Greece

   The Jews of Greece on the eve of World War II numbered about 76,000 or 0.9 percent of the population. They lived primarily in Salonika, where the Sephardic Jews constituted a majority in the city. Many of the Sephardim were engaged in commerce and trade. Although Jews were generally accepted in Greece, this changed after World War I. Between 1924 and 1935, a militant anti-Semitism spread throughout the country. But under the military dictatorship of General Ioannis Metaxes, all forms of political agitation were suppressed, including anti-Semitism. Following Metaxes’ death in January 1941, and the German invasion in April, the position of the Jews deteriorated. Jews were publicly humiliated by the Germans, and evicted from their homes. In July 1942, 9,000 Jews of Salonika, between the ages of 18 and 45, were arrested and sent to German organized labor battalions in Greece. The Jewish community of Salonika attempted to ransom the laborers but failed to raise the required sum, whereupon the Germans pillaged the Jewish cemetery of Salonika to make up the difference and then proceeded to destroy the gravesites. The first Jews from Salonika were deported to Auschwitz on 23 February 1942.

   In Greece proper, representatives from Adolf Eichmann’s office directed the Greek Jewish Council (Judenrat) to implement the deportation quota to the death camps. Prior to the commencement of the deportations, the Germans ordered all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David badge and then forced them into three ghettos located near Salonika. Between March and April 1943, 48,000 additional Jews were deported from Salonika to Auschwitz, where 37,000 were gassed on arrival and the other 11,000 were selected for forced labor. In October 1943, the Germans ordered that all Jews report for registration. Those who failed to appear within five days of the order were to be shot. Similarly, the Greek population was warned that anyone who gave shelter to Jews would be executed without trial. In the beginning of 1944, the deportation of Jews from Athens commenced, and approximately 800 were sent to Auschwitz. In Corfu, 1,800 Jews were sent to Auschwitz in June 1944, where all but 200 were gassed. Subsequently, the Greek Jews from Rhodes, Canea, Crete, and elsewhere were deported to Auschwitz. Altogether about 54,533 Greek Jews were sent to Auschwitz, where 41,776 were gassed upon arrival. It is estimated that a total of 60,000 Greek Jews were murdered by the Germans, with the bulk of them meeting their deaths at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. The Nazi destruction of Salonika’s Jewish community, the largest and strongest of all the Sephardic communities in Europe, marked the demise of a rich religious and cultural tradition that had been preserved since the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492. The tragedy of the Greek Jewish community also points to the lack of attention paid by historians to the destruction of the Sephardim Jewry.