Jews in Wartime Greece

Jews in Wartime Greece* by Steven Bowman Of the many tragedies that befell wartime Greece the destruction of its Jewish population is not the least significant. The story of this one ethnic group is of interest both because of its historical implications and because of the possibility it presents as a case study in the vicissitudes of that period. What is called the "idea of Greece" or its corollary - "Greek identity" - has exerted a strong assimilative effect upon the many ethnoi who have entered within this Greek sphere of influence, with the result that they have abandoned their former ethnic identity. Through this hellenizing process, they have come to relinquish their own former social and religious traditions and have simply become Greeks. The Jews, too, adopted the Greek language, mores, and lifestyle, and through their particular skills contributed to the development of Greek civilization. Contrary to other ethnoi, however, they have demanded the right to practice their ancestral religion and retain their own identity. This test of religious freedom has challenged both religious hospitality and political tolerance throughout Greek history. Greece, more often than not, has withstood the test. For the modern period, however, this essl!y is concerned with the tragic decline and destruction of the various Greek Jewish communities during the 1940s in the wake of the German invasion. 1 Greek Jews came from a number of backgrounds. The oldest elements of the Jewish community 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 generation after their arrival. The Arabic-speaking Karaites exemplify this process: immigrating in 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 a haven for the persecuted Jewries of Roman Catholic Europe. Alongside the Romaniote communities, there appeared Italian-speaking Jews. The beginnings of the Sephardic immigration 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 of Spanish and Portuguesespeaking Sephardim, perhaps 125,000 in all. Ultimately these assimilated nearly all the 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 among the Jewries of the Ionian Heptanisi and the Aegean Dodekanisi. Also, by the end of the century, through the efforts of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, French quickly 45

46

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

became the main intellectual and cultural language of upper class Jews especially in Salonica. 4 On the eve of independence (ca. 1820), the majority of the Jews in Greece were Sephardim, especially in Salonica, a city which was basically a Jewish enclave, and in the larger towns of Macedonia and Thrace. 5 The islands of the Ionian Sea nourished communities of Italian-speaking Jews of various origins as did the Archipelago and the Dodekanisi. In the Morea and Crete there were a handful of Jews of Romaniote origin 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 the emerging kingdom, except for the small community in Patras, were destroyed along with their ineffectual Thrkish protectors. 6 Within several decades, Athens was attracting Jewish merchants from the neighboring areas still under Thrkish control, especially merchants from Izmir, one of whom was recently credited with having founded the well-known flea market at Plateia Monasteraki. 7 By the 18708, Jews were matriculating at the newly-established University of Athens, 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, it was only natural that Jews too would openly take on a Greek way of life and support their king. After the Balkan wars 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 eve of World War I, the powerful community of Salonica was openly wooed to support the 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 Jewish enclave was the determining economic, social, and political component in the life of the city. To the Jews, Salonica was simply a Jewish metropolis, the Jersualem of the Balkans. At the same time, however, it was not a monolithic community. The diverse congregations added a factional note to community politics, while sectarians such as the 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 of the century. In addition, propagandists of socialism agitated for labor reforms, while proponents 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 trend among 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 of patriotic fervor swept through the area, washing these Jewish communities into the backwaters of history where they were quietly expunged during the next generation.

Jews in Wartime Greece

47

It 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 Europe where the ravages of World War I and its aftermath accelerated the decline in the stability and structure of Ashkenazic Jewry.) The great fire that ravaged Salonica in 1917 destroyed 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, and it encompassed the whole city. Some French seamen who were on leave in the harbor at that time wanted to douse the flame with water prepared for such an emergency. But the harsh and pitiless General Sarrail did not permit it, despite the pleas. Not one drop to put out the flame: war needs take all precedence! Meanwhile the city was in flames. On pretext of fighting the fire, the engineering corps threw bombs haphazardly; this, of course, added to the holocaust. Within a few hours the destruction reached gigantic proportions: 4101 structures 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 the open 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 flavor and atmosphere - the fruit of twenty generations there - disappeared. 9

