that at most 1,000 would be misprinted and/or destroyed plus the fact that infants were exempt, we

have a near certain indication of the numerical strength of the community on the eve of its

obliteration. This number is also corroborated by the population table in the Rosenberg Report as

shown in Figure 1. The tragedy is unfolding but, unlike in Antiquity, there is now a consensus that

no redemption or catharsis will follow.

The Propaganda Office directives stipulated that a surcharge (Pflichtgebhr)of ten percent

should be levied for its services. That ten percent was arbitrarily augmented to 50 percent for works

printed for the Jewish Community. However, Wisliceny pulled rank and took the initiative to waive

the obligatory surcharge. Essentially, in order to expedite the hideous process, he waived part of the

cost that his victims had to assume in order to be murdered.

The index-identification number had to appear on all printed matter. Since the ID cards were

the second item authorized, the following identification mark had to be clearly printed on the IDs:

Gatt. Gen. No. 2788 B. Figure 5 shows a personal identification card issued by the Jewish

Community in compliance with Wislicenys order of February 12, 1943.The index-identification

number is easily discernible on the card which now belongs to the exhibit collection the JewishMuseum of Salonika.

The SD authorities, along with the civilian advisor Max Merten continued to shower the

bewildered and, most of all, frightened and alarmed population with further requirements to meet in

order to keep them busy and disoriented. One of those was the wealth declaration that included

filling out special forms with minute details such as full description (and value) of kitchen utensils

and cutlery. Figure 6 shows the original instructions in Judeo-Spanish of how to fill out the

declaration. The flyer forewarns those obligated to fill the forms that they should be very diligent

otherwise they risk severe punishment by the German Authority.

Actually this document, composed in Judeo-Spanish with Latin characters, also constitutesproof that, for at least some official Community announcements to its members, Greek was not

used. Therefore, we can only deduce that even at the beginning of 1943, the spoken and understood

language among the majority of the Jews of Salonika was Ladino.

In conclusion, all of this bureaucracy, beside its sole purpose in registering and identifying

the Jews as such and keeping them continuously on edge, proves that the German perpetrators

relished the psychological alongside the murderous aspects of extermination. It might have been

that bureaucracy served also as a psychological shield for disguising their horrid task as a mundane

implementation of a predefined plan of resettlement. 53

These events, following one another in rapid succession, culminated in the announcement by

the German Authorities and subsequently by Chief Rabbi Koretz that an order has been issued

stating all members of the Community will be deported and resettled in the district of Krakw in

Poland. This was the beginning of the end for the great Sephardic Community, the Mother in Israel

(Madre en Israel) as it was known. The destiny of all had been decided and sealed. The malevolent

intentions and deeds of the Reich on that day did not leave any niche for hope.


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Figure 4: Authorization for the carton release for the impression of 55,000 identity cards

The Document is dated February 17, 1943, over-signed by Wisliceny


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Gatt is written in the lower left corner (Gatt stands for Gattegno) plus the number

Figure 5: Personal identification card issued by the Jewish Community in compliance with Wislicenys order ofFebruary 12, 1943. Rabbi Koretz signs the card as President.

However agonizing and excruciating the evolving drama of the Jews of Salonika, our

perspective would be incomplete if we did not acquire a general overview of the larger image and

happenings in the whole of occupied Greece during that period. The consequences of the

occupation were especially severe for Greece, a net importer of foodstuffs. If the British hadntlifted the naval blockade for relief ships of the International Red Cross and other aid organizations,

especially after the severe famine of the first year and a half, there wouldnt have been any Greeksleft and no Hellenic nation. Employing a lens broad enough to encompass Jews of varying roles as

well as non-Jews we can notice that reprisals for acts of resistance were also harsh.54Proceeding

with the goal of a more thorough description of occupied Greece, the genuine gravity of what

deserves to be known about the Jews of Salonika vis--vis the Holocaust can be felt.

Jews of Spanish Nationality: Deportations, Concentration, Camps, Rescuers and

Resistance

Deportations

The first convoy of Jewish Greeks departed ostensibly for Krakw on March 15, 1943.55The finaldestination was the concentration and death camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau near the Polish


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town of Owicim.All deportees were allowed to carry only a certain amount of Polishzotywiththem, ostensibly for use in Krakw, Poland. Thesezotywere purchased in exchange for drachmas.

