Η ευαισθησία των ευαίσθητων.

[hellegennes]

Mazower

Spoiler

Religious anti-Semitism and a sense of ethnic rivalry and competition coloured the atmosphere of the interwar city. But as we have seen, they only became a recipe for violence when politicians sought to use an anti-Jewish policy for their own electoral advantage. Stereotypes facilitated but did not cause the Campbell riot. Nor did stereotypes prevent the Greek authorities from recognizing and supporting Jewish life in various ways. Indeed, an anti-Venizelist administration made Yom Kippur a public holiday in Salonica—to the consternation of Nazi diplomats. Although the anti-Semites fulminated, there is no indication that this was an unpopular move among a majority of the city’s inhabitants for whom co-existence and increasing interaction were facts of life. The metropolitan, Gennadios, and the chief rabbi, Koretz, preserved cordial relations, and tried to ensure that their subordinates did too. Thus in the mid-1930s, the sources of communal tension were largely fading even as official anti-Semitism intensified in Germany, Poland and Romania. Left to themselves, Greeks and Jews might well have sorted out their differences. In the Second World War, hundreds of young Jewish men from the city fought in the ranks of the Greek army, and some of these went on to join the resistance. But they found themselves now up against an infinitely more deadly and highly organized form of anti-Semitism—not the petty discrimination of Greek officials, nor the mob violence of provincial right-wing louts, but the genocidal capabilities of the most advanced state in Europe.

...

This was confirmed when the quisling daily Nea Evropi published a series of articles on the history of the local Jewish community. The story they described was of Greek suffering at Jewish hands: since 1890, according to the author, Nikolaos Kammonas (from an old, respected Salonica family, he later became a founding member of Salonica’s branch of the Friends of Adolf Hitler), “the Jews managed with infernal perversity and venomous perfidy to secure their financial and racial empire on the corpse of Macedonian Hellenism.” Others joined in denouncing this “danger to our health.” One journalist described the Jews as “a sort of epidemic” and called on the authorities to remove traders near the Hirsch hospital, and “to force them to wash themselves, and their houses, and stop their bazaars.” Nor could anyone doubt the ultimate backing for such sentiments. On 9 November 1942, the Greek papers carried a speech by Hitler under the headline: “International Jewry will disappear from Europe.”11 All of this was being orchestrated locally by a new military propaganda office run by the Germans. Its Greek underlings included well-established journalists such as Alexandros Orologas, the owner of Apoyevmatini, and Nikolaos Fardis, whose inflammatory writings in Makedonia had played such an important part in the Campbell riot. In the 1920s, the same Fardis had been vociferous in calling for the destruction of remaining Ottoman buildings. What drew men like him to collaboration was not racialism so much as an extreme nationalism that allowed them to accept any measures necessary to weaken the role played by other ethnic groups in the life of the city.

evertheless, many Christians were urging Jews to go underground. Eleftheria Drosakis’s grandfather, himself a refugee from Smyrna, visited an old Jewish friend in the town ghetto—Christians could enter without hindrance—and offered to hide him. The postman told Erika Kounio’s father to give him his two children: they could stay with his mother outside Verria. Railway workers, sometimes for money and sometimes out of sheer compassion, hid Jews in goods wagons heading south. Leftists organized a network which spirited more than seventy out of the city, and offered help to many more.35

Yet going underground put the helpers at risk as well: Anastasios Maretis was imprisoned in the Pavlos Melas camp for hiding Jews and was interned in the Hirsch camp—this happened to several Christians—and beaten up. It is therefore not surprising that Christians hesitated to help Jewish friends. “The day before yesterday the chemist’s daughter came to see me and I pleaded with her to tell her father that I want to visit him and to rest there for a while,” wrote Neama on 8 March. “He refused. Today she came again and gave me a small jar of marmalade and a small tsoureki [bread] and asked me to forgive him for his refusal.” Leon Hayouel “tried to remain in Salonica but was unable to.” “To flee to the mountains,” recalled Leon Perahia, “I had to find a contact with the men in the mountains … Obviously I didn’t bother with the star. I went to Kalamaria where most of my comrades were hanging out. For three days I came and went until I found the right guy.”36