In the succeeding five years, through a policy of induced inflation, Eleftherios Venizelos succeeded in expropriating much of the city. Taking advantage of the destruction 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 off with devalued funds and were relocated elsewhere. More land was acquired from the extensive Jewish graveyard, continuing a policy initiated earlier by the Ottoman authorities. 10 Thus, from being a predominantly Jewish city in 1917, by 1922 Salonica had become half Greek, at which time the second phase in the hellenization of the city was 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, still predominantly Spanish-speaking, they were reduced from 70 per cent to 30 per cent of the population. This social and economic restructuring of the city induced the Jews to vote with the king and against Venizelos, thereby assisting in the latter's defeat in the elections of 1920 which led to his self-imposed exile. Shortly after his return to power, 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 spreading influence of fascism and nazism among the poor and dispossessed in Salonica. Stylianos Gonatas, governor general of Macedonia from 1929 to 1932, supported the newlyfounded Greek fascist party, Ethniki Enosis Ellados (National Union of Greece), or EEE, and sent its student section to the Kambel quarter of Salonica where they burned a large number of Jewish homes in June 1931. Venizelos censured Gonatas for this action, thus breaking the alliance that had existed between the two since 1923 when

48

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

Gonatas supported Venizelos' plan to hellenize Salonica. Anti-Jewish activity, however, continued until the middle of the decade (ostensibly to combat an alleged Jewish plot aimed at bringing Salonica and its environs under Bulgarian control). In the wake ofthese disturbances, nearly 10,000 Jews left Salonica to find new lives and new centers for themselves in Palestine (1932-1934).11 The professions that these Jews brought to Palestine were of considerable value to the developing Yishuv. They included bankers (the Israel Discount Bank was founded by the Recanati family), doctors, lawyers and other professionals, craftsmen and artisans, dockworkers who contributed to the development of Jewish port facilities in Haifa, fishermen, and politicians. The loss of these skilled individuals to the Greek economy and the subsequent annihilation of the well-developed social, economic, and intellectual infrastructure of Greek society during the Holocaust - in particular the newspaper editors, reporters, typesetters, printers, silk merchants and other textile manufacturers, tobacco entrepreneurs and skilled workers (especially women)-had severe ramifications for postwar Greece. In many of these sectors, after World War II, Greece had to create a new commercial and industrial base. This aspect of the war years has been little appreciated in recent studies of postwar Greece. 12 Against the background of this political and social upheavel, John Metaxas convinced the king to suspend the constitution on 4 August 1936, thereafter governing as dictator until his death in January 1941. Although both a royalist and an admirer of Mussolini and Hitler, Metaxas nevertheless officially banned any public anti-Jewish demonstrations 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 to this ban on public meetings, intellectual life in general declined during this period and Jewish clubs, among others, were adversely affected. Subsequently Metaxas suspended all Jewish French-language newspapers while allowing the Jewish Spanish-language newspapers to continue publication. Even so, the latter rapidly declined, dropping from a 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 October 1940 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 time become impoverished. 13 With the declaration of war, thousands of Jews marched off to Albania to fight against the Italians and help bring about their defeat. It is perhaps not by accident that, of the two national heroes cited for special awards for their heroic actions, one was a common soldier and the other a Jewish officer, Colonel Mordecai Frizi, from Chalkis, who had served long and honorably in various Greek armies. 14 In the Italo-Greek campaign of 1940-1941, Jews ofSalonica, Macedonia, Thrace, and Epiros figured prominently in the army. As noted, these areas had been annexed only in the previous generation; this is but one indication of the extent to which Jews accepted and supported Greek government. Unofficial estimates indicate that, out of a 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, they suffered losses of 513 dead and 3,743 wounded, of whom 1,412 became crippled; many

