Jews in Wartime Greece

8/14/2019 Jews in Wartime Greece

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Jews in Wartime Greece*by Steven Bowman

Of the many tragedies that befell wartime Greece the destruction of its Jewishpopulation is not the least significant. The story of this one ethnic group is of interestboth because of its historical implications and because of the possibility it presentsas a case study in the vicissitudes of that period.

What is called the "idea of Greece" or its corollary - "Greek identity" - has ex-erted a strong assimilative effect upon the many ethnoi who have entered within thisGreek sphere of influence, with the result that they have abandoned their former ethnicidentity. Through this hellenizing process, they have come to relinquish their own formersocial and religious traditions and have simply become Greeks. The Jews, too, adoptedthe Greek language, mores, and lifestyle, and through their particular skills contributedto the development ofGreek civilization. Contrary to other ethnoi, however, they havedemanded the right to practice their ancestral religion and retain their own identity.This test of religious freedom has challenged both religious hospitality and politicaltolerance throughout Greek history. Greece, more often than not, has withstood thetest. For the modern period, however, this essl!y is concerned with the tragic declineand destruction of the various Greek Jewish communities during the 1940s in the wakeof the German invasion.1

Greek Jews came from a number ofbackgrounds. The oldest elements of the Jewishcommunity in Greece were the Romaniotes, Greek-speaking Jews who stemmed originally from Palestine; their wide dispersal in the first century was noted by the Alexandrian philosopher, Philo Judaeus (ca. 30 B.C.E.-C.E. 45). Until the thirteenth century, all Jews in Greece became hellenized in speech at least by the second generationafter their arrival. The Arabic-speaking Karaites exemplify this process: immigratingin the tenth century, they had become Greek-speaking by the eleventh. 2

During the thirteenth century new conquerors parceled out areas of Byzantium.For the next few hundred years Greece, despite her fragmentation, would become ahaven for the persecuted Jewries of Roman Catholic Europe. Alongside the Romaniotecommunities, there appeared Italian-speaking Jews. The beginnings of the Sephardicimmigration followed shortly, while groups of Ashkenazic Jews also made their appearance, speaking German, Hungarian, French and Polish, and so forth. 3

From the fifteenth century on came increasing numbers ofSpanish and Portuguesespeaking Sephardim, perhaps 125,000 in all. Ultimately these assimilated nearly allthe non-Greek-speaking Jews to their liturgical rite and even to their linguistic tradition. Greek and Italian-speaking communities persisted, however, in Crete, Euboea,Epiros and the Morea. In the nineteenth century, Italian traditions were revived amongthe Jewries of the Ionian Heptanisi and the Aegean Dodekanisi. Also, by the end ofthe century, through the efforts of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, French quickly

45


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46 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESbecame the main intellectual and cultural language of upper class Jews especially inSalonica.4

On the eve of independence (ca. 1820), the majority of the Jews in Greece wereSephardim, especially in Salonica, a city which was basically a Jewish enclave, andin the larger towns of Macedonia and Thrace.5 The islands of the Ionian Sea nourishedcommunities of Italian-speaking Jews of various origins as did the Archipelago andthe Dodekanisi. In the Morea and Crete there were a handful of Jews of Romanioteorigin and of the Portuguese-and Spanish-speaking Sephardim that, as has been mentioned, came to Greece in the sixteenth century.During the course of the War of Independence (18208) all of the Jews in theemerging kingdom, except for the small community in Patras, were destroyed alongwith their ineffectual Thrkish protectors.6 Within several decades, Athens was attractingJewish merchants from the neighboring areas still under Thrkish control, especiallymerchants from Izmir, one of whom was recently credited with having founded thewell-known flea market at Plateia Monasteraki.7 By the 18708, Jews were matriculatingat the newly-established University ofAthens, while the movement for henosis (= union)with Greece on the part of the Heptanisi was supported by the synagogues of Constantinople and elsewhere. 8 In the independent "rehellenized" Kingdom of Greece, itwas only natural that Jews too would openly take on a Greek way of life and supporttheir king.

After the Balkanwars that added Macedonia and Thrace to the Kingdom of Greece,Greek-speaking Jews were coopted to win over their Sephardic coreligionists in Salonica.Agents were sent north to teach Greek and preach Hellenism. A pro-royalist newspaper (La Boz del Pueblo) was founded to help influence public opinion. On the eveof World War I, the powerful community of Salonica was openly wooed to supportthe unification of Macedonia with Greece and to oppose the call for Macedonian independence or even return to Ottoman control. The pivotal importance of this community was based upon several factors: ca. 70,000 strong, this Spanish-speaking Jewishenclave was the determining economic, social, and political component in the life ofthe city. To the Jews, Salonica was simply a Jewish metropolis, the Jersualem of theBalkans. At the same time, however, it was not a monolithic community. The diversecongregations added a factional note to community politics, while sectarians such asthe Donmeh (seventeenth-century converts to Islam who covertly remained Jews)flourished. The latter, along with other minority elements (the Armenians, for example),had supplied a number of leaders to the Young Thrk movement at the beginning ofthe century. In addition, propagandists of socialism agitated for labor reforms, whileproponents of the new Jewish nationalist movement, Zionism, made their appearance.Also, since the end of the previous century, the same economic factors that encouraged the mass emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe set in motion a parallel trendamong the poor but energetic Jews of Thrace, Macedonia, and the islands (in particular Rhodes). Against this background of internal ferment, the Jews of the newlyconquered north were cautious in their appraisal of the phenomenon of growing nationalism among the neighboring peoples. Thus history circumvented them. Tides ofpatriotic fervor swept through the area, washing these Jewish communities into thebackwaters of history where they were quietly expunged during the next generation.


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Jews in Wartime Greece 47It was World War I and the succeeding decade that signaled the end of a Jewish

Salonica. (Parenthetically one may note an interesting parallel with Eastern Europewhere the ravages ofWorld War I and its aftermath accelerated the decline in the stability and structure ofAshkenazic Jewry.) The great fire that ravaged Salonica in 1917destroyed much Jewish property and crippled Jewish life there. The impact is summarized by Joseph Nehama:

Suddenly the hand of fate struck Saloniki. On the Sabbath of 18 August 1917 at 2 a.m.a terrible fire ignited which was fanned by a strong north wind, the infamous Vardar, andit encompassed the whole city. Some French seamen who were on leave in the harbor atthat time wanted to douse the flame with water prepared for such an emergency. But theharsh and pitiless General Sarrail did not permit it, despite the pleas. Not one drop to putout the flame: war needs take all precedence! Meanwhile the city was in flames. On pretextof fighting the fire, the engineering corps threw bombs haphazardly; this, of course, addedto the holocaust. Within a few hours the destruction reached gigantic proportions: 4101structures covering 227 hectares were razed; 15,000 families totaling 73,000 souls were homeless. Only 10 per cent of the property lost was insured. The tragedy struck the Jews in particular: their losses were immeasurable. 10,000 families, some 54,000 souls, slept under theopen skies. Over half the structures destroyed belonged to the Jews. Almost every school,32 synagogues, some 50 small houses of prayer, every cultural center, the [literary] circles,clubs, libraries, learning centers, all were destroyed. The glory of Jewish Saloniki, its flavorand atmosphere - the fruit of twenty generations there - disappeared.9In the succeeding five years, through a policy of induced inflation, EleftheriosVenizelos succeeded in expropriating much of the city. Taking advantage of the de

struction of the Jewish quarters, fortuitously located on the site of the ancient city,the area was marked for urban restoration; proprietors, mostly Jewish, were paid offwith devalued funds and were relocated elsewhere. More land was acquired from theextensive Jewish graveyard, continuing a policy initiated earlier by the Ottoman authorities. 10 Thus, from being a predominantly Jewish city in 1917, by 1922 Salonica hadbecome half Greek, at which time the second phase in the hellenization of the citywas initiated. Venizelos welcomed the Anatolian refugees to Macedonia and particularly to Salonica, as replacements for the Muslims leaving for TInkey in that politicallyfortunate but humanly-tragic exchange of populations. As for the Jews, stillpredominantly Spanish-speaking, they were reduced from 70 per cent to 30 per centof the population. This social and economic restructuring of the city induced the Jewsto vote with the king and against Venizelos, thereby assisting in the latter's defeat inthe elections of 1920 which led to his self-imposed exile. Shortly after his return topower, he avenged this setback by banning Jewish participation in Greek national elections (1923), and for a time, the Jews were restricted to choosing only their own communal leaders.

