Holocaust in Greece - the persecution and extermination of Jews of Greece by German Nazis, their allies and collaborators during the occupation of Greece during World War II as part of the " final solution of the Jewish question ."
Content
Jews in Greece before the war
On the eve of the war, 77,377 Jews [1] lived in Greece , according to other sources 79,950 [2] . The largest community was in Thessaloniki - more than 50 thousand Jews [3] [2] .
The Occupation of Greece
On October 28, 1940, the Italian army invaded Greek territory from the previously occupied Albania, but was defeated. On April 6, 1941, Nazi Germany intervened in the conflict on the side of Italy. By April 29, the entire mainland Greek territory was captured by the German army. In May 1941, Crete was also occupied .
12,898 Jews fought with the invaders in the Greek army. During the battles of 1940-1941. 3,500 Jewish soldiers were injured, 613 were killed [4] . The most famous of them was Colonel Mordechai Freezis , who was killed on December 5, 1940 in a battle with the Italian army [5] The 50th Macedonian brigade was called the “Cohen Battalion” due to the fact that many Jews from Thessaloniki served in its composition [4] [ 6] .
After surrender, Greece was divided into three zones of occupation between Germany , Italy and Bulgaria .
Germany occupied Athens , Thessaloniki , Central Macedonia and several islands, including most of Crete . Two thirds of Greek territory were occupied by Italy. As an allied gratitude for using Bulgarian territory as a springboard for an attack on Greece, Germany in April 1941 transferred Bulgaria to Thrace and East Macedonia .
Persecution of Jews
In the German zone of occupation, repression began in April 1941. In summer, all assets belonging to Jews were confiscated. On July 11, 1941, Jewish men in Thessaloniki were forced to stand in the square from morning to night under the scorching sun, and then some of them were sent to forced labor in mines [2] .
The position of Jews in the Italian zone of occupation of Greece was also much better than in the German and Bulgarian zones. Jews were not persecuted in the Italian zone, racial laws were not respected [7] [8] . Not a single Jew was deported from the Italian zone of occupation in Greece. The Italians also removed 350 Jews who had Italian citizenship from the German occupation zone in Thessaloniki , thus saving them from death in Nazi concentration camps [9]
Death camp deportations
The deportation of Jews to death camps, as in other European countries, in Greece, was handled by the apparatus of the Chief Fuhrer of the SS and the police. From September 8 to October 4, 1943, this post was held by Jürgen Strop , from October 18, 1943 to September 24, 1944 - SS Grouper Fuhrer Walter Schimann [10] . SIPO and SD police were led by Standartenfuhrer Walter Blume .
The first deportation of Greek Jews to Auschwitz took place on February 8, 1942 [11] . Mass deportations began a year later [2] . In March 1943, all Jews in the German zone were resettled in the ghetto, and then deported to death camps in Poland - 49,285 people [7] . One of the transit concentration camps was the Haidari camp near Athens.
In the Italian zone, Jews began to be sent to death camps after the surrender of Italy and the occupation of the zone by German troops in the autumn of 1943. In 1944, the Germans deported 800 Jews from Athens, almost 2000 from Corfu and almost 2000 from Rhodes from the former Italian zone to Auschwitz [8] .
About 6,000 Jews lived in Greek-occupied Thrace in Bulgaria [12] [13] . In 1943, the Bulgarian authorities deported these Jews to the death camps, in agreement with the Germans. The deportation was organized by the Minister of Internal Affairs of Bulgaria Pyotr Gabrovsky and the head of the Committee on Jewish Affairs Alexander Belev [12] [14] . On March 4, 1943, more than 4,000 Thracian Jews were arrested and sent to transit camps until March 18-19, 1943. Then they were transported to Auschwitz [12] . 11,343 Jews of Macedonia and Thrace were killed in death camps. [15]
By the end of the war in Greece, there were about 10 thousand Jews alive [7]
Resistance and Salvation
According to various estimates, from 1300 to 2000 Jews of Greece in 1941 joined partisan units and fought with the invaders. According to the Brief Jewish Encyclopedia , separate Jewish partisan units were formed in Thessaloniki and Thessaly by 1943 [7] , but partisan Joseph Matsas claims that there were no separate Jewish units among Greek partisans [16] .
In Athens and a number of other Greek cities, the Jewish underground operated. Jewish partisans were thanked by Field Marshal Henry Wilson , commander of the Allied forces in the Middle East , for helping to free Greece from German occupation. 135 Greek Jews revolted at Auschwitz and blew up two crematoriums . To suppress this rebellion, the Germans even called aviation [7] [17] . Greek Jews who fled from the death camps in Poland took part in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 [18] .