They were strictly forbidden to carry with them precious stones, gold and Greek banknotes or

foreign currency. They were required under penalty of severe punishment to deposit all these

valuables at the ghetto offices before they left. Witness accounts and testimonies, among them my

fathers, describe in detail their ordeal in the cattle cars, hermetically sealed for many days, during

their long journey to extinction.56

Consecutive convoys followed, and in the space of two monthsthe city became practicallyJudenrein (Jew free). Desperate attempts to approach the German

authorities, by Metropolitan Genadios and the occupation Greek Prime Minister Rallis, and to

intervene on behalf of their persecuted fellow citizens had no effect whatsoever. Since they

infuriated his German masters, these attempts at intervention resulted in Chief Rabbi Koretz forced

unemployment as president. He was relieved from his duties and incarcerated in the Baron Hirsch

ghettothe place that acted as the proverbial springboard for the deportations and the liquidation ofthe Community.57Table 1 shows the arrival of the convoys according to the Auschwitz camp

records.

Very few Jews, especially those with a command of the Greek language, managed to escape and

hide. Unfortunately, even quite a few among these escapeesagainst the best advice of their non-Jewish acquaintances and friends as well as their own gut feelingdecided to follow their elders tothe unknown while hoping for the best. Some Christian Greek families sheltered others at the

penalty of death if discovered. Unfortunately, other bystanders saw an opportunity to share in the

spoils and pilfering of property and assets left behind.58

This page of history, the daily events of the tumultuous period before and during deportations, has

yet to be researched. The best approach is to state the facts and present archival material and

documents. The researcher has to try to resuscitate the minute details of events and daily

happenings of the era and, of paramount importance, to convey the intensity of it all.59To the best

of my knowledge, very little research has been done on comparative Holocaust and on the

effectiveness of the bureaucracy of genocide in the various countries where the Final Solution wasimplemented and carried out. Such a dearth is likely a manifestation of what Hannah Arendt

described very aptly in The Banality of Evil.60The documented presentation of the Holocaust in the

various European countries as found in Dawidowicz, in Raoul Hilberg and, pictorially, in

Schoenberner and in Milton, describe and depict, in a rather concise manner, how the annihilation

process was carried out in each country.61From these sources alone we surmise that the

implementation procedures, including the bureaucratic ones, differed from country to country and

that many were improvised in particular localities. Ever still and as example, the process steps, not

the end goal, were different in Athens as compared to Salonika. A study of the deportations and

subsequent annihilation of the Jews of Greece and especially of the Jews of Salonika is presented in

the book by Margaritis Undesirable Fellow Countrymen: TsamidesJews.62

Concentration and Death Camps

Returning to the doomed souls who traveled north in the trains of death, we should point out a few

facts: first, the Jewish Greeks had another dubious honor, that of being located the farthest away

from the death camps. This had as a result a very long journey in abhorrent conditions that lasted

for many days and claimed the lives of many even before arrival at the camp. Second, unbeknownst

to all at the time, those selected for slave labor had to confront the hardships for two full years in

order to survive the War.63Lastly, they knew no German, Yiddish, Polish or other camp languages,

a fact that hindered communication. In addition, they were not acclimated to the extreme climate of

the region, especially the bitter ice-cold winters so foreign in Mediterranean countries.


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Figure 6: Instructions on how to fill the wealth declaration forms, March 1, 1943


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Table 1Official records of the total of Salonika Jews deported to the

German Concentration & Extermination Camps Auschwitz-Birkenau

Records from the Archives of the Concentration Camps Auschwitz-Birkenau

Convoy Date of Arrival Persons

1st 20/3/1943 2,8002nd 23/3/1943 2,800

3rd 25/3/1943 1,901

4th 30/3/1943 2,501

5th 3/4/1943 2,800

6th 9/4/1943 2,500

7th 10/4/1943 2,7508th 13/4/1943 2,800

9th 17/4/1943 3,000

10th 18/4/1943 2,501

11th 22/4/1943 2,800

12th 26/4/1943 2,400

13th 28/4/1943 3,070

14th 4/5/1943 2,9307/5/1943 1,000

15th 8/5/1943 2,500

16th 16/5/1943 4,500

17th 8/6/1943 880

18th 18/8/1943 1,800

Total 48,233

19th 2/8/1943 441

Total of Displaced Persons: 48,674

Destination: Bergen-Belsen Concentration CampDate of Departure

In 1945 the Jews who returned numbered 1,950

Percentage of losses greater than 96%

Note: Some convoys may have picked up more people after Sa lon ika

All the convoys that left Salonika had Auschwitz-Birkenau as their final destination apart from one.

Leaving in August 2, 1943 with 367 Spanish Jews (permanent residents of Salonika) and a few

notables (among them Rabbi Koretz) the convoy departed for the Bergen-Belsen camp situated near

the cities of Hannover and Celle in Germany. We will present the saga and fate of those Jews

substantiated with documentary evidence below in the section: The Spanish Jews of Salonika.

