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JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES – AN ACCOUNT OF
THE DEPORTATIONS – THE JERUSALEM OF THE BALKANS
LES JUIFS DE SALONIQUE…
ACCOUNTS OF THE DEPORTATIONS
[These accounts are taken from various reports
by the Allied and US military services during World War II. Published in an article
by Alexandros Kitroeff in the Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, vol XII,
no. 3, Autumn 1985.]
Soon after the invasion of
The repercussions of such measures were keenly
felt in Salonica, where the Jewish community is very large. These measures,
dictated by a hated and despised enemy, were met with profound indignation by
Greek public opinion...
Regarding the mass deportation of the Greek
Jews, the German troops detailed to do this work were not the troops already in
Salonica but were units of SS troops sent especially for the purpose. These
troops arrived in Salonica at the end of February. Their attitude towards the
Greeks, and particularly towards the Jews, was extremely harsh.
In the month of August, 1942, the German
authorities ordered all male Jews between the ages of 16 and 40 to assemble in
Salonica, the intention being, apparently, to send them to a specially
organised ghetto to be established in
The process of deportation was as follows:
Every Jew was given a form upon which he was
ordered to write a complete inventory of his possessions, stating the value of
all objects listed and including items which would ordinarily be considered as
of no value - such a pet dogs. the next day these
lists had to be handed in to the German authorities.
The Jews could see no reason for the
inventories, since the SS troops paid no attention to those that were
submitted, but instead seized every bit of property of all Greek Jews
regardless of value. Houses were emptied, the contents carried away in trucks,
and the owners were taken to the concentration camp in Salonica. Articles of
value were sent to
The wholesale transfer of Greeks to the
concentration camps began on March 2nd and continued for about a month and a
half. The concentration camp was completely isolated from the rest of the city.
To ensure that there should be no comunication between the inmates and the Jews
who were still at large, a zone 50 metres wide was established around the camp,
which no Jew, whether Greek or of foreign citizenship, coule enter upon any
pretext whatsoever.
To reinforce the guard of that section of the
city, the SS troops appointed an auxiliary group of 200 Jewish police. One of
these was shot on the spot by an SS trooper because he was seen to reply to a
question asked by a member of the Internatioal Red Cross.
Informers who were present pointed out those
Jews who were known to have property, and the Germans by means of extreme
ill-treatment extorted money and jewellery from them...
A solemn warning was issued by the Greek
Orthodox Church authorities that if the Germans persisted with a plan to send
the Jews to the
Apparently 8,000 of these Jews reached the
concentration camp, for in October various Greek quisling newspapers reported
that of that number some 200 had been fettered and thrown into prison because
they attempted to escape and join the guerrillas operating from mountain bases.
With the exception of about 100, all the Greek
Jews of Salonica have been deported in the direction of Niche but to what
destination is not known. This mass deportation started about the 27th of March
[1943] and lasted about one month and a half. Deportees were allowed to take
practically nothing with them. They were packed into closed wagons, many wagons
used for transportation of cattle etc. The men and women were separated,
children up to 7 years were allowed with their mothers. Over 7 were separated
male and female. I know one woman who was sent who had had a child the day
before.
No news or letters have been received from any
of the deportees.
One man whom I know, a certain Hasson, was brought
back to Salonica, imprisoned and beaten up for several days until he finally
confessed that he had handed over to a certain Valera, druggist, 700 gold liras
for safekeeping before he left. He was then taken into custody by two German
officers who brought him
back to Salonica, together with the Jew who had given him away,
and they went to
"When our informant left Salonica on July
8th [1943], she felt certain that no Jews of any nationality were left in the
city."