Jews in Wartime Greece

49

of 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. The best known combatant was the abovementioned Colonel Frizi. He became the hero of the Battle of Kalama at which he fell; he was the highest ranking officer to die in Albania. Colonel Frizi was posthumously awarded the gold star and a monument was erected in his memory in Chalkis. Also approximately twenty-five streets have been named after him throughout Greece. 15 Other soldiers included Colonel Joseph Barukh, who served in the cavalry against the Italians, and Leon Dusatis, who fought in Albania and later served as a major in the Israel Defense Forces. A large number of Jewish physicians also served in the war. Colonel Henry Nissim Levy of 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 alter the 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 most of May to plan and execute the parachute invasion of Crete, possibly one of the most remarkable 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's delay may .well have decided the fate of the Eastern Front. As at Thermopylai, the blood of Greek soldiers and their British allies bought time which proved crucial to the ultimate victory. 16 Even so, Greece was officially defeated and occupied by Axis powers, Bulgaria being awarded eastern Thrace and that part of Macedonia which was taken from Yugoslavia; the Germans appropriated Greek Macedonia and western Thrace for themselves and later conquered Crete, while the Italians received Larissa and the remainder of 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, nearly all of the Jewish population living in the Bulgarian-occupied zones of Macdeonia and Thrace, and the majority of the Jewish population of the German-occupied zones of Macedonia 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) the number of Jews in the guerrilla forces as 9,000. Clearly this figure also includes those in hiding under the protection of ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos). 17 The Italian-occupied south, however, proved to be a haven for Jews fleeing from the north. 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 issued him by his government. 18 Thus it was made possible for larger numbers of Jews to participate in the Resistance in that area. The Bulgarian contribution to the extermination of the Jews in Greece was the most efficient. 19 In fact, it was nearly total, as can be seen from a comparison of prewar and postwar population figures for those areas under their control (see Thble). From Yugoslavian Macedonia over 7,300 Jews were collected. After the war only 196 returned to their homes; the remainder either died in Poland or were drowned en route in the Danube. From Greek Thrace the percentage is nearly the same: of some 4,200 arrested,

v. 0

TABLE: POPULATION OF JEWS IN GREECE 1904-1973 1904 THRACE Didymotikon 906 Nea Orestias Alexandroupolis 200 1,200 Komotini Xanthe Soufli 25 Samothrace Thasos MACEDONIA Kavalla 2,000 Drama 380 2,000 Serres Thessaloniki 75,000 Verroia 1,600 Kastoria Flornia Langadas Katerini 80 Naussa THESALY Trikkala 1,000 2,500 Larissa Volos 1,100 Karditsa CENTRAL GREECE Chalkis 200 300 Athens

1928

1940

1943

1,000 200 200 900 600

1,000 197 165 850 600 40

900 197 140 819 550

1943-

44 (42) 904 (878) 537 (526)

1945

1947

1948

1955

1959

1967

1973

33 3 4 28 6

33 3 4 28 6

38

40

40

21

14

22

10

42 39 3 1,950 131 35 64

42 39 3 1,950 131 35 64

43 39

50

47 17

47

16 4

1,950 112 38 64

1,350 40 32 30

1,279 38 27 7

1,122 24

ca. 1,200 3 fam. 2

4

3 (3) 16 (16) 2,200 1,500 750 62,500 500 1,000 500

2,200 1,200 600 56,500 850 900

2,100 1,200 600 56,000 460 900

400

400

1,657 (1,484) 592 (589) 471 (471)

50 50 50 600 2,100 1,000

400 3,200

35 10

520 1,175 882 150

520 1,120 872

350 3,500

325 3,000

360 726 645

(over 10,(00)

170 4,930

2 fam.

.... ~

360 726 645 100

356 621 558

170 4,930

181 4,000

150 500 350

150 3,000

123 482 230 51

101 441 210 30

33 fam.

108 2,718

91 2,802

101 3,500 (1)

400

70-80 30

~

~

> t"'

~ ~

en

PELOPONNESOS Patras-Agrinion 300 (All 40 Jews of Agrinion survived) EPIROS 2,000 Ioannina 4,000 Preveza 250 200 400 Arta 300 ISLANDS 2,000 Kerkyra (Corfu) 3,500 Zakynthos (Zante) 175 300 4,000 Rhodes Kos 103 Mytilene 100 350 Chios CRETE Candia (Iraklion) 52 525 Chanea 400 Lassithi 38 Rethymnon 31 TOTAL (approx.)