Opportunities to get away did sometimes present themselves which were rejected for fear of splitting up the family. Most of the actual and potential escapees were relatively young, mobile and usually single: they spoke fluent Greek and had many Christian friends and workmates, whereas the older people spoke Greek, if at all, with a heavy and easily recognizable accent. Young people turned down chances to escape when their parents decreed the family should stay together. Others chose to stay, because they felt that abandoning their older and younger relatives was irresponsible. Sam Profetas was urged by his boss to head for Athens, and told he could get him false papers. Then he heard that the Germans had rounded up the inhabitants of Regi Vardar, where his mother and sisters lived, and taken them to the Hirsch camp. “Thank you for your suggestion,” Profetas told him. “But you must bear in mind that we Jews have two religions: first comes the family, and after that God. I can’t leave my mother who has struggled hard all her life to bring me up.” And he presented himself voluntarily at the camp entrance.37

Yet hundreds of Jews did escape—on foot, by boat and by rail, into the villages of the Chalkidiki peninsula, the mountains of western Macedonia, the Greek islands, Turkey and above all Athens, which remained still under Italian occupation. They were helped by scores of individuals, as well as the burgeoning left-wing resistance movement—still in its infancy in the Macedonian hinterland—and even by the Italian consular authorities in the city, who negotiated strenuously with the SS to issue as many passports as they could. In the early hours of July 15—after all but the final 2000 Jews had already been deported to Auschwitz—the Italian consulate managed to transfer a train with 320 Jews under its protection to Athens. In Salonica there were left only the “privileged” Jewish elite, several hundred Jews with Spanish papers, and more than 1,000 men who had been building roads for a military contractor in central Greece. These men made up the last transport.

ON THE STREETS, many Greeks showed their revulsion at the German measures from the moment Jews were forced to wear the yellow star. Yacoel noted the relief Jews felt when they observed “the decent conduct of the Christian population” and their “many expressions of compassion and sympathy.” He tells a revealing story from 25 February, the first day the star had to be displayed:

The writer’s housemaid, a young Jewish girl, whose speech and external appearance could in no way betray her religion, went out on the balcony above the street for a household chore, without having worn the distinguishing Jewish sign. While there, she observed a scene involving a Jewish woman wearing the Jewish sign going down the street, timidly passing a Christian woman going up the street. The Christian, probably seeing that sign for the first time, addressed a comforting word to the Jewess. Perceiving then the writer’s housemaid on the balcony smiling and assuming her to be a Christian, she raised her head and chided her for her behaviour, saying: “Why are you laughing, child? You ought to feel compassion for them over their plight. They are people just like us. Can you be sure that perhaps tomorrow it won’t be our turn?”39

Solidarity was shown by many friends and neighbours when the Jews were forced out of their houses and confined to the ghettoes. They went to make their farewells, promised to look after property and valuables—though this too would become a risky matter—and exchanged gifts and tears. “Everyone was out and crying,” recalled one. “The Christians were sad we were leaving our homes; we sat with the Greek women who wept as we left.”40 As long lines of hundreds of people, all ages, pushing carts and carrying heavily laden rucksacks, trekked through the centre of town to the Hirsch camp, many Christians gathered on the pavements to see them go. Leon Perachia noticed the sad faces of those watching as he went past. Another recalled that “we walked down Leoforos Stratou and Egnatia. On the way there were many people, Christians, and they looked on helplessly. Some cried.”41

“By the station, my path was interrupted by a river of Jews coming down from the camp to the train,” recollected Eleftheria Drosakis, then a young girl from a refugee family. Living near the station, she witnessed several such forced marches, and would rush out hoping to see the friends she used to play with. “And my joy was great when I didn’t see one of them, because we hoped they would escape.” On the other side of the city, among the Pontic refugees in the suburb of Kalamaria, someone greeted the apparently endless line of Jews trailing past with the comment “They deserve it for having crucified our Lord.” But Georgios Andreades, then only seven, asked himself what the poor people he saw before him—“for me the sight was a painful one”—had to do with Christ’s crucifixion.42

Whereas individuals displayed their unhappiness at what was happening, there was little sign of this on the part of the city’s professional associations and organizations. The one exception was the Greek ex-servicemen’s association which reacted angrily when disabled Jewish war veterans were made to take part in the forced registration in July 1942. On several occasions after this, the leaders of the Christian association of war wounded tried to intervene on behalf of their Jewish comrades. Eventually the Germans threatened to execute them if they went ahead with planned demonstrations. They were the only ones to take protest so far. Yacoel, the community’s lawyer, could not hide his disappointment with the frostily detached attitude of men he had long known and had assumed would feel differently. As he wrote in his 1943 memoirs, written shortly before his own deportation and death, the city’s professional classes, in particular, the major merchants and businessmen, showed “a total lack of comradely solidarity.” Following the forced dismissal of Jews from Salonica’s guilds and associations, Yacoel called on “the president of the largest and most outstanding economic organization of the city”—presumably a reference to the Chamber of Commerce. Despite the man’s many and strong ties to Jewish firms—so strong indeed that he spoke Judeo-Spanish—he remained “cold and passive” and refused to do anything.