Approximately 44,000 Jews were deported from the Hirsch Transit Camp in Salonika. Two

thousand five hundred more Jews from surrounding Communities were also deported bringing the

total to 46,500 souls. The fate of the overwhelming majority upon arrival is well known: After the

selection process to separate the fit for slave labor (and those destined for torture-medical

experiments) from the rest, the last ones, comprising the majority of the transport, were

immediately gassed and subsequently burned in the crematoria.64Sevillias, Menashe and Handali

give vivid and detailed descriptions of the ordeal, all of them being victims and eyewitnesses who

survived to tell their story. Sevillias was arrested in Athens in March 1944 and deported to

Auschwitz-Birkenau. His testimony presents the sequence of events pertaining to the entrapment

and subsequent deportation of the Jews in Athens during spring 1944. The opus by Michael Molho

describes in detail both the deportations from all parts of Greece as well as the travails of Jewish

Greek slave inmates at the concentration camps. It also describes the horrible medical experiments

performed by the German camp torture-physicians using many Jews and Jewesses from Salonika

and the rest of Greece as guinea pigs. A treatise from a researcher at the Auschwitz State Museumoffers many details specifically about the Jewish Greeks at Auschwitz.65 TheChronika 2006

commemorative issue on the Holocaust of the Jewish Greeks includes an English supplement.66


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There are quite a few other sources; each one only adds a few more details to the main facts. 67A

commemorative volume on the Holocaust of all Jewish communities of Greece was presented at a

moving event on Capitol Hill organized by the Embassy of Greece on June 21, 2006.68Another

general reference (of many) on the subject of the World War II Holocaust of Roma, Jews and others

is Time Lifes The Apparatus of Death.69As for myself, I was able to extricate information frommy father Leon Konzentrationslager (KL), Auschwitz No. 118633, a survivor who was liberated on

January 27, 1945.70

It is interesting to note that both The Times Londonand The New York Timespublished the

news pertaining to the fate of the Jews of Salonika during the War. First, a Times article in May

1943 described in detail how the Jews were deported from Salonika.71Then, a February 1944 NYT

article reported, Jews in Salonika Virtually Wiped Out.72A follow-up article again in The NYTreported, 48,000 Greek Jews are sent to Poland.73Finally, a November 1944 NYT articlereported, Most Salonika Jews Killed.74It is only logical to conclude from the above informationthat there was no excuse for anyone living in neutral countries such as Sweden, Switzerland,

Portugal, Spain, and Turkey at time, to claim ignorance in regards to the annihilation of Jewish

Greeks.

Rescuers

The history of the Holocaust of the Jews of Greece would be incomplete if no mention was made

about the gallant efforts of Christians to save their Jewish brethren. After all, I owe my existence to

the rescue of my mother (in Athens) by her female saviors Zo Morou-Folerou and Danae

Kadoglou-Pavlidoudeclared righteous by Yad Vashemin 1999. Many Christian Greeks shelteredwhole Jewish families or helped them to escape to Athens or to the surrounding countryside.

However, the family bond and loyalty being strong, many young persons although forewarned and

offered either shelter or escape, chose to accompany their elders to Krakw. Archbishop

Papandreou Damaskinos, Archbishop of Athens and the whole of Greece, is universally recognizedfor his representation to the German authorities in March 1943 and for his sermon cum

proclamation urging Christian Greeks to shelter Jews. Among other things he stated that, Our holyreligion does not recognize any distinction of superiority or inferiority based on race or religion.These are words with everlasting universal appeal. Archbishop Damaskinos was recognized and

honored for his efforts and deeds on behalf of his fellow Jewish countrymen and for being

instrumental in rescuing and saving many, especially in Athens.75While the War was still raging,

especially the one against the Jews, the Palestine Labor Federation thanked the Greek people for aid

to Jews.76

A bright light in this gloom is the miracle of the island of Zakinthos where all its Jewish inhabitants

were spared thanks to the efforts of the Metropolitan and the Mayor. However, this case was theexemption to the rule. Occupation coupled with the constant threat of capital punishment for aiding

Jews played a major role in ones decision to help, subconsciously or not. It is an undisputed anddocumented fact that Athens, with a Jewish population only a tiny fraction of that of Salonika, had a

disproportionate number of Christian rescuers and Jews rescued. One reason might be that the

Community, being tiny was dispersed and fully integrated with the rest of the population of the big

city. Furthermore, Jews in Athens were almost totally Hellenized. When the Greek people declared

a revolution against the Ottomans on March 25, 1821 and the First National Assembly at Epidaurus

established the Hellenic State on January 1, 1822, the first free areas included part of the

