page_title: History of the Jews in Thessaloniki
section_title: Factors explaining the effectiveness of the deportations
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Thessaloniki / Second World War / Factors explaining the effectiveness of the deportations
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Scherl; Griechenland: In Übereinstimmung zwischen den deutschen und griechischen Stellen werden jetzt die Juden in Griechenland erfasst und einer nutzbringenden Arbeit zugeführt. Kriegsberichter Dick, Juli 1942
context_page_description: The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back two thousand years.
  The city of Thessaloniki housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. It is the only known example of a city of this size in the Jewish diaspora that retained a Jewish majority for centuries.
  Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following their expulsion from Spain by Christian rulers under the Alhambra Decree in 1492. This community influenced the Sephardic world both culturally and economically, and the city was nicknamed la madre de Israel. The community experienced a "golden age" in the 16th century, when they developed a strong culture in the city. Like other groups in the Ottoman Empire, they continued to practice traditional culture during the time when western Europe was undergoing industrialization. In the middle of the 19th century, Jewish educators and entrepreneurs came to Thessaloniki from Western Europe to develop schools and industries; they brought contemporary ideas from Europe that changed the culture of the city.
context_section_description: Much of the discussion about the reasons for the high percentage of Jewish losses in Thessaloniki have been advanced in contrast to the case of Athens, where a large proportion of Jews managed to escape death. However, this only gives a partial picture as other Jewish communities in Greece, with different characteristics such as Ioannina, Corfu and Rhodes, also experienced very heavy losses.
  An often quoted reason focuses on the attitude of the Judenrat, and of its leader in the period prior to the deportations, the chief rabbi Zvi Koretz, has been heavily criticized. He was accused of having responded passively to the Nazis and downplayed the fears of Jews when their transfer to Poland was ordered. As an Austrian citizen and therefore a native German speaker, he was thought to be well-informed. Koretz has also been accused of having knowingly collaborated with the occupiers. However, several new studies tend to diminish his role in the deportations.
  Another factor was the solidarity shown by the families who refused to be separated. This desire undermined individual initiatives. Some older Jews also had difficulty remaining in hiding because of their lack of knowledge of the Greek language, which had only become the city's dominant language after annexation by Greece in 1913. Additionally, the large size of the Jewish population rendered impossible the tactic of blending into the Greek Orthodox population, as in Athens.
  Again in contrast to Athens, there was also a latent antisemitism among a segment of the Greek population, in particular among the refugees from Asia Minor. When these immigrants arrived en masse in Salonika, they were excluded from the economic system. Consequently, some of these outcasts watched the Jewish population with hostility. The Jewish people were more economically integrated and therefore better off, which the immigrants equated with the former Ottoman power.
  A reason that is a lot more plausible is the lack of solidarity from the city's Greek Christian population. Rabbi Molho spoke of only a handful of Greek Christians who saved Jews in Thessaloniki. It is reported that just 10 Jewish families found shelter in the city. This attitude of the local population, which included the Church, the city authorities and the professional associations, has been noted by several historians in the recent years. The resistance was also not very well developed at the time, and few Jews could realistically make the journey to the mountains.
  Nevertheless, the Yad Vashem has identified 265 Greek righteous among the nations, the same proportion as among the French population.
caption: Registration of the Jews of Thessaloniki by the Nazis, July 1942, Eleftherias Square
exif: {}