In this respect, Salonica was very different from Athens. There Archbishop Damaskinos condemned the deportations in no uncertain terms in formal letters sent to the prime minister and Gunther von Altenburg, the Reich plenipotentiary for Greece. His many fellow-signatories in this remarkable protest included the representatives of all the chief professional and public institutions of the capital. Athens business associations proposed that Salonican Jews should, if necessary, be concentrated internally rather than sent out of the country. By contrast, the Metropolitan of Salonica, Gennadios, appears to have confined himself to a private protest. When a handful of city notables visited Simonides to try to forestall the deportations the governor-general simply referred them to the Germans, who expressed their astonishment that the Greeks did not understand the favour that was being done them. Thereafter, the silence from Salonica’s professional classes was deafening. From the university professors and students, the businessmen and lawyers’ associations, there was barely a whisper. The municipality enquired of the governor-general when it should advertise vacancies for the jobs previously filled by Jews, and renamed the few streets in the city which commemorated Jewish figures. Simonides himself, far from protesting the deportations, raised no objections, failed to report what was happening to his own government in Athens and provided gendarmes and other civil servants to assist Eichmann’s men. “The rumour circulated insistently in Salonica,” writes Michael Molho, “especially among the Jews, that the Government was not entirely opposed to the idea of deporting the Jewish element, and this because the Government thought thus to attain a double end, that of assuring the racial homogeneity of the population, and of facilitating the settlement of the refugees from Thrace and Macedonia who had flooded into the city.”43

This lack of reaction could not be put down to the impossibility of protest itself. In 1942 there had been strikes and demonstrations against civil mobilization, and these were renewed in April 1943—in the middle of the deportations. There were further labour protests in August and September 1943 mounted by students, union workers, and war veterans against food shortages and profiteers. But the biggest public protest of all came in July 1943 when the Germans decided to expand the Bulgarian occupation zone in northern Greece, allowing a Bulgarian division into the vicinity of the city. In fact, the prime concern of Simonides, Archbishop Gennadios and a range of political figures from across the spectrum in 1943 was to prevent the gains of 1912–13 being rolled back and seeing the Bulgarian army enter Salonica. To stop this happening, they formed a semi-official National Macedonian Council to persuade the Germans to keep faith with the Greek administration. They believed Max Merten, the chief Wehrmacht administrator in the city, was sympathetic, and an advocate for the Greek side in discussions with his pro-Bulgarian military superiors. No senior Greek political figure in the city was thus prepared to forfeit his support and waste valuable political capital by speaking out on behalf of the Jews, not least since Merten had already made it clear to everyone that this was a matter decided at higher levels in Berlin and out of his hands.44

Something less than 5 per cent of Salonica’s Jewish population escaped deportation compared with perhaps 50 per cent in the Greek capital a year later. This was partly because the Jews of the Macedonian capital were far more numerous, more obtrusive and less assimilated than in Athens; helping a few thousand mostly Greek-speaking Jews in a city of nearly half a million was considerably easier than helping 50,000 Sefardim in a city half the size. Timing explains a lot too: much more was known by 1944, not least because of what had happened earlier. Perhaps more could have escaped from Salonica had families been willing to split up, or if Chief Rabbi Koretz had been a different personality, and obstructed German wishes—as the Chief Rabbi of Athens did: by 1944 the resistance was fully operational and better able to help than it had been the previous year. But a crucial part was also played by the different priorities and sentiments of the elites in Greece’s two main cities. According to the German records, approximately 45,000 people reached Auschwitz from Salonica. Within a few hours of arriving, most of them had been killed in gas chambers.45

Εμένα πάντως που δεν ξέρω πολλά, μου φαίνεται ότι η αλήθεια είναι κάπως πιο περίπλοκη απο άσπρο μαύρο αλλά δεν μιλάει για κανένα μαζικό αντισημιτικό κίνημα που θέριεψε με ευκαιρία τη γερμανική εισβολή. Το αντίθετο βασικά

αν έγινε ευκαιρία να κλείσουν ορισμένοι λογαριασμοί ή να γεμίσουν μερικοί τις τσέπες τους, δεν φαίνεται να συνέβη σε μεγαλύτερο βαθμό απ'ότι αλλού. Το σημείο για τον τύπο απο την ποντιακή συνοικία με προβλημάτισε λίγο αλλά οκ...