110,000

83,000

337

265

145

152

153

40

37

19

16

~

I;ij

S· 1,950 250 384

1,850 250 384

163 15

2,000 275

2,000 275

187 275

60

163 15

150

60

54

105 2 50

185 275

125 69

102 8

11

100

100

100

92

20

~

::t §. !II

C

} 2,200

} 1,900

} 200

} 200

}60

350

350

7

7

6

79,950

77,377

10,226

10,371

8,650

32

70 1 30

5,124

5,000

92

i

~

}49

5,909

5,475

Sources: 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). 1948 1943' 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 1959 1955 1967 1973

Figures published by Molho and Nehama, The Destruction of Greek Jewry (Hebrew), pp. 223-24 (see Note 9 below). Maurice J. Goldbloom, "Greece," American Jewish Year Book, 57 (1956),363. ''The Number of the Jews in Greece" (Hebrew), Bitjuzoth ha-Golah, 11, nos. 48/49 (1969), 140. Author's observation and estimates supplied by local communities.

v.

52

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

only 216 survived. This action by a non-combatant member of the Axis is hard to fathom in 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 and demoralized community, it is true, but still possessing some pride in its once glorious heritage as the center of Sephardic civilization. During the brief but crucial period when 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 Though the Germans had occupied Salonica in April 1941, it was not before July 1942 that the 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 to assemble in the Plateia Eleutheria. Some nine thousand appeared. After a humiliating day in the hot sun, they were marked for forced labor for the Germany army. The community leaders attempted to buy their release and agreed to a payment of two billion 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 been transferred to it by the Germans. The two billion drachmas were raised from the fastdisappearing wealth of the community with assistance from other Salonican Jews living in Athens. On 6 February 1943, the Germans began to implement the Nuremberg Laws against the Jews. Within a few weeks the following decrees became effective: every Jew over fifteen years of age had to wear a yellow Star of David; Jews were forbidden to use public transportation or to be on the main streets after dark; telephone service was forbidden except for communal officials or doctors; signs were to be placed identifying Jewish shops and homes or apartments; permission to change their domicile had to be obtained from the Germans; Jews had to submit a complete list of property and financial resources; and Jews had to live within special areas. 23 Three ghettos were established, the last called Baron Hirsch located alongside the railroad station in Salonica. That name provides something of an ironic touch, since Baron 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 ash remains of their burnt corpses. Of the 48,000 Saloniki Jews sent to Auschwitz, 45,000 were gassed there; about 1,000 went to Warsaw to salvage valuables from the destroyed Ghetto for the Germans, while about 500 were transported to other camps. Another 15,000 Jews from other parts of Greece also died at Auschwitz. Thus the percentage of Greek Jews killed by the Nazis, nearly 90 per cent, ranks second to that of Polish Jewry. The historical consequences are equally as devastating. 24 Nearly 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 SaIonica were selected to work in the crematoria as Sonderkommandos. Their task would be to assist the victims in the pseudo-showering areas that were actually huge gas chambers. Four hundred of them refused to survive under such circumstances and were themselves gassed on 22 July 1944. 25

Jews in Wartime Greece

53

What 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 the efforts of some Jewish women who worked in the munitions factory, a small quantity of dynamite and some weapons were smuggled into the crematoria. The plan was for the doomed Sonderkommando to participate in a general camp revolt. Synchronization was poor under the circumstances, however, and their revolt began ahead of schedule. 1\\'0 of the squads lost courage, but in the third and fourth crematoria the Greeks were able to overcome the guards and to blow up the furnaces and smokestacks before they were finally killed. In the rubble of Crematorium III, according to several sources, the Greek Jews died singing the Greek national anthem. The results of this unique revolt included the deaths of some twenty guards, the destruction of one crematorium and extensive damage to the second, thereby halving the "production" of the death 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-Jewish historiography. 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 Greeks in 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's account. 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 specific destroyed 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's In Memoriam argues that, since Greek Jews spoke only Greek, French, or Ladino (not necessarily 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 used in the revolt. His argument that she would have interacted only with Yiddish-speaking Jews, however, proves nothing since the situation in the camp was much more complicated. 28 These contradictory traditions necessitate two separate lines of inquiry. One would pursue the impact of the respective historiographical traditions of Polish and Greek Jewry 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 sources support 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 revolt and to identify its leaders. Such a task is beyond the limits of this article. It will suffice here 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 sources for 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 noted that 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 important contribution to Greek Jewry's perception of its role during the Holocaust period. 29 The issue of Jewish participation in the Resistance is also complicated. First it

