Prior to the war, some 72,000 to 77,000 Jews lived in 27 communities in Greece. The majority, around 50,000, lived in Salonica (Thessaloniki), a formerly Ottoman city captured and annexed to Greece in 1912. Most Greek Jews were Ladino-speaking Sephardim with some being Greek-speaking Romaniotes. Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria occupied Greece following the Battle of Greece in April 1941. During the first year of the occupation, the authorities did not enact any systematic measures that targeted Jews "per se".