Further difficulties appeared for the Jews in the 1930s in the wake ofthe spreadinginfluence of fascism and nazism among the poor and dispossessed in Salonica. StylianosGonatas, governor general of Macedonia from 1929 to 1932, supported the newlyfounded Greek fascist party, Ethniki Enosis Ellados (National Union of Greece), orEEE, and sent its student section to the Kambel quarter ofSalonica where they burneda large number of Jewish homes in June 1931. Venizelos censured Gonatas for thisaction, thus breaking the alliance that had existed between the two since 1923 when


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48 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESGonatas supported Venizelos' plan to hellenize Salonica. Anti-Jewish activity, however, continued until the middle of the decade (ostensibly to combat an alleged Jewishplot aimed at bringing Salonica and its environs under Bulgarian control). In the wakeofthese disturbances, nearly 10,000 Jews left Salonica to find new lives and new centersfor themselves in Palestine (1932-1934).11The professions that these Jews brought to Palestine were of considerable valueto the developing Yishuv. They included bankers (the Israel Discount Bank was foundedby the Recanati family), doctors, lawyers and other professionals, craftsmen and artisans, dockworkers who contributed to the development of Jewish port facilities inHaifa, fishermen, and politicians. The loss of these skilled individuals to the Greekeconomy and the subsequent annihilation of the well-developed social, economic, andintellectual infrastructure of Greek society during the Holocaust - in particular thenewspaper editors, reporters, typesetters, printers, silk merchants and other textilemanufacturers, tobacco entrepreneurs and skilled workers (especially women)-hadsevere ramifications for postwar Greece. In many of these sectors, after World WarII, Greece had to create a new commercial and industrial base. This aspect of the waryears has been little appreciated in recent studies of postwar Greece. 12Against the background of this political and social upheavel, John Metaxas convinced the king to suspend the constitution on 4 August 1936, thereafter governingas dictator until his death in January 1941. Although both a royalist and an admirerof Mussolini and Hitler, Metaxas nevertheless officially banned any public anti-Jewishdemonstrations and outlawed the EEE. On the other hand, he forbade the appointment of any new Jewish or Armenian officers in the Greek armed forces. Owing tothis ban on public meetings, intellectual life in general declined during this period andJewish clubs, among others, were adversely affected. Subsequently Metaxas suspendedall Jewish French-language newspapers while allowing the Jewish Spanish-languagenewspapers to continue publication. Even so, the latter rapidly declined, dropping froma daily circulation of 25,000 in 1932 to a mere 6,000 in 1940. After OXI Day, however,Metaxas permitted publication of all the French-language newspapers. (On 28 October1940 the Greek leader replied to Mussolini's pre-dawn ultimatum with a succinct NO:"OXI" in Greek. That day is annually celebrated as a national holiday in Greece.)Nevertheless, several newspaper editors, for example, Sam Modiano, had by this timebecome impoverished. 13

With the declaration of war, thousands of Jews marched off to Albania to fightagainst the Italians and help bring about their defeat. It is perhaps not by accidentthat, of the two national heroes cited for special awards for their heroic actions, onewas a common soldier and the other a Jewish officer, Colonel Mordecai Frizi, fromChalkis, who had served long and honorably in various Greek armies. 14In the Italo-Greek campaign of 1940-1941, Jews ofSalonica, Macedonia, Thrace,and Epiros figured prominently in the army. As noted, these areas had been annexedonly in the previous generation; this is but one indication of the extent to which Jewsaccepted and supported Greek government. Unofficial estimates indicate that, out ofa total population of some 80,000 Jews on the eve of the war, there were 12,898 soldiers,including 343 officers and NCOs. In action against the Italians and Germans, theysuffered losses of 513 dead and 3,743 wounded, of whom 1,412 became crippled; many


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Jews in Wartime Greece 49of the latter were ultimately sent to Birkenau by the Germans. In the Greek army, companies 50 and 63 were composed mainly of Jews from Salonica and Macedonia. Thebest known combatant was the abovementioned Colonel Frizi. He became the heroof the Battle of Kalama at which he fell; he was the highest ranking officer to diein Albania. Colonel Frizi was posthumously awarded the gold star and a monumentwas erected in his memory in Chalkis. Also approximately twenty-five streets have beennamed after him throughout Greece. 15

Other soldiers included Colonel Joseph Barukh, who served in the cavalry againstthe Italians, and Leon Dusatis, who fought in Albania and later served as a majorin the Israel Defense Forces. A large number of Jewish physicians also served in thewar. Colonel Henry Nissim Levyof Ioannina directed the military hospitals. Jean Alaluf,a well-known local physician, served in the military hospital in Salonica during the war.

The inability of the Italians to defeat Greece and occupy it forced Hitler to alterthe date of his Russian invasion in order to secure the now sensitive Balkan flank.Though it took him only several weeks to overrun Yugoslavia and Greece and mostof May to plan and execute the parachute invasion of Crete, possibly one of the mostremarkable military exploits of World War II, it was not before 22 June 1941 that Operation Barbarossa could be launched. The precious time loss incurred by that one month'sdelay may .well have decided the fate of the Eastern Front. As at Thermopylai, theblood of Greek soldiers and their British allies bought time which proved crucial tothe ultimate victory. 16Even so, Greece was officially defeated and occupied by Axis powers, Bulgariabeing awarded eastern Thrace and that part of Macedonia which was taken from Yu-goslavia; the Germans appropriated Greek Macedonia and western Thrace for themselves and later conquered Crete, while the Italians received Larissa and the remainderof Greece including Athens and the Peloponnesos. From the period when the Resistance was established at the end of 1942 through the first five months of 1943, nearlyall of the Jewish population living in the Bulgarian-occupied zones of Macdeonia andThrace, and the majority of the Jewish population of the German-occupied zones ofMacedonia and Thrace were sent to the extermination camps, primarily Auschwitz.For this reason, there were few Jewish recruits available in the north to join the Resistance. Nevertheless, a report of 7 July 1943 estimates (or possibly overestimates) thenumber of Jews in the guerrilla forces as 9,000. Clearly this figure also includes thosein hiding under the protection of ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos).17The Italian-occupied south, however, proved to be a haven for Jews fleeing from thenorth. General Carlo Geloso, head of Italian-occupied Greece, refused to put into effect any anti-Jewish measures on the pretext that no precise directive had been issuedhim by his government. 18 Thus it was made possible for larger numbers of Jews toparticipate in the Resistance in that area.The Bulgarian contribution to the extermination of the Jews in Greece was themost efficient.19 In fact, it was nearly total, as can be seen from a comparison of prewarand postwar population figures for those areas under their control (see Thble). FromYugoslavian Macedonia over 7,300 Jews were collected. After the war only 196 returnedto their homes; the remainder either died in Poland or were drowned en route in theDanube. From Greek Thrace the percentage is nearly the same: of some 4,200 arrested,