S4

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

should be emphasized that, with but a few exceptions, to be a Jew in the Bulgarian or German zones was an almost automatic death sentence. It is with this in mind that one 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 Allied effort 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 testify to 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 conscripts or as volunteers. These units belonged to both the right and the left, although the latter were apparently more sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. Owing to their superior knowledge of Greek and their university training, a number of Jews were also involved in the public administration set up in the mountains. 30 The problem of dealing with this aspect of the Resistance is that sources are not accessible. 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 Germans was 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 work of 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 Jewish contribution to the struggle against the Occupation: Salomon Bouri joined the partisans at age 16 in Macedonia; he was killed in September 1 9 4 4 . ' Eliezer Azaria graduated from the University of Athens with top honors as an agronomy 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 in Chalkis in 1924 and joined the Resistance early in the conflict. At the time of his arrest by 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 Rumelia as 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 where he commanded a detachment under the pseudonym, Gaies. On 2 July 1944, Johanan Hagdie of Arta died fighting at Amphissa where he commanded 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 S July 1944.

Jews in Wartime Greece

55

Jacob Costis was part of a clandestine group that bombed German 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 this feat, which, of course, could not have been accomplished without the leadership and assistance of their British advisors. A footnote to the episode is the question of Jewish participation. Kabelli claims that more than forty Jews "were cited for courage and bravery" 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 owing to its superior training, bravery, and skills. Although the high percentage of Jews may seem incongruous, Molho and Nehama accept that forty Jewish partisans assisted in the raid, while Asher Moisses cites the testimony of historians of the Resistance who give credit to the active participation of the Jews. As yet, however, no direct evidence from Jewish sources, has been found, while the Greek sources cited are unavailable at the time of this writing. The question must therefore remain moot until further research is possible. 33 In addition to anonymous Jewish participation in various fighting bands, a number of specifically Jewish groups were known to have been active in the Resistance. In Thessaly, it is claimed, the octogenarian chief rabbi of Volos, Moshe Pesach, formed a Jewish unit (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 was later awarded the Gold Medal of George I for his actions, it is more likely, in historical perspective, that he was honored more for the sheer feat of having 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 and liaison 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 of German allowed Rabbi Barzilay to discover, and subsequently foil, the gestapo's true plans for the Jews of Athens. 34 Resistance work in Salonica was led by the journalist, Elie Veissi. His knowledge of German allowed him to gather information - subsequently relayed to Egyptfrom the German officers billeted in his home. A number of other journalists were prominent 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, Abraham Levy, Shem Tov Alaluf, Eliahu Levy, and Simon Cohen. Thus the Jewish component of the Resistance consisted of demobilized fighting men and students while the intelligensia contributed both doctors, journalists and lawyers. 35 Though this article cannot examine other aspects of the Greek Jewish participa-

56

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

tion, several should be noted for subsequent research: the fortunes of those Greek Jews who fought in Poland in the revolt of General Komorovski, which broke out in August 1944; and those Jews who fought with the Greek naval forces or in North Africa and Italy.36 Of greater interest would be to record the attempts of Greek Jews in Palestine to help their brethren; on this subject there is a large quantity of documentation in various Zionist archives to explore. This essay also cannot explore the fate of the Greek Jews 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 known to have been Palestinian JewS. 37 Another important consideration is the attitude of the Greek Christians toward the plight of the Jews both during and after the war. A leading role was played by Archbishop Damaskinos, who led a number of protests by Greek professionals against the puppet Greek government and the Nazis themselves. The archbishop publicly called upon 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 of nameless Greeks who opened their homes to hunted Jews and shared their limited rations with them. Three-quarters ofthe Jews of Chalkis hid in the villages of Euboea. Eighteen hundred Jews of Thessaly came out of hiding 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 number of ways.38 In Israel there is a mountain in the Jerusalem hills dedicated to the Martyrs of the Holocaust. On its summit is a museum of steel and stone overpowering in its mute testimony to the destruction of nearly six million Jews. Here is located the Yad Vashem Archives where scholars can study the phenomenon of an advanced technological society gone mad. Outside, surrounding all the buildings, is a new forest, a living memorial to those who assisted in the alleviation of this slaughter. Originally the trees were planted along the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles which leads to the museum, but today the forest covers much of the mountain's crest as accounts of an increasing number of heroes and heroines come to light. These are the people who said "OXI" to Hitler and translated their compassion for the victims into actions of rescue. To date at least eight trees have been planted in honor of Greek Christians: 39 Kleopatra Mino Father Irenee Typaldos Sister Helene St. Capart Angelos Evert

