Greece: A Jewish History
Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Greece by K. A Jewish History by K. Fleming's Greece--a Jewish History is the first comprehensive English-language history of Greek Jews, and the only history that includes material on their diaspora in Israel and the United States. The book tells the story of a people who for the most part no longer exist and whose identity is a paradox in that it wasn't fully formed until after most Greek Jews had em K.
The book tells the story of a people who for the most part no longer exist and whose identity is a paradox in that it wasn't fully formed until after most Greek Jews had emigrated or been deported and killed by the Nazis. For centuries, Jews lived in areas that are now part of Greece. But Greek Jews as a nationalized group existed in substantial number only for a few short decades--from the Balkan Wars until the Holocaust, in which more than 80 percent were killed.
Greece--a Jewish History describes their diverse histories and the processes that worked to make them emerge as a Greek collective. In such foreign settings their Greekness was emphasized as it never was in Greece, where Orthodox Christianity traditionally defines national identity and anti-Semitism remains common.
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Later, with the establishment in of the Metaxas regime , which was not typically hostile to Jews in general despite its fascist character, the stance of the Greek State towards the Jewish community was further improved. Although the Germans [28] deported a great number of Greek Jews, some were successfully hidden by their Greek neighbours. The losses were significant in places like Thessaloniki , Ioannina , Corfu or Rhodes , where most of the Jewish population were deported and killed. In contrast, larger percentages of Jews were able to survive, where the local population was helpful and hid the persecuted Jews, such as Athens , Larissa or Volos.
Perhaps the most important rescue efforts took place in Athens, where some 1, Jews were given false identity cards following the efforts of Archbishop Damaskinos and police chief Angelos Ebert. On July 11, , the Jews of Thessaloniki were rounded up in preparation for slave labour. The community paid a fee of 2 billion drachmas for their freedom. Yet 50, people were sent to Auschwitz , and most of their 60 synagogues and schools were destroyed, along with the old Jewish cemetery in the center of the city.
In Corfu, after the fall of Italian fascism in , the Nazis took control of the island. Corfu's mayor at the time, Kollas, was a known collaborator and various anti-Semitic laws were passed by the Nazis that now formed the occupation government of the island. On March 4, , Bulgarian soldiers with help from German soldiers took the Jews from Komotini and Kavala off the Karageorge passenger boat, massacred them and sunk the boat.
The Bulgarians confiscated all of the Jewish properties and possessions. At Thessaloniki individual police officers rescued their Jew friends and occasionally even their families, while in Athens the chief of police, Angelos Evert , and his men actively supported and rescued Jews. The Jews of the island of Zakynthos , however, survived the Holocaust. When the island's mayor, Carrer, was presented with the German order to hand over a list of Jews, Metropolitan Bishop Chrysostomos of Zakynthos returned to the Germans with a list of two names; his own and the mayor's.
The island's population hid every member of the Jewish community. In , a large number of the Jews of Zakynthos made aliyah to Palestine later Israel , while others moved to Athens. The city of Volos , which was in the Italian zone of occupation, had a Jewish population of , and many Thessaloniki Jews fleeing the Nazis sought sanctuary there.
By March , more than 1, Jews lived there. Of the more than 1, Jews, only were deported to Auschwitz. The Jewish community remained in Volos after the war, but a series of earthquakes in forced many of the remaining Jews to leave, with most immigrating to Israel or the United States. Only Jews remain in Volos today. Many Jews from Salonika were put on death-camp work detail, the Sonderkommandos.
On 7 October , during the uprising in Auschwitz, they attacked German forces with other Greek Jews, storming the crematoria and killing about twenty guards. A bomb was thrown into the furnace of the crematorium III, destroying the building. Before being massacred by the Germans, insurgents sang a song of the Greek partisan movement and the Greek national anthem. In his book If this is a man , one of the most famous works of literature of the Holocaust, [ according to whom?
Greece--a Jewish History
He described a strong patriotic sense among them, writing that their ability to survive in the camps was partly explained by the fact that "they are among the cohesive of the national groups, and from this point of view the most advanced". Recognised for his contributions to the Greek cause early on in the war, Mordehai Frizis became one of the most honoured Greek officers of World War II in the postwar years, with a monument outside the national military academy in Athens.
Following the war, many Greek Jews emigrated to Israel. In August , the Greek government announced that Jews of military age would be allowed to leave for Israel on condition that they renounced their Greek nationality, promise to never return, and take their families with them. Greece was the first country in Europe after the war to give back to its Jewish community possessions of Jews, that were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust and the war as resistance fighters, so that the communities had the possibility for consolidation.
A Jewish minority continues to live in Greece. The community has had a small decrease since the Greek government-debt crisis. The community of Thessaloniki accused Germany to pay the manumission payments back, that the Jews of Greece paid to rescue their family members, after the Nazis asked for this money, but the Nazis hadn't freed the family members anyway. The European Court of Justice dismissed this petition. In , representatives of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki demanded from the Deutsche Bahn, which is the successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn , reimbursement for the heirs of Holocaust victims of Thessaloniki for the train fares that they were forced to pay for their deportation from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Treblinka between March and August According to the significant Jewish past and present of Thessaloniki the Aristotle University planned together with the Jewish community of Thessaloniki in , the reopening of the Faculty of Jewish Studies.
Greece--a Jewish History
A former Jewish faculty was abolished 80 years before by the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas. On the university campus a monument commemorating the old Jewish cemetery was unveiled also in The campus was built partially on this old cemetery. Misha Glenny wrote that Greek Jews had never "encountered anything remotely as sinister as north European anti-Semitism.
The twentieth century had witnessed small amounts of anti-Jewish sentiment among Greeks A neo-fascist group, Golden Dawn , exists in Greece and recently [ when? Reportedly in , it was officially disbanded, to no avail, by its leadership after conflicts with police and anti-fascists. The European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia — report on anti-Semitism in Greece mentioned several incidents over the two-year period making note that there were no instances of physical or verbal assaults on Jews, along with examples of "good practices" for countering prejudice.
The report concluded that " The Greek government debt crisis , which started in , has seen an increase in extremism of all kinds, which has included some cases of antisemitic vandalism. In , the front of the Jewish Museum of Greece was defaced, for the first time ever.
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After a period, Alexandros Modiano, a Greek-Jewish politician, has been voted to official duties. Alexandros Modiano works in the City Council of Athens. Today the diplomatic relations between Greece and Israel are on a high level. The relations between the Jewish community and the state are also good. The Greek Parliament has decided to give Greek citizenship back to all Holocaust survivors who lost their Greek citizenship when leaving the country. For the process of obtaining one's Greek citizenship, there is no need to prove the religious denomination of the ancestors.
Beth Shalom Synagogue , Athens. Etz Hayyim Synagogue , Chania. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Hasmonean and Hellenistic Judaism. History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire. Axis Occupation of Greece and Greek resistance. General and Jewish population of Thessaloniki [30]. The rabbi of Kastoria , The Virtual Jewish Library.
Greece--a Jewish History
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