From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back: Memories of a Survivor from Thessaloniki
by Erika Kounio-Amarilio
Category: History

Before WWII there was a thriving Jewish community of some 50,000 people in Thessaloniki, Greece. In 1943, under Nazi occupation, virtually the entire community was deported to Auschwitz extermination camp. That the author, Erika Amariglio, and several members of her family survived is due only to a series of coincidences, including the fact that they were on the first transport ot Auschwitz and that they spoke fluent German. Erika Amariglio's story covers the period before the war in Thessaloniki, the German occupation and the gradual tightening of restrictions, the transportation, the two-and-a-half years spent in Auschwitz, the long death march back to Germany, the Amariglio family's escape to Yugoslavia, and their eventual reunion of the family in Greece. It concludes with the author's return to Auschwitz many years later as a delegate to an international conference on the Holocaust. This book has been previously published in Greek, German, French and Serbian.