Sounds about right. Και το γεγονός ότι η Θεσσαλονίκη ήταν η μητρόπολη των Εβραίων και οι Εβραίοι δεν ψήνονταν ιδιαίτερα να φύγουν ενισχύεται από την παραπάνω αφήγηση. Κι αυτό οδήγησε στον αποδεκατισμό τους από τους ναζί.

[Cavaliere]

Η «μεγάλη συγγνώμη» της Θεσσαλονίκης ήρθε 72 χρόνια αργότερα, με την κατασκευή μνημείου στον ίδιο χώρο από τη διοίκηση Μπουτάρη.

Άλλο ένα ρατσιστικό σχόλιο του Μπουτάρη. Γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη άραγε;

[Cavaliere]

Επί προσωπικού δεν συζητώ και δεν απαντώ. Οτιδήποτε αφορά εκφράσεις έξω από το θέμα.

[hellegennes]

Εξακολουθούμε να μιλάμε για ένα 40% που ομολογεί πως το εβραϊκό ολοκαύτωμα της Θεσσαλονίκης είναι από αδιάφορο έως δίκαιο. Μην ξεχνιόμαστε. δεν είναι ρατσιστές τα παιδιά.

Υπάρχει κάποια έγκυρη έρευνα που λέει τέτοιο πράγμα; Όχι. Κόψ'το, λοιπόν, γιατί είναι η τελευταία φορά που το αφήνω να περάσει.

[Cavaliere]

Η Θεσσαλονίκη Μιλάει για το Ένοχο Μυστικό της Αρπαγής των Εβραϊκών Περιουσιών
Ανέκδοτα ντοκουμέντα για ένα από τα μεγαλύτερα ταμπού της σύγχρονης ιστορίας της Θεσσαλονίκης φέρνει στο φως η έκθεση του Μακεδονικού Μουσείου Σύγχρονης Τέχνης.
Την έκθεση συνδιοργανώνουν το Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki, το Εβραϊκό Μουσείο Θεσσαλονίκης, το Μακεδονικό Μουσείο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης της Θεσσαλονίκης και το Deutsches Historisches Museum του Βερολίνου. Παρουσιάζονται επίσης αρχεία διάφορων ιδρυμάτων και οργανισμών, καθώς και ιδιωτικών συλλογών.

Διάρκεια έκθεσης: Έως τις 26 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

Μακεδονικό Μουσείο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης
Εγνατία 154 (ΔΕΘ-HELEXPO)
Τηλ. 2310 240002
Κόστος εισιτηρίου: 4 ευρώ και 2 ευρώ (μειωμένο)


Η έκθεση αυτή η ρατσιστική κατ΄εσάς έγινε πριν 3 χρόνια ακριβώς.

[hades]

Η «μεγάλη συγγνώμη» της Θεσσαλονίκης ήρθε 72 χρόνια αργότερα, με την κατασκευή μνημείου στον ίδιο χώρο από τη διοίκηση Μπουτάρη.

Άλλο ένα ρατσιστικό σχόλιο του Μπουτάρη. Γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη άραγε;

Γιατί ο Μπουτάρης είναι παπάρας.

[A0ANACIVC]

Ο μασόνος/εβραίος αν δεν βαπτισθεί, γίνει ευσεβής και ταπεινοός, κάνει άκρα και αδιάλειπτο υπακοή στους ορθοδόξους και ειδικά τους αγγελόσχημους μοναχούς μας, δεν είναι άξιος να πατάει τα άγια χώματα του τόπου μας, τα ποτισμένα με το ιερό αίμα των πατέρων μας.

[Cavaliere]

[Cavaliere]

Η «μεγάλη συγγνώμη» της Θεσσαλονίκης ήρθε 72 χρόνια αργότερα, με την κατασκευή μνημείου στον ίδιο χώρο από τη διοίκηση Μπουτάρη.