Peloponnese and Athens.77Salonika became Greek only in 1912. On the other hand, the sheer

number of Salonika Jews, the older generations inadequacy in fluent Greek, and the naturaltendency to congregate amongst themselves did not facilitate or promote integration with anddispersion among the rest of the population. This situation was not conducive to forging friendships


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and acquaintances with the Christian fellow-countrymen or neighbors. The non-Jewish population

considered them, by and large unwittingly, as plainly Jews and not Greeks or at least Jewish

Greeks. This is evident even from official Greek documents that address them as Jewish fellow-

citizens and reserve the term Greek people for the rest.78The point is that even though no offence

whatsoever was intended, this prevailing attitude did not help the Christian Greeks to consider the

Jewish Greeks as Greeks.79

Resistance

Last but not least, many ask if there was Jewish resistance. First of all thousands of Jewish Greeks,

as we have seen, fought valiantly against the Italians and Germans alongside their Christian Greek

fellow-countrymen. Quite a few joined the Resistance. The Sonderkommando revolt at Birkenau

was organized and lead by a Jewish Greek inmate, an officer of the Greek Army caught in 1944, the

year that the Germans swept the rest of Greece for Jews to deport.80

The near total annihilation of the Jewish population of Salonika and likewise of the rest of Greece

brings this chapter of Jewish history to a forced and abrupt termination.81The liberation of

Salonika, when the last German soldier left the city on October 30, 1944, marked the beginning of

the current phase of the Jewish presence, albeit drastically reduced. Time will show that numeric

inferiority might be offset by other characteristics. The evidence till now is encouraging. 82

Before we leave this tumultuous era for the Jewry of Salonika and the whole of Europe, we will

sidestep and follow the fate of Jewish Spanish nationals of the city during the period 1943-1945.

This chapter is a paradigm of uprooting and upheaval, albeit with a happy ending, i.e. survival as

well as a return to Greece via Spain where it all originated centuries ago.


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The Spanish Jews of Salonika

The Chronicle-Narrative of the Spanish Jews of Salonika

A special group of Jewish inhabitants of Salonika were the non-Greek nationals. Of these, the major

group was the Spanish nationals and then came the Italians. These were Spanish citizens but they

were not allowed to enter Spain automatically. They had to renew their certificate of nationality (the

certificate was issued by the Spanish Consulate of Salonika) every year.. As a group they were

exempt from the racial laws that were applied to their Jewish Greek coreligionists, i.e. they did not

have to wear the yellow star or live in the ghetto. Spain was a neutral country albeit favorably

predisposed towards the German Reich and the Axis Powers. Spain had achieved relative calm with

the end of its Civil War only a few years prior. General Franco was the leader of the state, and the

monarchy was abolished. This was immediately manifested with the change of the coat of arms that

was printed on the front of the certificate of nationality (see Figure 7).

As long as Spain was both neutral and friendly towards Germany, Spanish Jews were relatively

safe. However the tempo of the sequence of persecutionswith deportations accelerating in 1943and the unmitigated German appetite for more Jews to relegate to Special Treatmentincreased.Spains reluctance to accept large numbers of its undesirable non-resident citizens risked beingconstrued by the Germans as carte blancheto do as they pleased with the Jewish Spanish nationals

in its fold. Nevertheless, after much bureaucratic deliberation among the pertinent German and

Spanish authorities, the Germans finally deported the Spanish nationals to BergenBelsen (August2, 1943) and housed them in separate barracks. After further deliberations among the Spanish

government and the Germans, they were finally freed and allowed to travel to and enter Spain via

France (all 367 of them). Their sojourn in Spain was brief, just a few months in Barcelona, and then

they were shipped to Casablanca on June 14, 1944.83With the assistance of UNRRA they were sent

to Palestine. They were finally able to return to Greece after August 9, 1945.84

We will attempt to visualize their odyssey by retracing some instances of their lives during these

three years (19431945). This is a virtual journey for us, but a very real one for them, fraught withrigor and privation and most of all the threat of extermination hanging on top of their heads as long

as they were in the custody of the Reich. This we achieve by following the story of David Jacob

Gattegno and Rachel Gattegno, using as a temporal and location fixing compass, a set of pertinent

archival documents.

The couple David Gattegno and Rachel Gattegno (born Frances) hailed from a family that lived for

centuries in Salonika. David Gattegno owned a print shop that specialized in quality printing. They

were both Spanish nationals and permanent residents of Salonika. They renewed their certificates of

nationality annually and the 1941 Certificate of David prominently displayed the new Franco eracoat of arms (see Figure 7). The German authorities stamped the certificate with the following logo:

Bescheinigung der Spanischer Angehrigkeiti.e. Certificate of Spanish Citizenship (see Figure 7a).