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v.0TABLE: POPULATION OF JEWS IN GREECE 1904-1973

1904 1928 1940 1943 1943- 1945 1947 1948 1955 1959 1967 1973THRACEDidymotikon 906 1,000 1,000 900 33 33 38 40 40 21 14Nea Orestias 200 197 197 3 3Alexandroupolis 200 200 165 140 44 (42) 4 4Komotini 1,200 900 850 819 904 (878) 28 28 22 10Xanthe 600 600 550 537 (526) 6 6 4Soufli 25 40Samothrace 3 (3)Thasos 16 (16)MACEDONIAKavalla 2,000 2,200 2,200 2,100 1,657 (1,484) 42 42 43 50 47 47 16Drama 380 1,500 1,200 1,200 592 (589) 39 39 39 17 4Serres 2,000 750 600 600 471 (471) 3 3Thessaloniki 75,000 62,500 56,500 56,000 1,950 1,950 1,950 1,350 1,279 1,122 ca. 1,200Verroia 500 850 460 131 131 112 40 38 24 3 fam.Kastoria 1,600 1,000 900 900 35 35 38 32 27 2Flornia 500 400 400 64 64 64 30 7Langadas 50Katerini 80 50 35 2 fam.Naussa 50 10 ....THESALYTrikkala 1,000 600 520 520 360 360 356 150 123 101 33 fam.Larissa 2,500 2,100 1,175 1,120 726 726 621 500 482 441 400olos 1,100 1,000 882 872 645 645 558 350 230 210 70-80 >arditsa 150 100 51 30 30 t"'CENTRAL GREECEChalkis 200 400 350 325 170 170 181 150 108 91 101

thens 300 3,200 3,500 3,000 (over 10,(00) 4,930 4,930 4,000 3,000 2,718 2,802 3,500 (1) en


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PELOPONNESOSatras-Agrinion 300 337 265 145 152 153 40 37 19 16 I; i j(All 40 Jews of Agrinion survived) SEPIROSoannina 4,000 2,000 1,950 1,850 163 163 150 105 100 92 100 ::tPreveza 200 250 250 250 15 15 11 2 .

Arta 300 400 384 384 60 60 54 50 20 !IIISLANDS CKerkyra (Corfu) 3,500 2,000 2,000 2,000 187 185 125 102 100 92 70 iZakynthos (Zante) 175 300 275 275 275 275 69 8 1Rhodes 4,000 } 2,200 } 1,900 } 200 } 200 }60 }49 32 30Kos 103Mytilene 100Chios 350CRETECandia (Iraklion) 52Chanea 525 400 350 350 7 7 6Lassithi 38Rethymnon 31TOTAL (approx.)

110,000 83,000 79,950 77,377 10,226 10,371 8,650 5,909 5,475 5,124 5,000Sources:1904 Estimated population figures in The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1925), VI, 84, and XII, 387-88.1928 I. Kabelli, "Israelitikos" in Neoteron Enkuklopardikon Lexikon, s.v. "Helios," p. 1,038.1943}1945 Official lists of the Central Jewish Committees published in I. A. Matarasso, ".. . !G' omos holoi tous den pethanan .. . ," pp. 56-57 (see Note 24 below).19481943' 44 (42) indicates 44 Jews in 1943; 42 of whom were deported. For the (over 10,(00) in Athens, see Note 18 below.Official figures of Bulgarian deportations published in Chary, The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution (Note 19 below), p. 105.1940}1947 Figures published by Molho and Nehama, The Destruction of Greek Jewry (Hebrew), pp. 223-24 (see Note 9 below).19591955 Maurice J. Goldbloom, "Greece," American Jewish Year Book, 57 (1956),363.1967 ''The Number of the Jews in Greece" (Hebrew), Bitjuzoth ha-Golah, 11, nos. 48/49 (1969), 140. v.1973 Author's observation and estimates supplied by local communities. -


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52 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESonly 216 survived. This action by a non-combatant member of the Axis is hard to fathomin the face of the strange fact that Bulgarian Jewry, far from being exterminated, actually increased during the war. 20

To the Germans fell the great Jewish population of Salonica, a declining anddemoralized community, it is true, but still possessing some pride in its once gloriousheritage as the center of Sephardic civilization. During the brief but crucial periodwhen Chief Rabbi Zvi Koretz was both duped and pressured by the Germans into becoming the leader of the community, the Jews were organized and deported. 21 Thoughthe Germans had occupied Salonica in April 1941, it was not before July 1942 thatthe Rosenberg Commission headed by Dieter Wisliceny arrived and initiated the antiJewish program.22 In rapid succession the community was isolated, demoralized, impoverished, and finally liquidated. On 10 July, all able-bodied Jews were ordered toassemble in the Plateia Eleutheria. Some nine thousand appeared. After a humiliatingday in the hot sun, they were marked for forced labor for the Germany army. Thecommunity leaders attempted to buy their release and agreed to a payment of twobillion drachmas in cash and their rights to the graveyard. On 6 December, the municipality of Thessaloniki began to destroy the graveyard which in the interim had beentransferred to it by the Germans. The two billion drachmas were raised from the fastdisappearing wealth of the community with assistance from other Salonican Jews livingin Athens. On 6 February 1943, the Germans began to implement the Nuremberg Lawsagainst the Jews. Within a few weeks the following decrees became effective: everyJew over fifteen years of age had to wear a yellow Star of David; Jews were forbiddento use public transportation or to be on the main streets after dark; telephone servicewas forbidden except for communal officials or doctors; signs were to be placed identifying Jewish shops and homes or apartments; permission to change their domicilehad to be obtained from the Germans; Jews had to submit a complete list of propertyand financial resources; and Jews had to live within special areas.23Three ghettos were established, the last called Baron Hirsch located alongside therailroad station in Salonica. That name provides something of an ironic touch, sinceBaron Hirsch was noted as a philanthropist who had supported Jewish colonization.The Jews of Salonica, too, were supposedly being relocated to the empty fields of Poland, ostensibly to be engaged in agriculture. Their only connection with agriculture,however, was to be fertilizer, for that is how the efficient Nazis disposed of the ashremains of their burnt corpses. Of the 48,000 Saloniki Jews sent to Auschwitz, 45,000were gassed there; about 1,000 went to Warsaw to salvage valuables from the destroyedGhetto for the Germans, while about 500 were transported to other camps. Another15,000 Jews from other parts of Greece also died at Auschwitz. Thus the percentageof Greek Jews killed by the Nazis, nearly 90 per cent, ranks second to that of PolishJewry. The historical consequences are equally as devastating. 24Nearly the whole of Greek Jewry passed through Auschwitz. Its fate at the camp,however, is more than a set of statistics in a list of mass exterminations. One record,recently revealed, relates how 435 "young and healthy" Jews from SaIonicawere selectedto work in the crematoria as Sonderkommandos. Their task would be to assist thevictims in the pseudo-showering areas that were actually huge gas chambers. Four hundred of them refused to survive under such circumstances and were themselves gassedon 22 July 1944.25


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Jews in Wartime Greece 53What proved to be the only revolt in the history of Auschwitz took place on 7

October 1944. At this time, according to Kabelli, one-third of the Sonderkommando(135 out of 400) was composed of Greek Jews; the remainder were French and Hungarian Jews including a contingent of nineteen Russian Jewish soldiers.26 Through theefforts of some Jewish women who worked in the munitions factory, a small quantityof dynamite and some weapons were smuggled into the crematoria. The plan was forthe doomed Sonderkommando to participate in a general camp revolt. Synchronization was poor under the circumstances, however, and their revolt began ahead ofschedule. 1\\'0 of the squads lost courage, but in the third and fourth crematoria theGreeks were able to overcome the guards and to blow up the furnaces and smokestacksbefore they were finally killed. In the rubble of Crematorium III, according to severalsources, the Greek Jews died singing the Greek national anthem. The results of thisunique revolt included the deaths of some twenty guards, the destruction of one crematorium and extensive damage to the second, thereby halving the "production" of thedeath factory. From the viewpoint of raising the morale of the prisoners, however,the results were incalculable.