Άλλο ένα ρατσιστικό σχόλιο του Μπουτάρη. Γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη άραγε;

Γιατί ο Μπουτάρης είναι παπάρας.

Ε, ας πάτε εκεί να κάνετε μαγκιές.

[Sid Vicious]

Η «μεγάλη συγγνώμη» της Θεσσαλονίκης ήρθε 72 χρόνια αργότερα, με την κατασκευή μνημείου στον ίδιο χώρο από τη διοίκηση Μπουτάρη.

Άλλο ένα ρατσιστικό σχόλιο του Μπουτάρη. Γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη άραγε;

ουτε αυτός θα θυμάται γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη, μεθυσμένος θα ήταν, άντε να ψάχνεις τώρα να βρεις τα γιατί στο κεφάλι του, άβυσσος

[Cavaliere]

Η «μεγάλη συγγνώμη» της Θεσσαλονίκης ήρθε 72 χρόνια αργότερα, με την κατασκευή μνημείου στον ίδιο χώρο από τη διοίκηση Μπουτάρη.

Άλλο ένα ρατσιστικό σχόλιο του Μπουτάρη. Γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη άραγε;

ουτε αυτός θα θυμάται γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη, μεθυσμένος θα ήταν, άντε να ψάχνεις τώρα να βρεις τα γιατί στο κεφάλι του, άβυσσος

Να ήταν μερακλαντάν παίζει χοντρά.

[hades]

Άλλο ένα ρατσιστικό σχόλιο του Μπουτάρη. Γιατί ζήτησε συγγνώμη άραγε;

Γιατί ο Μπουτάρης είναι παπάρας.

Ε, ας πάτε εκεί να κάνετε μαγκιές.

τι μαγκές ρε φίλε ; Μην μου βάζεις σε παρακαλώ το μαλάκα τον Μπουτάρη. Στον μυαλό του έκανε επανάσταση με το συγνωμη. Την ίδια περίοδο ο ίδιος ήθελε και άγαλμα του Κεμάλ στην πλατεία Ελευθερίας.

[Cavaliere]

[Παλαιοελλαδίτης]

Εξακολουθούμε να μιλάμε για ένα 40% που ομολογεί πως το εβραϊκό ολοκαύτωμα της Θεσσαλονίκης είναι από αδιάφορο έως δίκαιο. Μην ξεχνιόμαστε. δεν είναι ρατσιστές τα παιδιά.

Το αδιάφορο είναι διαφορετικό από το ότι το θεωρώ δίκαιο
Έχουμε και σοβαρότερα προσωπικά προβλήματα σήμερα να ασχοληθούμε από τις ιστορικές σφαγές και γενοκτονίες του παρελθόντος , οι οποίες είχαν γίνει πολύ πριν γεννηθουνε εμείς

Και ο εβραϊκός λαός ΔΕΝ είναι ο περιούσιος λαός του Θεού να χρίζει περισσότερο σεβασμό από άλλους λαούς πχ από την γενοκτονία των Ινδιάνων της Αμερικής ..

Αλήθεια την γενοκτονία των Ινδιάνων της Αμερικής την θεωρούμε δίκαια η αδιάφορη για εμάς σήμερα ;

Θα ήμουν πολύ προσεκτικός αν ήξερα πως ο παππούς μου ήρθε από την Ασία και έχτισε τη ζωή του επάνω στον αφανισμό ενός πληθυσμού. Αν μη, τι άλλο, θα μιλούσα με λιγότερο θράσος από μερικούς ΚΑΙ ΔΕΝ ΕΝΝΟΩ ΕΣΕΝΑ.

Α, μιλάς για αυτούς που ήρθαν από τη Μικρά Ασία επειδή τους έσφαζε εκείνος που είχες κάποτε ως νικνέιμ και εικόνα προφίλ; Καλά δεν θυμάμαι;

[sys3x]

Εντωμεταξύ σκεφτείτε (όσο και όσοι μπορείτε) να μην άλλαζαν τα κόζια το 1912 και η Θεσσαλονίκη (και η ευρύτερη περιοχή) να ήταν ακόμη στα χέρια Τούρκων όταν μπήκανε οι Γερμανοί.

όπως ήταν η Ανδριανούπολη όταν μπήκαν οι Γερμανοί;

Τι παίχτηκε εκεί δε ξέρω.
Όταν μπουκάραν οι ναζί εκεί οι Τούρκοι βοήθησαν τους Εβραίους;