Archbishop Damaskinos Metropolitan Genadios Michael Glykas Demetrios Vranopoulos

The 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 assisting others to escape to Palestine via Turkey. (Joseph Matsas, one of that group, informed this 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 gratitude to the partisans, Rabbi Pesach and Rabbi Barzilay also appealed to World Jewry to supply the Greek Resistance with equipment and aid. It was in response to these requests that various Jewish organizations managed to smuggle money and supplies into

Jews in Wartime Greece

S7

the mountains, mainly through contacts in Istanbul. In sum, the number of Jews saved through the efforts of the Greek population and the Orthodox Church is estimated at over 10,000. The Jews of Salonica, on the other hand, were not so hospitably treated by their Christian compatriots, especially during the period of the deportations. Noted above were the interwar tensions between the Anatolian or "new" Greeks and the Spanishspeaking Jews; the war did little to lessen this hostility, rather serving to exacerbate the nationalistic feeling inherent in the situation. The Ge11llaD$, moreover, played upon the greed of the local population in order to increase the iSOlation of the Jewish community. Jewish homes were given to collaborators; Jewish property was confiscated and distributed; the famous and extensive graveyard (SO hectares and over half a million graves) was destroyed, its marble and stone monuments recycled for municipal repairs 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 bear mute testimony of the area's tragic past to the present day.4O While it must be noted that many individuals did protest, especially the Bishop of Thessaloniki and a number of priests from German-occupied Greece who were arrested for refusing to preach racism,41 nevertheless the weight of Nazi policy served only to intensify the deep-seated antagonism of the local population toward the Jewish community. This resulted first in a cultural destruction of their literary and religious heritage, and then in physical annihilation. 42 The acid test came after the war when the survivors of the worst chapter in Greek Jewry's millennia-long history returned to their former homes. By 1946 of the 9,000 Jews to be found in Greece, two-thirds were declared totally indigent, and this despite the 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 the property based on Law no. 846 promulgated on 22 January 1946. No successor government, however, has implemented this law to date. Although some resolution of the problem appears imminent, the property remains in limbo at the present time. 43 The unstable situation in Greece, including the destitute position of the survivors and the harassment of former ELAS partisans and of those who took refuge with them, 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 survivors and Zionists went to join their families and aid in the defense of the new state. A larger number of Jews remained in Greece, however, professionals-doctors, lawyers, and merchants - who, as Greek citizens, continue to maintain the 2,500 year-old traditions of 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 for its 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., Greece in the 1940s: A Bibliographic Companion (Hanover and London, 1981), which includes, "Greece under

S8

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

the Axis Occupation," by Hagen Fleischer and "Jews in Wartime Greece," a preliminary bibliography (and companion piece to the article here) by Steven Bowman. An important survey was recently offered by Daniel Carpi, "Notes on the History of the Jews in Greece during the Holocaust Period. The Attitude of the Italians (1941-1943)," in Festschrift in Honor 0/Dr. George s. Wife (leI Aviv, 1981), pp. 15-62, with full documentation and new sources in the Italian version, "Nuovi documenti per la storia deIl'Olocausto in Grecia - L'atteggimento degli italiani (1941-1943)," in MicluJel (on the History of the Jews in the Diaspora), edited by Zvi Ankori and Shlomo Simonsohn (leI Aviv, 1981), VII, 119-200. 1. Cf. the proceedings of The Greek Orthodox-Jewish Consultation published jointly in The Greek Orthodox 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 the Acts 0/ the 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 discoveries cited 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 Medieval Heritage: 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, The Jewries 0/ the Levant After the Fourth Crusade (paris, 1949); Joseph Nehama, Histoire des Israelites de Salonique, 7 vols. (paris, 1935-1978), here: I (1935); the updated Hebrew version in Zikharon Saloniki (Tel Aviv, 1973), by Isaac S. Emmanuel of his earlier Histoire des Israelites de Salonique (Salonica, 1936); Solomon Rosanes' outdated but still useful Divre Y'me Yishrael bi-1bgarmah [History of the Jews in Thrker] (Tel Aviv, 1930), I; and 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 1204-1453 by 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 used interchangeably 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 History 0/ 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 Steven Bowman, "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 edited by 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 reference unfortunately is not available to me. 8. Cf. pamphlet dated 20 October 1863 of a resolution in a synagogue in Galata, Constantinople on 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 Saloniki in 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. The latter 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 de Salonique en particulier entre les deux guerres mondiales," Homenage Millds-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 industry appended to his Histoire des Israelites (1936).