Thus, Spanish citizens were identified as such by the Occupation Authorities and distinguished

from the Jewish Greeks. They were exempt from the Nuremberg Laws which were being enforced

upon their Greek national brethren starting mid February 1943.


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Figure 7: Front of the 1941 Certificate of Nationality of David GattegnoThe Certificate was issued at Salonika by the Spanish Consulate

Figure 7a: Magnification of the German Stamp that adds the German equivalent

of the Document Title of Certificate of Spanish Citizenship

We are now following the itinerary of the Spanish Jews by riding the passport of the Gattegnos and

some other pertinent documents of the era as a proverbial vehicle.85

The Germans drew a list of all Spanish nationals of Jewish origin who belonged to the Jewish

Community of Salonika. Figure 9 shows part of the twelve page 1943 German document listing the

Spanish Jews of Salonika.86I have included only the names of the Gattegnos without loss of

generality. Note that in the last column it is written when their Spanish Nationality ID was issued

(Compare it with the above Figure 8).


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Figure 8: Details of the 1941 Certificate of Nationality of David Gattegno (insideback)The Certificate was issued on July 8, 1941. It identifies David Gattegno as a printer.

(The Germans had entered Salonika on April 9 of the same year.)

The Gattegnos like the rest of the Spanish nationals were making preparations for the journey to the

unknown. They applied for a husband-wife common passport at the Spanish Legation in Athens.

Their passport was signed by Consul Sebastin de Romero Radigales whose name appears in the

historiography of the Spanish Jews of Salonika and who remained, for some years after Liberation,

the Consul (Figure 10). The Gattegnos wrote a letter to Paul Frances, Rachels son from apreviousmarriage, who had managed to leave Greece earlier. The letter described their situation and

predicament, mentioning among other things, that they were allowed to take with them 5,000 Swiss

Francs. The letter was dated Thursday, May 27, 1943.87


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Figure 9: German Legation legal advisor von Thaddens letter accompanied with thefull list all Spanish Nationals of the Jewish racewho belong to the

Jewish Community of Salonika as of April 30, 1943. Bear in mind that by that date, out of the total 19 convoys to

Auscwitz-Birkenau, 13 had already left.

(Only the Gattegnos are included without loss of generality).


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Figure 8: Page 1 The Passport was issued by the General Consulate of Spain in Greece

Figure 9

Page 2 The passport was issued on May 25, 1943

Page 3 Personal data of the passport holders


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Figure 10

Page 4 Signature by the Consul General of Spain, Sebastian de Romero,

May 25, 1943

Page 5a Authorization-Permission by the Consulate General of Spain in Athensfor the holders to enter Spain for one time only from the border crossing at Irun (opposite Hendaye

France) (July 6, 1943)Page 5b Entrance stamp in Spain (Port-Bou opposite Cerbre France and not Irun), February 10, 1944 (note

the 7 months period that has elapsed)


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Figure 11

Page 6 AuthorizationPermission from the Bank of Greece to export foreign currency (2,000 Swiss Francs orthe equivalent in other foreign banknotes (currencies)) June 7, 1943. The export permit is valid for 15

days.Page 6a Second entrance stamp in Spain (Port-Bou), February 10, 1944

Page 7 Authorization-Permission from the Bank of Greece to export foreign currency (3,000 Swiss Francs orthe equivalent in other foreign banknotes (currencies)) June 9, 1943. The export permit is valid for 15

days.


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Figure 12: Count List (Devisenzhlung) of foreign currency, gold and jewelry belonging to Jewish Spanish Nationalsbeing deported to Bergen-Belsen confiscated by the German Authorities one day before the departure of the 19

thconvoy

(destination Bergen-Belsen) July 31, 1943. The person responsible for collecting the valuables and completing the listwas Dieter Wisliceny. Note that according to the Authorization-Export Permissions by the Bank of Greece (passport

pages 6 and 7) David Gattegno was allowed to take out a total of 5,000 Swiss Francs with him.

(Without loss of generality I include only David Gattegno).

Dieter Wisliceny claims that David Gattegno deposited only 30 Swiss Francs while (as we know)

he had permission to carry and export up to 5,000 Francs (Figure 11). Given this discrepancy, the

options are as follows:

1 David Gattegno took only 30 Francs with him.2 David Gattegno was carrying a larger sum but was able to conceal it despite the

threat of severe punishment if found.3 Wisliceny, along with the rest of his detachment, profited from the loot and

reported altered tallies to the Reich Finance Authorities.

