With a group of French and Hungarian Jews they blew up two crematoriums before all 135 were killed. Conditions after the war were harsh, and though the Greek government passed a law restoring confiscated property, it was honored only in part. Community Today armed guards protect the synagogue and the community headquarters, housed in anonymous buildings. Yet in 1997 Thessaloniki became the first city in Greece to have a Holocaust memorial erected by the government. For all this, the community, which numbers less than 1,000, is but a fading shadow.
Most marriages are mixed.
There is a day school with some 60 pupils, but formal Jewish education stops after primary grades. The community s backbone is its wealth, mainly from real estate. A few of the half-million tombstones from the old Jewish cemetery have been recovered and are displayed in the meticulously tended new cemetery in the Stavroupolis neighborhood. Solomou Street had only Jewish-owned shops before World War II, Djahon recalled of the narrow street just south of Egnatia. So did Iraklio Street, where Dass was the butcher, Cohen sold fruit, and the Modiano market was the best market of all.