a

Jews in Wartime Greece

59

13. For newspapers in Judeo-SpaDish or SpanioIith, see David Gaon, Ha-1tonot be-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 EncycloJJQedill (New York, 1925), s. v., "Thrkey." An important interview with Sam Modiano is deposited in the 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, Ir Ve-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 the Army of Greece" (Hebrew), in Ha-Lohhem ha-Yehudi be-Sevabt ho-'Olom [The Jewish Fighter in the Armies of the World] ('leI Aviv, 1967), pp. 182-8S. IS. Recorded by the Jewish community of Salonica and available in the works of Molho and Nehama, Destruction ofGreek Jewry; Kabelli, "Resistance," and Zikharon Saloniki, ed. David Recanati. Joseph Matsas suggests 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 of Events and Digest of Opinion (New York, 1942), V, S13, citing the New York Jewish newspaper Morning Journal of 1 July 1942. Michael Matsas suggests a total 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 of Occupied Croatia," in Rescue Attempts During the 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 a 1'6gard des Juifs en ~ occupCe," Le Monde Jui/, 49 (Paris, 19S1), 7-10. Yad Vashem Archives, flle 03/2490 contains the testimony of Samuel Negrin whose father worked for the Athens Jewish community and therefore had 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-Mishpat ha-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 ~ulgarian Jewry] (1Cl Aviv, 1969), III; Alexander Matkovsky, "The Destruction of Macedonian Jewry," Yad Vashem, 3 (19S9), 222-S8; Miriam Novitch, "End of Macedonia and Thrace Jewish Communities," 0zIu Yehudei Sepharad, 4 (1961) liv-lvi; Charles W. Steckel, Destruction and Survival (Los Angeles, Ca., 1973). 20. The question of the attitude of the Axis allies toward their Jewish populations, both internal and conquered (each suffered a different fate), prior to the collapse of these regimes and occupation by German forces. necessitates a special study. For figures, see the study by Chary, Bulgarilln Jews, cited in the previous Note. 21. The questions surrounding the role of the chief rabbi are as complicated as they are unclear. There is a consensus among the surviving Jews of Salonica that he was guilty of assisting the Germans if he was not actually a collaborator. In addition to the memoirs investigated, the classic statement of this view is by Molho and Nehama, Destruction of Greek 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 in his supplement to Emmanuel's survey of Salonica in Zikhoron Saloniki, pp. 261-64. Joseph Benn (cited in Note 24 below) reexamined most of the sources against the background of the more general problem of the Judenrat in Nazi-occupied Europe; he suggests that the charge against the rabbi be reduced from complicity to nai~ On the problem of the Judenrat in general, cf. Isaiah 1hJnk, Judenrat. The Jewish Councils in EIlstem Europe under Nazi Occupation (New York, 1973). Also see the sources collected by Michael Matsas and mentioned in my bibliography "Jews in Wartime Greece," cited in the Introduction to the Notes, above. 22. Still during that terrible winter of 1941-42 some eighty Jews died each day-according to Jewish reports-3,2S0 Jews in Athens and Salonica. By comparison some 24,000 Greeks were reported to have died from famine in the Italian zone alone; cf. Emmanuel, Zikharon Saloniki, p. 237.