The most obvious correct answer to this multiple-choice question is option three, suggesting

thievery. 88


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Figure 13: A note, dated December 2, 1943, declares that theJudenaktionin Salonika resulted in the confiscation of

22,300,000Drachmas, 40,185 US Dollars and 55,345 Swiss Francs, plus what they seized from the Jewish Spanish

Nationals.

There exists a gap in exit and entry stamps. First of all, they were hoarded on a train and deported

on August 2, 1944, conveying that there were no niceties such as border stampings exiting Greece,

entering Yugoslavia, and then the Reich to Bergen-Belsen. The journey in its entirety does not

include exit stamps from the Reich or entry into a fully occupied France and dumping at the French-

Spanish frontier at Cerbre (Figure 15) for subsequent entry into Spain and then the final

destination, Barcelona (Figures 10, 11, 14 and 15).


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Figure 14

Page 5 (stamp) Entrance Stamp in Spain (Port-Bou) February 10, 1944Page 6 (stamp) Second Entrance Stamp in Spain (Port-Bou) February 10, 1944

Figure 15

Page 8 Authorization by the Spanish Consulate General in Athens for the pass holders to enter Spain without

having to pay any custom duties or levies for the import of their personal belongings due to the fact that

they always resided abroad (i.e. in Greece and not Spain) July 6, 1943

Page 8a One orthogonal Spanish Stamp dated February 2, 1944; A faint digit 3 after the digit 2 is discernible in

magnificationPage 8b A small round Stamp of the Customs of PortBouPage 9 French exit visa by the Vichy Police at the border town of Cerbre, Rgion de Montpellier, opposite

Spanish Port-Bou, February 10, 1944. Note the Vichy Coat of Arms on the stamp


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Figure 16

Page 10 Spanish stamp, April 4, 1944Page 11 Gratis Extension of the validity of the passport at the Spanish Consulate General in Palestine at

Jerusalem, July 4, 1945(Note the gap with no exit or entrance stamps from Spain to Casablanca and then on to Palestine, a time

period of more than a year).

A New York Times article dated February 17, 1944 reports that 365 Jews Reach Spain.89The text follows,

MADRID, Feb. 16The Spanish Foreign Legion announced today that 365 Spanish-speaking Jewsdescended from those expelled from Spain by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in 1492 had been

brought to Spain after negotiations with Berlin freed them from a German concentration camp at Bergen

Belsen. Thousands of these Spanish Jews lived in Salonika and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean.

They speak a type of Spanish little different from that spoken in the time of Isabella and Ferdinand. A

note by the Foreign Ministry said those repatriated expressed their unanimous thanks and satisfaction for

the Spanish Government's help in getting them out of the German concentration camp.

Figure 17: Food ration card issued to the Gattegnos in

Barcelona


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Figure 18b: The outside back cover of the passport was

stamped with the note

UNION OF POLISH INMATES(in Greek after the return)

Figure 18

Page 12 Entrance stamp to Greece and stamp (Timbre) consular feeslevied at the Port of Piraeus on August 26, 1945 due the lack of

Greek Consular attestation (in Jerusalem)

Inside Back Cover Various stamps, February, March and April 1944 (Barcelona Spain)

There exists another gap in exit and entry stamps: No exit stamp from Spain to Casablanca exists

nor is there an entry stamp to Palestine (at the time under the League of Nations British Mandate).

Figure 16 bears the extension of the validity of the passport issued by the Consulate General of

Spain in Palestine and located in Jerusalem. Figure 17 shows a food ration card issued to the

Gattegnos in Barcelona. Figure 18 bears the entry stamp into Greece at the Port of Piraeus on

August 26, 1945. Thus, this modern Odyssey differs from the Homeric one in the sense that the

preoccupation of its unsung heroes was to return to where they had started. Their Troy and Ithaca

was one and the same: Salonika.


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D. From October 30, 1944 (Liberation) till today

Liberation

The last Germans left Salonika on October 30, 1944. A few tens of Jews appeared again in public.

In a city that boasted the largest and most solid Sephardic Community of 55,000 souls before the

War, its currentJudenrein(Jew free) status was hard to swallow. It would be months before other

escapees and camp survivors would start arriving. Many never returned, preferring to emigrate to

Palestine and mainly to the United States of America. Many of those who returned later also chose

to emigrate. Their birth city was suddenly foreign and hostile to them.90Greece would be in turmoil

for the next four and a half years, engaging in a fratricidal civil war. The central government in

Athens, even though fully absorbed with civil strife, did find time to enact legislation to remedy the

burden incurred by its Jewish citizens. These laws forced the restitution of properties to their

rightful owners or their living relatives even though the measure vexed vested interests of those

who had been either administering temporarily abandoned Jewish property or had usurped them.