The above brief description of the revolt represents the consensus of Greek-Jewishhistoriography. The major problem is that it contradicts all non-Greek sources of Auschwitz. J6sef Garlinski's account of the resistance movement does not mention any Greeksin the revolt, nor does Reuben Ainsztein's recent detailed study of the revolt itself.Ber Marks' Scroll ojAuschwitz, too, attempts to provide some correctives to Kabelli'saccount.27 A number of Polish-Jewish memoirs on the revolt were unearthed in Auschwitz and have been published along with several memorial books dedicated to specificdestroyed communities. All of these sources emphasize the Polish factor in the revolt.Moreover, the editor of the Hebrew version of Michael Molho's and Joseph Nehama'sIn Memoriam argues that, since Greek Jews spoke only Greek, French, or Ladino (notnecessarily true), they would have been unable to communicate with Roza Robota,the woman who was responsible for smuggling in much of the dynamite that was usedin the revolt. His argument that she would have interacted only with Yiddish-speakingJews, however, proves nothing since the situation in the camp was much more complicated.28These contradictory traditions necessitate two separate lines of inquiry. One wouldpursue the impact of the respective historiographical traditions of Polish and GreekJewry regarding the revolt. The only sources still remaining are memoirs both of participants in the revolt and other prisoners. Clearly the various Greek and Polish sourcessupport their particular biases. A second would undertake an impartial scholarly investigation of all the extant sources in order to uncover the true story of the revoltand to identify its leaders. Such a task is beyond the limits of this article. It will sufficehere to note that in the revolt at Auschwitz a number of Greek Jews participated, although it is unclear what part of the leadership they constituted. The main sourcesfor the role played by Greek Jews include Albert Menasche's and Isaac Cohen's contemporary memoirs and Isaac Kabelli's various reconstructions. It should also be notedthat a number of discrepancies mar the accuracy of these accounts. Molho's and Nehama's In Memoriam and the two Salonica memorial books represent an importantcontribution to Greek Jewry's perception of its role during the Holocaust period.29The issue of Jewish participation in the Resistance is also complicated. First it


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S4 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESshould be emphasized that, with but a few exceptions, to be a Jew in the Bulgarianor German zones was an almost automatic death sentence. It is with this in mind thatone must examine two aspects of the role of the Jews in the fight against the Nazis:as an aspect of their self-defense, on the one hand, and as a contribution to the Alliedeffort on the other. Thus, many of the Jews who fled to the mountains hid (as thousands of them did in the villages and cities; a number of postwar marriages testifyto this grass roots protection), were shifted from one guerrilla band to another (ultimately to Thrkey or Palestine), or joined one of the fighting bands, either as conscriptsor as volunteers. These units belonged to both the right and the left, although the latterwere apparently more sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. Owing to their superiorknowledge of Greek and their university training, a number of Jews were also involvedin the public administration set up in the mountains.30

The problem of dealing with this aspect of the Resistance is that sources are notaccessible. Also many of the Jewish partisans understandably assume false identities.During various travels in Greece, this author met many Jews who had fled to the mountains; their main rationale was to shoot before being shot. The danger from the Germanswas exacerbated by the internecine ideological atmosphere in the mountains. Clearly,further research in the archives in Israel and oral interviews in Greece itself and elsewhere will be necessary before this question can even begin to be resolved. The workof Molho and Nehama, for example, claims that Jews could be found in every Resistance band.31

The following list of Resistance fighters is indicative of several aspects of the Jewishcontribution to the struggle against the Occupation:Salomon Bouri joined the partisans at age 16 in Macedonia; he was killed in September1944.'Eliezer Azaria graduated from the University of Athens with top honors as anagronomy major, joining the Resistance in 1942. Under the pseudonym, Thipotamite,he became director of supply for the Resistance Forces in Thessaly, Rumelia, and the

Peloponnesos. He was condemned to death after the liberation.Avram Haim Frizi, (a relative of the aforementioned Mordecai), was born inChalkis in 1924 and joined the Resistance early in the conflict. At the time of his arrestby the Germans in Salonica on 24 May 1944 - subsequently he was shot - he was secretary general of Company 13.Elias Sam Nissim died at the Battle of Olympos.David Cohen of Athens and David Rousso of Previza were known in Rumeliaas the two Davicos, the former dying at the battle of Agia Thiada on 6 January 1944,together with a number of other Jews.Mimi Cabelis, president of the Communal Assembly of Thikkala, was active in

the Resistance in Thessaly.In April 1944, Benjamin Negrin was killed by the Germans at Mousaki wherehe commanded a detachment under the pseudonym, Gaies.

On 2 July 1944, Johanan Hagdie of Arta died fighting at Amphissa where hecommanded a detachment under the pseudonym, Skoufas.Under the pseudonym of Hippocrates, Robert Mitranes, a medical student, organized one of the first medical corps of the Resistance; he died of wounds on SJuly 1944.


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Jews in Wartime Greece 55Jacob Costis was part of a clandestine group that bombedGerman ships in Piraeus.Jenny Minervos died in the Resistance in Crete in 1944.A partial record of 91 Jewish partisans who died had been collected by Joseph

Benn. Of these, 85 fell in Greece and 6 in Auschwitz.31 The list can be expanded.Perhaps the most famous exploit ofthe Resistance was the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge. In their memoirs, both the right and the left claim credit for thisfeat, which, of course, could not have been accomplished without the leadership andassistance of their British advisors. A footnote to the episode is the question of Jewishparticipation. Kabelli claims that more than forty Jews "were cited for courage andbravery" by Zervas himself for their part in the successful raid that destroyed the bridge.On the other hand, it is known that EOES (Ethnikos Oimokratikos Ellinikos Synthesmos) supplied approximately 50-60 men for the operation, while ELAS's contribution was 90-100; British accounts, however, emphasize the role played by EOES owingto its superior training, bravery, and skills. Although the high percentage of Jews mayseem incongruous, Molho and Nehama accept that forty Jewish partisans assisted inthe raid, while Asher Moisses cites the testimony of historians of the Resistance whogive credit to the active participation of the Jews. As yet, however, no direct evidencefrom Jewish sources, has been found, while the Greek sources cited are unavailableat the time of this writing. The question must therefore remain moot until furtherresearch is possible.33