Many Greeks risked their lives to save Jews. As of January 1, 2016, 328 residents of Greece for the salvation of Jews were recognized by the Israeli Institute of Katkastrofa and Heroism Yad Vashem as the righteous of the world [19] . Among them is Princess Alice von Battenberg , who hid Rachel Cohen and her children in the basement of her house [20] . Archbishop of Athens, Damascus, publicly protested against the persecution of Jews [21] .
On the island of Rhodes, a number of Jewish families were saved by the Turkish consul Selahattin Ulkumen , Jews with Spanish citizenship were repatriated by the Spanish ambassador to Greece, Sebastian Romero Radigales [22] .
Holocaust
Greece is a member of the International Organization for Cooperation in the Perpetuation and Study of the Holocaust (ITF) [23] . The history of the Holocaust is taught in Greek schools from the 6th grade of elementary school to the 3rd grade of high school (lyceum). [24] However, in the 21st century there is an extremely high level of anti-Semitism in the country, and monuments to the victims of the Holocaust are regularly desecrated by vandals [25] ]
See also
- Merten's case
Notes
- ↑ Cohen J. About Greece, in which everything is (inaccessible link) . Sem40 (08/18/2004). - translation from English. Greek Jews heirs to proud tradition , JTA . Date of treatment April 2, 2011. Archived on August 20, 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 L'Olocausto in Grecia (Italian) . olokaustos.org. Date of treatment January 31, 2012. Archived September 11, 2012.
- ↑ Greece. Historical background
- ↑ 1 2 Remembering and Naming the Greek-Jewish War Heroes of World War II (Link not available) . Date of treatment January 29, 2012. Archived September 24, 2015.
- ↑ Colonel Mordechai Frizis' bust to be unveiled in Thessaloniki (unavailable link) . Date of treatment January 29, 2012. Archived March 10, 2005.
- ↑ SALONIKA
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Greece - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- ↑ 1 2 Greece . ushmm.org. Date of treatment January 31, 2012. Archived September 11, 2012.
- ↑ Berkovich E. M. The banality of good, or How Italian fascists saved Jews. Part 2 // Notes on Jewish history : an online journal. - January 12, 2003. - Vol. 2 .
- ↑ SS-GRUPPENFÜHRER & GENERALLEUTNANT DER POLIZEI
- ↑ Jack Fischel. Chronilogy // The Holocaust . - Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998 .-- P. xxiii. - 196 p. - (Greenwood Press guides to historic events of the twentieth century). - ISBN 9780313298790 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 Transports from Macedonia and Thrace . deathcamps.org (2005). Date of treatment December 28, 2011. Archived August 31, 2012.
- ↑ The Macedonian Jews were immortalized . jewish.ru. Date of treatment January 12, 2012. Archived on September 7, 2012.
- ↑ Jack Fischel. The Holocaust . - Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998 .-- P. 68-70. - 196 p. - (Greenwood Press guides to historic events of the twentieth century). - ISBN 9780313298790 .
- ↑ Bulgaria - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- ↑ Matsas, Joseph. The Participation of the Greek Jews in the National Resistance, 1940-1944 (Eng.) // Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora. - Pella Publishing Company, 1991. - Vol. 17 , iss. 1 . - P. 55-68 . - ISSN 0364-2976 .
- ↑ Etinger J. Ya. Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust. Part Two: Eastern Europe // International Jewish Newspaper . - M. - Vol. 9-10 .
- ↑ Anti-Nazi Resistance - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- ↑ The righteous of the peoples of the world - by country and nationality of saviors. Statistics January 1, 2016 . Yad Vashem (2016). Date of treatment February 17, 2016.
- ↑ Salvation in the royal palace. Princess Alice (Greece) . Yad Vashem . Date of treatment January 31, 2012. Archived July 4, 2012.
- ↑ Disaster. Jews during the Holocaust. Peoples of the World and the Holocaust - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- ↑ Sebastián de Romero Radigales (Spanish) . Yad Vashem. Date of treatment September 18, 2015.
- ↑ Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in Greece . Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research. Date of treatment January 31, 2012. Archived September 11, 2012.
- ↑ Greece - Holocaust Education Report . Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research . Date of treatment January 31, 2012. Archived September 11, 2012.
- ↑ The monument to the victims of the Holocaust in Athens desecrated for the second time in a year . NEWSru.com (November 2, 2014). Date of treatment November 13, 2014.
Literature
- Bedford, Robert. An Introduction to Literature on the Holocaust in Greece. New York: Sephardic Historical Committee, 1994. ISBN 1-886-85700-8
- Fleischer, Hagen. Greek Jewry and Nazi Germany: The Holocaust and Its Antecedents. Athens: Gavrielides Publishing, 1995
- Matsas, Michael. The Illusion of Safety: The Story of Greek Jews during the Second World War. Pella Publication, 1997