The 275 Jews of the island of Zakynthos, however, survived the Holocaust. When the island's mayor, Loukas Karrer, was presented with the German order to hand over a list of Jews, Metropolitan Bishop Chrysostomos of Zakynthos returned to the Germans with a list of two names; his own and the mayor's. The island's population hid every member of the Jewish community. In 1947, a large number of the Jews of Zakynthos made aliyah to Palestine (later Israel), while others moved to Athens. When the island was almost levelled by the great earthquake of 1953, the first relief came from Israel, with a message that read "The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor or their beloved Bishop and what they did for us."