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JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

23. !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. general surveys 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 been dealt 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 the best study to date after Molho and Nehama, Destruction 0/ Greek Jewry. Early studies emphasized the personal 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 of Salonica during the German Occupation] (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); and Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (New York, 1961). Several Greek studies include G. Sporiades, "The Great Persecution. The Extermination of the Greek Jews" (Greek), Ethnos, 17 January and 3 February 1955; Nikephnas Zevgadakis, "The Jews of Crete during the German Occupation" (Greek), in the Cretan daily, 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 records of destruction from Auschwitz archives are available in Danuta Czech, "Deportation und Vernichtung der griechischen Juden im K. L. Auschwitz," He/te von Auschwitz, 2 (1970), 5-37. A Hebrew version of the latter 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 the 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 Jewry was instrumental in establishing with the assistance of the Recanati family, a chair for Salonican and Greek Jewry at lei 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 the Concentration Camp (Greenwich, 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 the resistance was led by Colonel Joseph Barukh and his two lieutenants, Jose Levy and Maurice Aron, with the assistance of Isaac Barukh, Sam Karasso, and Yom Tov Yacoel. Mark suggests that Barukh and some of 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 Russian journalist's alleged meeting with Barukh in liberated Warsaw. An unpublished memoir by a surviving member ofthe Sonderkommando deposited in the Institute for Research of Saloniki Jewry in lei Aviv, on the other hand, clearly places Barukh at the head of the revolt of the Sonderkommando. According to this memoir at 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 cited in 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. testimoni~s in Yad Vashem Archives: 03/2688, 03/2989, and 03/2487. A number of examples are brought by Benn, "Sho'ath Yehudei Yavan" chap. 6. Several are summarized in my bibliography, "Jews in 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.

Jews in Wartime Greece

61

32. 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 member of the British contingent. Kabelli's figure of 40 Jewish participants has been challenged by Joseph Matsas in 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 November 1942, 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. While there the rabbi overheard two of the Germans discussing the proposed deportation of these Jews; he then announced that no lists were available since the youth group of the EEE (Ethnic Enosis Ellados) had burned the synagogue records. Ordered to draw up new lists, the rabbi returned to his home and gave a coded warning 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 by Novitch, Le passage des barbares); other cells that helped Jews to hide or to escape to the mountains or out 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 in a 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 with the situation in Poland. One of these records the story of 1,000 Greek Jews who were taken from Auschwitz to the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto to salvage valuables for the Germans. Inter alia it records the activities of 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"; on the Jewish POWs, see Yochanan Ya'acovi, "The Road to Captivity. A Short History of the Palestinian Units which served in the campaigns of Greece and Crete in the Spring of 1941" (M. A. Thesis, Tel Aviv University 1976), in Hebrew with an English summary. See above Note 27. 38. Cf. Elias Barzilay, Report on the Tragedy of 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 of Central European Affairs, 8 (October 1948), 266 f; Enerpikides, JudenVerfolgungen, chap. 17 and passim, including a chapter on the efforts of Archbishop Damaskinos; Solomon Izhaki, "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 of Greek Jewry, passim; Jeanne Tsatsos, The Sword's Fierce Edge: A Journal of the Occupation of Greece, 1941-1944 (Nashville, Tenn., 1969), p. 56. Some Greek wartime memoirs also mention their activity, e.g., Symmachos (pseudonym), Greece Fights On (London, n.d.), p. 113, notes protests of the Greek church to deportations; Amyntor (pseudonym), Victors in Chains (New York, 1943[?)), pp. 66-67; Chris Jecchioris, Beyond Olympos: The Thrilling Story of the "Train-busters" in Nazi-Occupied Greece (London, 1961), p. 40, notes the role of Greek policemen. The latter efforts are independently and appreciatively recorded 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 posthumously published collection of Michael Molho, Mazeboth Beth ha-'Almin shel Yehudei Saloniki (Tombstones of

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JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

the Jews Semetary (sic!) of Salonica] (Tel Aviv, 1974). A brief report on the graveyard was provided by J. Nehama, "I.e cimetiere juif de Salonique," Les Cahiers 8efardis, 1 (1947), 134-36; cf. also Molho and Nehamc, 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 claimed that 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 the tragic fate of the Jewish community; this was preordained by Nazi policy. On the other hand, support of the Jews by their compatriots would have undoubtably saved more lives. The complicated social situation in Salonica deserves more analysis. 43. First mention of the problem was made by Lehrman, "Greece: Unused Cakes of Soap," p. 49. An outline of the attitudes of the successive Greek governments is provided by L. S. Stavrianos, "The Jews of 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.