The fact is that even though the Greek State had passed the Law on Jewish Properties in January

1946, a full three years later (January 1949) the Law was still not implemented.91

The tragic factwas that those usurpers, adding insult to injury, had even organized themselves into an association

in orderto better promote and protect their rightsthe epitome of chutzpah. Nevertheless, theGreek State stood firm and the Law was implemented, albeit with some delay, for the relief of the

surviving Jews.

The victims and the survivors demanded justice, the least to which they were entitled. How was

justice served for the Jews of Salonika? What ever happened to the perpetrators? The following

chapter tackles briefly, the fate of the perpetrators.

Adolph Eichmann, Dieter Wisliceny, Alois Brunner, Max Merten

Another chapter of the post-liberation history of the Holocaust of the Jews of Salonika (and the

whole of Greece) is the fate of the principal perpetrators that we encountered in the narrative above.

These are Adolf Eichmann, Dieter Wisliceny, Alois Brunner, and Max (Maximilian) Merten. The

fate of Eichmann is well known; he was tried in Israel, found guilty for crimes against humanity,

condemned to death and executed.92Dieter Wisliceny was tried in Nuremberg after the war and

gave a testimonial affidavit (See Endnote 51). Greece, to the best of my knowledge, never made a

formal application to demand his extradition and make him stand trial for his complicity in the mass

murder of more than 60,000 Jewish Greeks. Wisliceny was tried again in Bratislava, the capital of

Slovakia, at the time part of Czechoslovakia. In his trial he was accused of complicity in the mass

murder of Jews from Slovakia, Greece and Hungary and of being a member of the SS and the SD,

organizations branded as criminal by the Nuremberg judgment. He was sentenced to death on

February 27, 1948 and executed by hanging two hours later. It is interesting to note that one day

earlier the Communists had taken and assumed unlimited power. Maybe this is the reason why his

execution went unmentioned in the press.93Alois Brunner still evades apprehension. If he is still

alive in the year 2013 he is 101 years old. He is purported to reside in Damascus, Syria. He has

been tried many times in absentia and has been condemned to death in French criminal courts for

his role as the Commander of the Drancy Transit to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp outside Paris in the

genocide of the Jewish French and other Jews in France.94Not only was he never tried in absentia

in Greece for his sinister role in the annihilation of the Jews of Salonika, but repeated appeals by the

Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece to successive Greek ministers of justice requesting

the formal charging and criminal prosecution of Alois Brunner for his crimes and ask for hisextradition always receive the following reply,


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Greece can not request the extradition of the German Criminal of War Alois Brunner because, due to the two

laws that were passed in 1959 by the Greek Parliament all criminal prosecution against German War Criminals

has been suspended [discontinued] and all rights and jurisdiction of the Hellenic State to prosecute and bring to

trial and judge the German War Criminals who operated on her soil has been transferred to the German Court

Authorities since 1959 forthwith and for eternity95

The most interesting case concerns Max Merten: echoing the political climate of the year 1957 and

being aware of the absence of any and the reluctance of the Greek State to charge German warcriminals on its own initiative, he decided that it was of no personal risk to visit Athens in order to

appear at the Greek Court as a defense witness for his former interpreter Meissner. However,

Jewish Greeks from Salonika noticed him, and the police promptly arrested him. He was tried in

1959, found guilty, and condemned to 25 years incarceration. However, as previously discussed, the

Greek Parliament passed Law 3933/1959 that suspended immediately all criminal prosecutions of

German war criminals and transferred forthwith all jurisdiction to the German criminal system. A

few days later, the Greek Parliament passed the Legislative Decree 401/1959, extending the benefits

of the law to those already tried and serving their sentence. This was blatant manipulation as such

an extension concerned only Merten. Several days later, the Federal Republic of Germany sent a

special airplane to pick up Merten. In Germany, Merten was eventually acquitted from all charges

in 1961 due to a lack of evidence.96Justice had been served.97If all of this was not enough, there

exists present day anecdotal evidence that speaks to a flagrant disregard for justice vis--vis Merten.