In addition to anonymous Jewish participation in various fighting bands, a numberof specifically Jewish groups were known to have been active in the Resistance. In Thessaly, it is claimed, the octogenarian chief rabbi ofVolos, Moshe Pesach, formed a Jewishunit (consisting of Jews from Volos, Larissa, and 1i'ikkala) which aided British commando units in their harassment of German forces in that area. The claim, however,is unsubstantiated in regard to Rabbi Pesach's involvement. Although the rabbi waslater awarded the Gold Medal ofGeorge I for his actions, it is more likely, in historicalperspective, that he was honored more for the sheer feat ofhaving survived in the mountains and for the propaganda value of his having done so, than for his military accomplishments.As important as their participation in the fighting units was the intelligence andliaison work undertaken by the Jewish Resistance. Owing to their proficiency in languages, Jews were able to function as interpreters between British and American commandos and the local partisans. His unsuspected knowledge ofGerman allowed RabbiBarzilay to discover, and subsequently foil, the gestapo's true plans for the Jews ofAthens. 34 Resistance work in Salonica was led by the journalist, Elie Veissi. His knowledge ofGerman allowed him to gather information - subsequently relayed to Egypt-from the German officers billeted in his home. A number of other journalists wereprominent in the Resistance: Mentesch Besantzi in Salonica, Barukh Shibi in Athens,and the legendary Sam Modiano, who is presently preparing his very important memoirs.Lawyers, too, were active, as, for example, Yom Tov Yacoel, Isaac Sciaky, AbrahamLevy, Shem Tov Alaluf, Eliahu Levy, and Simon Cohen. Thus the Jewish componentof the Resistance consisted of demobilized fighting men and students while the intelligensia contributed both doctors, journalists and lawyers.35Though this article cannot examine other aspects of the Greek Jewish participa-


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56 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIEStion, several should be noted for subsequent research: the fortunes of those Greek Jewswho fought in Poland in the revolt ofGeneral Komorovski, which broke out in August1944; and those Jews who fought with the Greek naval forces or in North Africa andItaly.36 Of greater interest would be to record the attempts of Greek Jews in Palestineto help their brethren; on this subject there is a large quantity of documentation invarious Zionist archives to explore. This essay also cannot explore the fate of the GreekJews who fought in the British army, either as volunteers or as part of the Jewish Brigade. For example, of the 10,000 British prisoners at Corinth, over 1,500 are knownto have been Palestinian JewS. 37Another important consideration is the attitude of the Greek Christians towardthe plight of the Jews both during and after the war. A leading role was played byArchbishop Damaskinos, who led a number ofprotests byGreek professionals againstthe puppet Greek government and the Nazis themselves. The archbishop publicly calledupon the Greek people to open their homes to their Jewish compatriots and he, himself, was personally responsible for hiding 250 Jewish children in Christian homes.Deserving equal honor are the thousands ofnameless Greeks who opened their homesto hunted Jews and shared their limited rations with them. Three-quarters ofthe Jewsof Chalkis hid in the villages of Euboea. Eighteen hundred Jews of Thessaly cameout ofhiding after the war. The few who survived in Thrace can thank the local population. Jews have made known their appreciation to their fellow-citizens in a numberof ways.38

In Israel there is a mountain in the Jerusalem hills dedicated to the Martyrs ofthe Holocaust. On its summit is a museum of steel and stone overpowering in its mutetestimony to the destructionofnearly six million Jews. Here is located the Yad VashemArchives where scholars can study the phenomenon of an advanced technological society gone mad. Outside, surrounding all the buildings, is a new forest, a living memorialto those who assisted in the alleviation of this slaughter. Originally the trees were plantedalong the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles which leads to the museum, but todaythe forest covers much of the mountain's crest as accounts of an increasing numberof heroes and heroines come to light. These are the people who said "OXI" to Hitlerand translated their compassion for the victims into actions of rescue. To date at leasteight trees have been planted in honor of Greek Christians:39

Kleopatra MinoFather Irenee TypaldosSister Helene St. CapartAngelos Evert

Archbishop DamaskinosMetropolitan GenadiosMichael GlykasDemetrios VranopoulosThe partisans, too, especially ELAS, actively aided the Jews either by welcoming

those who, like the contingent of 450 Salonican youth, came to fight, or by assistingothers to escape to Palestine viaTurkey. (Joseph Matsas, one of that group, informedthis author that the number was 252, not 450.) The latter are estimated to have numbered approximately 3,000. In addition to giving public expression of their gratitudeto the partisans, Rabbi Pesach and Rabbi Barzilay also appealed to World Jewry tosupply the Greek Resistance with equipment and aid. It was in response to these re-quests that various Jewish organizations managed to smuggle money and supplies into


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Jews in Wartime Greece S7the mountains, mainly through contacts in Istanbul. In sum, the number of Jews savedthrough the efforts of the Greek population and the Orthodox Church is estimatedat over 10,000.

The Jews of Salonica, on the other hand, were not so hospitably treated by theirChristian compatriots, especially during the period of the deportations. Noted abovewere the interwar tensions between the Anatolian or "new" Greeks and the Spanishspeaking Jews; the war did little to lessen this hostility, rather serving to exacerbatethe nationalistic feeling inherent in the situation. The Ge11llaD$, moreover, played uponthe greed of the local population in order to increase the iSOlation of the Jewish community. Jewish homes were given to collaborators; Jewish property was confiscatedand distributed; the famous and extensive graveyard (SO hectares and over half a million graves) was destroyed, its marble and stone monuments recycled for municipalrepairs and private profit, while the land became the site for the University of Thessaloniki. The broken gravestones still visible to a person wno visits that campus bearmute testimony of the area's tragic past to the present day.4O While it must be notedthat many individuals did protest, especially the Bishop ofThessaloniki and a numberof priests from German-occupied Greece who were arrested for refusing to preach racism,41 nevertheless the weight ofNazi policy served only to intensify the deep-seatedantagonism of the local population toward the Jewish community. This resulted firstin a cultural destruction of their literary and religious heritage, and then in physicalannihilation.42The acid test came after the war when the survivors of the worst chapter in GreekJewry's millennia-long history returned to their former homes. By 1946 of the 9,000Jews to be found in Greece, two-thirds were declared totally indigent, and this despitethe fact that the prewar property of the Jews in Greece was valued in excess of$25,000,000. The problem of this "heirless" property still has not been totally resolved.Legally the Greek government recognized the right of the Jewish community to theproperty based on Law no. 846 promulgated on 22 January 1946. No successor government, however, has implemented this law to date. Although some resolution of theproblem appears imminent, the property remains in limbo at the present time. 43The unstable situation in Greece, including the destitute position of the survivorsand the harassment of former ELAS partisans and of those who took refuge withthem, induced many Jews to emigrate to the United States or illegally to Palestine.In 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel, a number of Greek survivorsand Zionists went to join their families and aid in the defense of the new state. A largernumber of Jews remained in Greece, however, professionals-doctors, lawyers, andmerchants - who, as Greek citizens, continue to maintain the 2,500 year-old traditionsof a Hellenic Jewry.

NOlES

* This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the 1978 Modem Greek Studies Association Symposium. The author is pleased to express his gratitude to the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture forits continued support of his research in the history of the Jews in Greece.A bibliographic supplement to the following notes can be found in John o. Iatrides, ed., Greecein the 1940s: A Bibliographic Companion (Hanover and London, 1981), which includes, "Greece under


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S8 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESthe Axis Occupat ion," byHagen Fleischer and "Jews in Wartime Greece," a prel iminary bibliography (andcompanion piece to the article here) bySteven Bowman. An important surveywas recently offered byDanielCarpi, "Notes on the History of the Jews in Greece during the Holocaust Period. The Attitude of he Italians(1941-1943)," in Festschrift in Honor0/Dr. George s. Wife (leIAviv, 1981), pp. 15-62, with full documentationand new sources in the Italian version, "Nuovi documenti per la storia deIl'Olocausto in Grecia - L'atteggimentodegli i taliani (1941-1943)," in MicluJel (on the History of the Jews in the Diaspora), edited by Zvi Ankoriand Shlomo Simonsohn (leI Aviv, 1981), VII, 119-200.

