Jewish cemetery of Salonica
Location | Thessaloniki, Greece |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°37′48″N 22°57′29″E / 40.63000°N 22.95806°E |
Type | Catacombs |
History | |
Founded | 15th century |
The Jewish cemetery of Salonica was established in the late fifteenth century by
Destruction
The
Nazi Germany did not have a consistent policy of destroying or preserving Jewish cemeteries.
The cemetery was partly destroyed in the first week of December 1942 in a process overseen by the chief engineer of Thessaloniki municipality, Athanassios Broikos, and involving five hundred workers.[9][12] Jewish community leader Michael Molho believed that the Christians were eager to destroy the cemetery quickly because they wanted to complete it before Allied liberation of the area.[13]
One survivor recalled:
People were running between the tombs begging the destroyers to spare those of their relatives; with tears, they collected the remains. In my family vault, there were the remains of my brother, aged twenty, who died during a journey to Rome. His body was brought back from abroad and put in two coffins, one in metal and the other in wood. When the second coffin was opened my poor brother appeared in his smocking and his pointed shoes as though he had been put there yesterday. My mother fainted.[9]
According to historians Carla Hesse and Thomas Laqueur, "Nowhere else, in no other great city, did the imperatives of modernity and nation-building telescope so decisively with the crisis of occupation and genocide."[14]
The destruction of the cemetery was completed during the tenure of George Seremetis as mayor of Thessaloniki.[15] Seremetis then sold the tombstones to contractors for use as materials in various projects.[16] Some of the stones were confiscated by German occupation authorities to build roads, public baths, and a swimming pool.[9][17]
Aftermath
Some parts of the cemetery survived intact as late as 1947. Many tombstones were appropriated and used by the city authorities and the Greek Orthodox Church.[18] After the war, people (including city officials) were still carrying away Jewish gravestones each day and regularly looting the cemetery in search of valuables.[2] A 1992 commemorative book pictures Greek schoolgirls playing Hamlet with skulls and other bones they found in the cemetery.[19] As of 2017[update], there are still tombstones in various walls, roads, and churches around the city, although when found they are returned to the new Jewish cemetery.[9][20] According to historian Rena Molho, "one can still find, as the writer has personally witnessed, Jewish tombs decorating children's playgrounds, bars, and restaurants in modern hotels in the summer resorts of the Chalkidiki".[21] The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki contains some monumental stones and inscriptions with photographs showing the cemetery and visitors as it was in 1914.
The Jewish community never received compensation for the confiscation of the land under the cemetery,[22] valued in 1943 at 1.5 billion drachmas.[10][23]
A memorial to the Jewish cemetery was unveiled in 2014 on the grounds of Aristotle University.[24] The memorial has been vandalized several times.[25]
See also
References
- ^ "When the Nazis Desecrated the Jewish Cemetery of Salonika". The Librarians. 9 November 2017. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
- ^ a b Mazower 2004, p. 424.
- ^ a b Kornetis 2018, p. 240.
- ^ a b Saltiel 2014, p. 1.
- ^ a b Mazower 2004, p. 397.
- ^ Vassilikou 2000, p. 120.
- ^ a b c Molho 2010, p. 63.
- ^ Saltiel 2014, p. 8.
- ^ a b c d e f Mazower 2004, p. 398.
- ^ a b Hesse & Laqueur 2018, p. 344.
- ^ Apostolou 2018, pp. 106–107.
- ^ Saltiel 2014, pp. 23–24.
- ^ Apostolou 2018, p. 107.
- ^ Saltiel 2014, p. 26.
- ^ "Η ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗ ΜΙΛΑΕΙ ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΈΝΟΧΟ ΜΥΣΤΙΚΟ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΠΑΓΗΣ ΤΩΝ ΕΒΡΑΪΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΟΥΣΙΩΝ, ΚΕΝΤΡΙΚΟ ΙΣΡΑΗΛΙΤΙΚΟ ΣΥΜΒΟΥΛΙΟ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ". Archived from the original on 2021-04-29. Retrieved 2021-04-29.
- ^ Και επίσημα οδός Αλμπέρτου Ναρ, 28.03.2018, Απόστολος Λυκεσάς, Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών
- ^ Glenny 1999, p. 514.
- ^ Kornetis 2018, pp. 247–248.
- ^ Hesse & Laqueur 2018, pp. 342–343.
- ^ "The rescued Jewish tombstones of Thessaloniki". The World from PRX. 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
- ^ Molho 2010, p. 64.
- ^ Vassilikou 2000, p. 129.
- ^ Saltiel 2014, p. 7.
- ^ "Greek university unveils memorial on site of destroyed Jewish cemetery". 10 November 2014.
- ^ "Thessaloniki Jewish monument vandalized by antisemitic graffiti". The Jerusalem Post. 31 December 2022. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
Sources
- Apostolou, Andrew (2018). "Greek Collaboration in the Holocaust and the Course of the War". The Holocaust in Greece. Cambridge University Press. pp. 89–112. ISBN 978-1-108-47467-2.
- ISBN 978-0-8047-7249-5.
- ISBN 978-0-691-10272-6.
- ISBN 978-1-77089-273-6.
- Hesse, Carla; Laqueur, Thomas W. (2018). "Bodies Visible and Invisible". The Holocaust in Greece. Cambridge University Press. pp. 327–358. ISBN 978-1-108-47467-2.
- Kornetis, Kostis (2018). "Expropriating the Space of the Other: Property Spoliations of Thessalonican Jews in the 1940s". The Holocaust in Greece. Cambridge University Press. pp. 228–252. ISBN 978-1-108-47467-2.
- ISBN 978-0-307-42757-1.
- Molho, Rena (2010). Salonica and Istanbul: Social, Political and Cultural Aspects of Jewish Life. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-975-428-278-8.
- Saltiel, Leon (2014). "Dehumanizing the Dead: The Destruction of Thessaloniki's Jewish Cemetery in the Light of New Sources". Yad Vashem Studies. 42 (1): 1–35.
- Vassilikou, Maria (2000). "The Jewish Cemetery of Salonika in the Crossroads of Urban Modernisation and Anti-Semitism". European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe. 33 (1): 118–131. JSTOR 41431061.
Further reading
- Saltiel, Leon (2020). The Holocaust in Thessaloniki: Reactions to the Anti-Jewish Persecution, 1942–1943. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-51415-9.