A doctoral dissertation, presented and approved at the University of Mannheim in 2003, almost

exonerates Merten from all guilt.98

Modern Community: Jewish Museum of Salonika

The Jewish Community of Salonika managed, out of the ashes, to rebuild the Jewish life if not of

the city itself, at least for the benefit of its surviving members and progeny. My authorship of this

piece is evidence of regeneration. The Greek State, on the occasion of Salonika becoming thecultural capital of Europe in 1997, erected a state memorial as a tribute to the 55,000 Jewish Greeks

of Salonika who perished in the German work and extermination camps.99The unveiling of the

memorial was carried out by then President of the Hellenic Republic Constantinos Stephanopoulos

in 1997. A few years later, more than 63 years after the Plateia Eleftherias Square assembly and

more than 60 years after the liberation of Greece, the memorial was moved to its rightful placethesoutheastern corner of the aforementioned square, facing the sea. And it was here that the Hellenic

Republicscurrent president, Carolos Papoulias, came for a second time, to lay a wreath on theoccasion of the state visit to Greece by the President of the State of Israel Mr. Moshe Katsav in

February 2006.

The Community, after healing the wounds of its remaining members and having solidly

reestablished all those institutions that guaranteed a plethora of services for the needs of its

members such as schooling for the children, religious services, care for the sick and those in need,

as well as cultural activities, embarked in a bold path of making its unique culture known to the

whole world. Among its endeavors towards achieving this goal we may count the establishment of

the Jewish Museum of Salonika in 1998 by the Community, then headed by Mr. Andreas Sefiha.100

Currently, President David Satliel has initiated an ambitious ongoing project, that of the digitization

of the Community Archives. This project would assist research tremendously. During the last

decade many scientific symposia and conferences have been organized by the Community and held

at Salonika having as themes the many aspects of the Jewish life in Salonika and of Jewish

Salonika. The Community and especially the museum is often host to visiting scholars, scientistsand researchers from the world over. It has the ambitious goal of becoming both a depository and a

fountain of knowledge beside its primary role, that of serving as the cradle of our heritage.101


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Effectively, with these remarks, our framework is now paralleled by the wake of the daily life of the

Community. Notwithstanding the optimistic tone of 21stCentury Salonika, it is and will always be

impossible not to compare all events of its Jewish component, past, present and future using as a

yardstick the enormity of the Catastrophe. We must all learn from this event, each hers or his own

lesson, using hers or his own framework. An ancient Greek adage says

(There exists no evil without some good). I really want, very much so, to believe that thisadage is true.

Conclusions

I do not believe that during my lifetime I will reach the definite conclusions with regard to the

Holocaust. What I attempt to achieve is to formulate, after deep study and thought, tentative lessons

from the Holocaust. Thus, a lesson that I draw has to do with the following Sephardic proverb that

my father used to say: Si no yo para mi, quien para mi? Si no ahora, cuando?(If I do not takecare of myself who will? If not now, when?). In colloquial English, if we fail to fend for ourselves,

there is little chance for outside help. There exist shining exemptions that reaffirm our faith in

humanity, but they are just exemptions. And here lies the challenge and in my humble opinion, the

main lesson: no one should ever again submit to coercion. She or he should fight to the end if their

life is doomed. Furthermore,everyone should strive to become the kind of righteous person, like

those who saved Jews, towards other humans in peril of annihilation. No effort should be spared nor

is any effort insignificant.

From all of the above, I conclude that the Salonika Jewish Holocaust is very particular and implores

radical research methods. One might be the mathematical analysis limiting process: The Holocaust

of the Jews of Salonika has to be approached with an undertaking of a scrupulous study of events

before and up to the Holocaust (upper limit) and of events starting from the present and going back

to the Holocaust (lower limit), all correlatedwith the genocidal events of 1941-1945.

102

Now theupper limit is common in historiography, but the Holocaust, being a most highly uncommon event,

demands an exceptional and singular approach to research. The lower limit will only be reached if

we succeed to correlate all post-Holocaust events with Jewish content to the events of the Holocaust

era. For example, what factual conclusions may we draw from the post-Holocaust attitudes shown

by the surrounding Community towards its fellow Jewish countrymen? How might these relate to

events during the Holocaust? Are we allowed to judge past events in the light of and against current

ones or lack of actions? Are we to use as a yardstick the ancient Greek adage, All previous eventsare judged according to the last one?103 The quest for answers, unfortunately, leads to morequeries that themselves warrant additional answers.

It is bitterly ironic that even though the consequences of the unfolding of the Holocaust are known,all the facts surrounding it are not. If we performed a Gedanken experiment and, as a hypothesis,

each one of us assumed the identity of a camp inmate who survived but lost all his family, what

kind of conclusion, if any, do you believe we would reach? In my humble opinion, it is impossible

for us to reach the conclusion. There exists an alternative and that is to channel our energy and

efforts to further Holocaust and genocide research for the h

the history of the jews of salonika and the holocaust: an exposé

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