1. Cf. the proceedings of The Greek Orthodox-Jewish Consultation published jointly in The GreekOrthodox Theological Review, 22 (Spring, 1977), and The Journal 0/Ecumenical Studies, 13 (Fall, 1976);and the essays by Asher Moisses in his Helleno-Ioudai/cai Meletai [Greek-Jewish Studies] (Athens, 1956).

2. On the Hellenistic Jewish communities of Greece, cf. Philo Judaeus, Legatio ad Gaium and theActs0/ he Apostles for the main centers, and Salo W. Baron, The Jewish Community (philadelphia, 1948),I, for historical commentary. The latter lists may be supplemented through recent epigraphic discoveriescited in S. Bowman, 1bwards a Bibliography 0/Greek Jewry (Athens, 1973); cf. also Encyclopedia Judaica(Jerusalem, 1972), s. v., "Greece."On the Jews ofthe Byzantine period, cf. this author's "Another MedievalHeritage: the Jews of Byzantium," in Forum, 36 (1979), 131-41, and bibliographical postscript.

3. For late Byzantine Greece, cf. previous note to which may be added Joshua Starr, Romania, TheJewries 0/ he Levant After the Fourth Crusade (paris, 1949); Joseph Nehama, Histoire des Israelites deSalonique, 7 vols. (paris, 1935-1978), here: I (1935); the updated Hebrew version in Zikharon Saloniki (TelAviv, 1973), by Isaac S. Emmanuel of his earlier Histoire des Israelites de Salonique (Salonica, 1936); SolomonRosanes' outdated bu t still useful Divre Y'me Yishrael bi-1bgarmah [History of the Jews in Thrker] (TelAviv, 1930), I; an d most recently S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History o/the Jews (New York, 1980),XVII, with extensive bibliography. A forthcoming monograph of the Jews of Byzantium from 1204-1453by this author will include an edition and commentary to all of the relevant source material available.

4. The names Salonica, Salonika (Webster's 1st spelling), Saloniki, and Thessalonica will be usedinterchangeably in this paper as a reflection of local traditions.

5. Nehama, Histoire; P. Risal (pseud. for J. Nehama), La ville convoitee. Salonique (paris, 1918);Isaac S. Emmanuel. Histoire des Israelites, I; and Apostolos Vacalopoulos, A History0/Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki, 1963).

6. Cf. Moyse Konstantine, He Symbole ton Hebraion eis ton Apeleutheritikon Agona ton Hellenon[The Contribution of the Jews to the Greek War of Independence] (Athens, 1971). Sources cited in StevenBowman, "The Jewish Settlement in Sparta and Mistra," Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbiicher, 22 (1979),131-46; all of the extant epitaphs of that community through the end of the eighteenth century were editedby Daniel Spiegel and S. Bowman, "Hebrew Epitaphs of Mistra," Michael, 7 (1981), 201-47.

7. According to an article in the Greek magazine Gynaika [Woman] (ca. 1971). The exact referenceunfortunately is not available to me.8. Cf. pamphlet dated 20 October 1863 of a resolution in a synagogue in Galata, Constantinopleon the reunion of the Ionian Islands with Greece. Pamphlet is located in the Gennadeion Library in Athens,Greece.

9. Michael Molho and Joseph Nehama, The Destruction o/Greek Jewry, 1941-1945 (Jerusalem, 1965),p. 19 (translated from the Hebrew). A more detailed description is available in Nehama's recent, posthumously edited, Histoire (Thessaloniki, 1978), VI and VII (see Note 3 above).

10. Ibid. vol. VII, 769 f. citing Law no. 1394 passed on 3 May 1918; cf. Emmanuel's history of Salonikiin Zikharon Saloniki (Thl Aviv, 1972), p. 209, with Spaniolith summary p. 28; also Michael Molho's "History of the Jews in Salonika" (Hebrew), in Saloniki, Ir Ve-Em bi-Yisrael (leI Aviv, 1969), pp. 23 f. Thelatter claims that a number of Athenians made a fortune buying up the property from the government.

11. On the interwar period, see Molho, ibid.; also see "Greece" in The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia(New York, 1941), V, 91-93; and Henri Molho, "Le judaisme grec en general et la communaute juive deSalonique en particulier entre les deux guerres mondiales," Homenage aMillds-Vallierosa (Barcelona, 1956),II, 73-107.

12. Cf. Molho and Nehama, Destruction 0/Greek Jewry, chap. 1; Joshua Starr, "The Socialist Federation of Saloniki," Jewish Social Studies, 7 (1945), 323-36; and I. S. Emmanuel's survey of the cloth industryappended to his Histoire des Israelites (1936).


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Jews in Wartime Greece 5913. For newspapers in Judeo-SpaDish or SpanioIith, see David Gaon, Ha-1tonotbe-1.tJdino:Bibliographia[A Bibliography of the Judeo-Spanish Press] (Jerusalem, 1965), who includes occasional biographical material on the publishers. An earlier list of Balkan-Jewish newspapers is in The Jewish Ency

cloJJQedill (New York, 1925), s. v., "Thrkey." An important interview with Sam Modiano is deposited inthe Oral History Division of the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem(in English). Cf. also Michael Molha, "The Spaniolith Newspapers in Saloniki" (Hebrew), in Soloniki, IrVe-Em bi-Yisrael, pp. 103-108.14. Cf. Isaac Kabelli, "The Resistance of the Greek Jews," YIVO, 18 (19S3), 311; and Asher Moisses,"Jews in theArmyofGreece" (Hebrew), inHa-Lohhem ha-Yehudi be-Sevabt ho- 'Olom [The Jewish Fighterin the Armies of the World] ('leI Aviv, 1967), pp. 182-8S.IS. Recordedby the Jewish community ofSalonica and available in the works ofMolho and Nehama,Destruction ofGreek Jewry; Kabelli, "Resistance," and Zikharon Saloniki, ed. David Recanati. Joseph Matsassuggests slightly lower figures: 3 officers and 268 soldiers dead; 138 amputees among thousands wounded.16. Cf. David Thomas, Nazi Victory: Crete 1941 (New York, 1972).17. Cf. Contemporary Jewish Record: Review ofEvents and Digest ofOpinion (New York, 1942), V,S13, citing the New York Jewish newspaper Morning Journal of 1 July 1942. Michael Matsas suggests atotal of 7,000 Jews in hiding, of whom 6S0 became partisans.18. This was the standard tactic employed by Italian authorities in the face of German pressures; cf.Daniel Carpi, "The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone ofOccupied Croatia," in Rescue Attempts Duringthe Holocaust (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 46S-S07, and documents appended there, pp. S08-2S; see Introduction to the Notes above and additional bibliography cited there; and the earlier piece by Jacques Sahille,"Attitudes des Italians a1'6gard des Juifs en occupCe," Le Monde Jui/, 49 (Paris, 19S1), 7-10. YadVashem Archives, flle 03/2490 contains the testimonyof Samuel Negrin whose father worked for the AthensJewish community and thereforehad access to official statistics. He reports that refugees swelled the Jewish.population of Athens to 10,000; moreover, in 1943, after the Germans had occupied Athens, still nearly

