The Consulate General of Greece in Sydney commemorates the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Thessaloniki Jews

Between 15 March and 10 August 1943, some forty-three thousand Jews of Thessaloniki were transported to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of those, less than one thousand returned back alive. This was a devastating blow to the Jewish population of Thessaloniki, a major and one of the oldest Jewish centres in Europe. The Jews had constituted the majority of the population —and at times even the absolute majority—thus marking the city’s character for centuries.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Greek Jews from Thessaloniki to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the Consulate General of Greece in Sydney proudly announces a series of events to commemorate the unspeakable tragedy that led to the near extinction of one amongst Europe’s most thriving Jewish communities.

The renowned historian Dr.Leon Saltiel, having extensively written on the topic, will give two lectures in Sydney - unfolding the history of the Thessaloniki Jews through valuable testimonies of Holocaust victims, while elaborating on the aftermath of this calamity for the Greek Jewish community.

Specifically:

- Personal correspondence as Holocaust testimony: Letters sent from the Ghetto of Thessaloniki

The Consulate General of Greece in Sydney sponsors an event-lecture entitled “Personal correspondence as Holocaust testimony: Letters sent from the Ghetto of Thessaloniki” by Dr. Leon Saltiel. The event is co-hosted by theDisciplines of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies and Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies, University of Sydneyand co-sponsored by Mandelbaum House.

Little is known about the everyday lives of individual Jews during the years of the Nazi occupation, let alone the period of ghettoization and deportation. This gap in historiography can be bridged by a unique find: a series of fifty-three letters written by three Jewish mothers living in Thessaloniki and sent to their sons, all residing in Athens—all three women victims of the Holocaust. This considerable number of letters from three different eyewitnesses, as well as the long period covered shedslight on the lives of ordinary Jewish citizens of Thessaloniki, free from hindsight and the influence of what had followed.

The lecture will discuss the general framework of the Holocaust in Thessaloniki and the great contribution these letters can make in our understanding of this dark period.

Free event
April 18, 15.00-16.30
Venue: Mandelbaum House (map)
Info: https://bit.ly/3MipV50

- The Holocaust in Thessaloniki and its blow to a 2000-years-old Community

The Consulate General of Greece in Sydney organizes an event-lecture entitled “The Holocaust in Thessaloniki and its blow to a 2000-years-old Community” by Dr. Leon Saltiel. His Eminence Archbishop Makarios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in Australia will address a foreword.

The event is supported by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and theNSW Jewish Board of Deputies and kindly hosted by the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, University of Sydney,at its premises.

The presentation will narrate the long history until the last days of the once prominent Jewish community of Thessaloniki, the overwhelming majority of which was transported to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in 1943. Almost 95 per cent of the 50,000 Jews in Greece’s second largest city did not survive the war, most of them deported and exterminated in German-occupied Poland. The Jews constituted a large percentage of Thessaloniki’s population, with a long presence in the city, who contributed to the social, economic, political and cultural life, and their loss has marked the development of the city –and the whole country—to this day.

Live streaming starting at 18.30 via Zoom here

April 20, 18.00for a 18.30 start
Venue: The Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, University of Sydney
CCANESA Boardroom, Madsen Building (map)


About the presenter:

Leon Saltiel holds a Ph.D. in Contemporary Greek History from the University of Macedonia, in Thessaloniki, Greece, and has been a post-doctoral researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His publications include The Holocaust in Thessaloniki: Reactions to the Anti-Jewish Persecution, 1942–1943 (Routledge 2020), which won the 2021 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research, and ‘Do Not Forget Me’: Three Jewish Mothers Write to their Sons from the Thessaloniki Ghetto (Alexandria 2018) in Greek and (Berghahn 2021 in English). He is Director of Diplomacy, Representative at UN Geneva and UNESCO, and Coordinator on Countering Anti-Semitism for the World Jewish Congress.