S,OOO Jews came to the synagogue for their rations.19. Cf. Benjamin Arditi, Yehudei Bulgariah bishnot ha-Mishpatha-Nar.i: 1940-1944 [The Jews of Bulgaria during the Years of the Nazi Occupation: 1940-1944] (1CI Aviv, 1962); Frederick B. Chary, The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution 1940-1944 (pittsburgh, Pa., 1972); Haim Kechales, Koroth Yehudei Bulgaria [History of ~ u l g a r i a n Jewry] (1Cl Aviv, 1969), III; Alexander Matkovsky, "The Destruction ofMacedonian Jewry," Yad Vashem, 3 (19S9), 222-S8; MiriamNovitch, "End ofMacedonia and Thrace JewishCommunities," 0zIu Yehudei Sepharad, 4 (1961) liv-lvi; Charles W. Steckel, Destruction and Survival (LosAngeles, Ca., 1973).20. The question of the attitude of the Axis allies toward their Jewish populations, both internal andconquered (each suffered a different fate), prior to the collapseof these regimes and occupation byGermanforces. necessitates a special study. For figures, see the studybyChary, Bulgarilln Jews, cited in the previousNote.21. The questions surrounding the role of the chief rabbi are as complicated as they are unclear. Thereis a consensus among the surviving Jews of Salonica that he was guilty of assisting the Germans if he wasnot actually a collaborator. In addition to the memoirs investigated, the classic statement of this view isby Molho and Nehama, DestructionofGreek Jewry, passim. This position was challenged by Nathan Bek,"New Light on the Charges against the Last Grand Rabbi of Salonica," Yad Vashem Bulletin, 17 (1965),9-15; and 19 (1966), 28-3S. An even stronger case against Rabbi Koretz was made by David Recanati inhis supplement to Emmanuel's survey of Salonica in Zikhoron Saloniki, pp. 261-64. Joseph Benn (citedin Note 24 below) reexamined most of the sources against the background of the more general problemof the Judenrat in Nazi-occupied Europe; he suggests that the charge against the rabbi be reduced fromcomplicity to n a i ~ On the problem of the Judenrat in general, cf. Isaiah 1hJnk, Judenrat. The JewishCouncils in EIlstem Europe under Nazi Occupation (New York, 1973). Also see the sources collected byMichael Matsas and mentioned in my bibliography "Jews in Wartime Greece," cited in the Introductionto the Notes, above.22. Still during that terrible winter of 1941-42 some eighty Jews died each day-according to Jewishreports-3,2S0 Jews in Athens and Salonica. By comparison some 24,000 Greeks were reported to havedied from famine in the Italian zone alone; cf. Emmanuel, Zikharon Saloniki, p. 237.


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60 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES23. !bid., p. 241; Molho and Nehama, Destruction o/Greek Jewry, pp. 61 ff; followins p. 64 the original

German orders are reproduced. Cf. also Raul Hilberg, The Destruction 0/Europeon Jews (Chicago, Ill.,1961), pp. 448 ff.

24. This facet of the Holocaust has not been sufficiently studied by students of the period; cf. generalsurveys by Hilberg, ibid., pp. 447-52, and Gerald Reitlinger, The Finol Solution. The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews 0/Europe 1939-1945 (London, 1968), pp. 398-408. The destruction in Greece has beendealt with from a variety of approaches: cf. Joseph Benn, "Sho'ath Yehudei Yavan, 1941-1944" [The Holocaust of the Jews in Greece, 1941-1944] (M. A. Thesis at lei Aviv University, 1977). This is perhaps thebest study to date after Molho and Nehama, Destruction 0/ Greek Jewry. Early studies emphasized thepersonal memoir and the search for survivors: cf. I. A. Matarasso, " . . . Ki' omos holoi tous den pethanan. . . [And Yet All of Them Did Not Die. The Catastrophe ofthe Greek Jews ofSalonica during the GermanOccupation] (Athens, 1948). Hizkia Franco, Les Martyrs Jui/s de Rhodes et de Cos (Elizabethville, NY.,1952); Albert Menasche, Birkenau (Auschwitz II): How 72,()()() Greek Jews Perished (New York, 1947); andPrimo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (New York, 1961). Several Greek studies include G. Sporiades, "TheGreat Persecution. The Extermination of the Greek Jews" (Greek), Ethnos, 17 January and 3 February1955; Nikephnas Zevgadakis, "The Jews of Crete during the German Occupation" (Greek), in the Cretandaily, Mesogeios, 4 September 1963; and P. M. Enerpikides, Die Juden-Verfolgungen in Griechenkmd 1941-1944(Athens, 1969). The latter presents a Greek summary of SS documents on the tragedy. The actual recordsof destruction from Auschwitz archives are available in Danuta Czech, "Deportation und Vernichtung dergriechischen Juden im K. L. Auschwitz," He/te von Auschwitz, 2 (1970), 5-37. A Hebrew version of thelatter is in Dapim Ie heker ha-Shoah ve-ha-Mered [Dappim. Studies of the Holocaust and the Jewish Resistance] (Second series, Deit Lohamei Haghetta'ot, 1973). It is only now, a full generation after the destruction of the center of he Sephardic culture that new religious leaders are being trained and the past systematically studied by scholars in Israel and elsewhere. Recently The Institute for Research of Saloniki Jewrywas instrumental in establishing with the assistance of the Recanati family, a chair for Salonican and GreekJewry at le i Aviv University.

25. Related by Czech, "Deportation," in Dapim, p. 189 (see preceding Note).26. See Kabelli, "R.esistance," pp. 287 f., but also see the following Note.27. J6sef Gadfnski, Fighting Auschwitz. The Resistance Movement in theConcentration Camp (Green

wich, Conn., 1975); Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe (London, 1974).Ber Mark, Megillat Auschwitz [Schroll of Auschwitz] (leI Aviv, 1978), pp. 129 f. Kabelli claimed that theresistance was led by Colonel Joseph Barukh and his two lieutenants, Jose Levy and Maurice Aron, withthe assistance of Isaac Barukh, Sam Karasso, and Yom Tov Yacoel. Mark suggests that Barukh and someof the others were involved in the 1944 revolt in Warsaw led by General Komorovski and that Kabelli mistakenly placed them in Auschwitz during the revolt there. This suggestion by Mark emphasized the historiographic problem and the incomplete state of the available sources. Mark's evidence is based upon a Russianjournalist's alleged meeting with Barukh in liberated Warsaw. An unpublished memoir by a surviving memberofthe Sonderkommando deposited in the Institute for Research of Saloniki Jewry in lei Aviv, on the otherhand, clearly places Barukh at the head of the revolt of the Sonderkommando. According to this memoirat least eleven of the Greek participants in that revolt are still alive (as of 1979).

28. A number of other memoirs support the knowledge of Polish and German among Greek Jews.Therefore Nathan Bek's editorial remarks in the Hebrew version of Molho and Nehama, Destruction 0/Greek Jewry, and his article, "New Light," are not conclusive. See also Molho and Nehama, In Memoriam.Hommage aux victimes juives des Nazis en Grece (Salonika, 1948; rpt., 1975). Other memoirs are citedin Note 29 below, as well as Note 10 above.

29. Albert Menasche, Birkenau; see also the Memoir of Isaac Cohen in Yad Vashem Archives, 03/2484.A number of Greek oral sources are particularly" wary of Kabelli's accuracy.30. Cf. t e s t i m o n i ~ s in Yad Vashem Archives: 03/2688, 03/2989, and 03/2487. A number of examplesare brought by Benn, "Sho'ath Yehudei Yavan" chap. 6. Several are summarized in my bibliography, "Jewsin Wartime Greece," cited in the Introduction to the Notes above.

31. Cf. Michael Matsas, "How the West Helped Destruction of Greek Jewry," The Jewish Week(Washington, D.C.), 13-19 April 1978, pp. 48 and 70, who relates some of his activities in the Peloponnesos.Many of the interviews in the Yad Vashem Archives record similar partisan experiences.


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Jews in Wartime Greece 6132. Listed by Lucien Steinberg, "Greek Jews in the Battle against Nazism" (Hebrew) in M. Mushkat,

ed., Lohamim Yehudim ba-Milhamah Neged ha-Nazim [Jews in the Allied Forces in the Fight Against Nazism) (Merhavia, 1971), pp. 328 f. More names and a summary of their activities are recorded by Benn,"Sho'ath Yehudei Yavan," chap. 6.33. Other Jews cite the Resistance "Order of the Day"; cf. Miriam Novitch, Le passage des barbares(Nice, 1973), p. 61. None of the Jewish participants has yet recorded his testimony. We may note as a relevant curiosity that the leader of the expedition, Capt. E. C. W. Myers, was a Jew, as was another memberof the British contingent. Kabelli's figure of 40 Jewish participants has been challenged by Joseph Matsasin Ioannina. Both he and Michael Matsas of Washington can vouch for only 4 Jews with Zervas in 1944.From their own contemporaneous experience in the Resistance, they know of no Jews with Zervas in November1942, the time of the attack.

34. This is not to imply that the rabbi was solely responsible for saving the Jews of Athens; the situation was more complicated than that. According to Rabbi Barzilay's account (published in Guinzach Saloniki[Archives Saloniciennes), Fasc. A, ed. Barouh (sic!) Ouziel (Tel Aviv, 1961), pp. 90-92), the gestapo summoned him to headquarters and requested that he hand over lists of the Jews in the community. Whilethere the rabbi overheard two of the Germans discussing the proposed deportation of these Jews; he thenannounced that no lists were available since the youth group of the EEE (Ethnic Enosis Ellados) had burnedthe synagogue records. Ordered to draw up new lists, the rabbi returned to his home and gave a codedwarning to flee to the mountains. The contributions of other Jews and Christians deserve further research;see for example: the efforts of Barukh Shibi who was one of the leaders of the Resistance (recorded byNovitch, Le passage des barbares); other cells that helped Jews to hide or to escape to the mountains orout of the country; and the efforts of Archbishop Damaskinos (see below). The proliferation of memoirs,and the larger untapped repository of survivors, necessitate continued investigation into this and other specific aspects of the wartime experience of the Jews.

35. Cf. Kabelli, "Resistance"; Benn, "Sho'ath Yehudei Yavan" chap. 6; Novitch, in Le passage des barbares, interviewed a number of these individuals; the diary of Yom Tov Yacoel was recently reprinted ina Hebrew translation in Saloniki, Ir Ve-Em bi-Yisrael, pp. 275-90.

36. Several interviews with Greek survivors, presently stored in the Yad Vashem Archives, deal withthe situation in Poland. One of these records the story of 1,000 Greek Jews who were taken from Auschwitzto the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto to salvage valuables for the Germans. Inter alia it records the activitiesof several of these Jews during the fighting in August 1944. See above Note 27.

37. A preliminary survey of the Zionist Archives was made by Benn, "Sho'ath Yehudei Yavan"; onthe Jewish POWs, see Yochanan Ya'acovi, "The Road to Captivity. A Short History of the Palestinian Unitswhich served in the campaigns ofGreece and Crete in the Spring of 1941" (M. A. Thesis, Tel Aviv University1976), in Hebrew with an English summary. See above Note 27.

38. Cf. Elias Barzilay, Report on the Tragedy o f the Jews in Greece, June 14, 28, 1944 (New York,Greek Anierican Council 1945); his memoir in Guinzach Saloniki, pp. 90-92; excerpts in L. S. Stavrianos,"The Jews of Greece," Journal o fCentral European Affairs, 8 (October 1948), 266 f; Enerpikides, JudenVerfolgungen, chap. 17 andpassim, including a chapter on the efforts of Archbishop Damaskinos; SolomonIzhaki, "Lights and Shadows in the Balkans," Congress Weekly (12 January 1944), 9-10; Hal Lehrman, "Greece:Unused Cakes of Soap," Commentary, I, no. 7 (1947), 48-52; Asher Moisses, "La situation des commuautes juives en Grece," in Les Juijs en Europe (1939-1945) (Paris, 1949), pp. 47-54; Molho and Nehama,Destruction o f Greek Jewry, passim; Jeanne Tsatsos, The Sword's Fierce Edge: A Journal of the Occupation o fGreece, 1941-1944 (Nashville, Tenn., 1969), p. 56. Some Greek wartime memoirs also mention theiractivity, e.g., Symmachos (pseudonym), Greece Fights On (London, n.d.), p. 113, notes protests of the Greekchurch to deportations; Amyntor (pseudonym), Victors in Chains (New York, 1943[?)), pp. 66-67; ChrisJecchioris, Beyond Olympos: The Thrilling Story o f he "Train-busters" in Nazi-Occupied Greece (London,1961), p. 40, notes the role of Greek policemen. The latter efforts are independently and appreciativelyrecorded by Eli Cohen in his testimony in the Yad Vashem Archives 0312690.39. Documented files under each name in Yad Vashem Archives.

40. Cf. photographs in I. S. Emmanuel, Mazeboth Saloniki (Precious Stones of the Jews of Salonica](Jerusalem, 1968), II; the epitaphs in his two-volume collection must be compared against the posthumouslypublished collection of Michael Molho, Mazeboth Beth ha-'Almin shel Yehudei Saloniki (Tombstones of


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62 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESthe Jews Semetary (sic!) of Salonica] (Tel Aviv, 1974). A brief report on the graveyard was provided byJ. Nehama, "I.e cimetiere juif de Salonique," Les Cahiers 8efardis, 1 (1947), 134-36; cf. also Molho andNehamc, In Memoriam; the testimony of Eli Cohen in Yad Vashem Archives 0312690 is also valuable.

41. Cf. Contemporary Jewish Record, 6 (1943), 293, citing unidentified London sources which claimedthat over 600 priests were arrested in Greece.42. Molho and Nehama, Destruction of Greek Jewry, record in detail the sack of Jewish libraries,

the burning of Jewish books, the destruction of the graveyard, the extermination of the Jews, and the liquidation of the community. Needless to say, the Christian population cannot be held accountable for thetragic fate of the Jewish community; this was preordained by Nazi policy. On the other hand, support ofthe Jews by their compatriots would have undoubtably saved more lives. The complicated social situationin Salonica deserves more analysis.

43. First mention of the problem was made by Lehrman, "Greece: Unused Cakes of Soap," p. 49. Anoutline of the attitudes of the successive Greek governments is provided by L. S. Stavrianos, "The Jewsof Greece," pp. 267 ff. For a further update, see articles on "Greece" in the American Jewish Year Book,54 (1953), 294-300; 56 (1959), 359-65; and 61 (1960), 217-22. From a contemporary Jewish perspective,cf. Molho and Nehama, In Memoriam, and their revised (1965) version in Destruction of Greek Jewry,pp. 246 ff .

Jews in Wartime Greece

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