Their reduced status had already begun a few years earlier. In 1917, a fire destroyed the city’s historic center, where most of the Jews lived. In addition to leaving some 55,000 Jews homeless, the fire destroyed the offices of the Chief Rabbinate, the community’s archives, and half of the city’s 33 synagogues. Many Salonikan Jews chose to relocate rather than rebuild, and left for Eretz Yisrael, other parts of Europe, and the United States. Even by the 1930s, some of the members of the community that remained had yet to find permanent dwellings.
Although they still comprised about 40 percent of the city’s population, Salonika’s Jews felt increasingly marginalized as the century progressed. There were periodic outbursts of anti-Semitism and discriminatory laws were enacted, such as a Greek law that prevented Jews from voting for prime minister and a law that outlawed working on Sunday.
Yet while some continued to emigrate, by the eve of World War II there were still about 56,000 Jews living in the city—and Salonika was still home to a vibrant Jewish culture. Ladino was spoken in the home, Salonika’s printing presses continued to publish books and newspapers in the “mama loshen,” and songs were written and sung in the language as well.
When World War II fighting reached Greece in 1940, Jews fought in the Greek army. The 50th Macedonian Brigade was dubbed the “Cohen Battalion” because so many of the soldiers were Jews from Salonika and other parts of Macedonia. But on April 9, 1941, German troops marched into Salonika and occupied the city.
Adieu, Salonika
At first, the occupation didn’t seem so bad. It was true that the Jewish press was closed down and some Jews had to give their homes to German soldiers. But there weren’t too many other restrictions. However, this German neglect extended to the Greek economy and in the winter of 1941-42 there was a severe famine. It’s estimated that about 60 Salonikan Jews died every day from hunger.
Then came “Black Saturday,” the infamous Shabbat in July 1942 when all Jewish men aged 18 to 45 were ordered to appear in Plateia Eleftherias, or Freedom Square, located in the city’s downtown. While dressed in their Shabbat finery, the Jews were forced to do humiliating physical exercises at gunpoint. Afterward, 4,000 of them were conscripted into forced labor. With the help of the Jewish community of Athens, the kehillah was able to ransom the men, although about 12 percent of them had already died from hunger and exhaustion.
A few Jews did manage to escape during the occupation, but there were still about 54,000 Jews living in Salonika when the deportations to Auschwitz began in March 1943. Ninety-eight percent of them perished in the death camps.
Today, there are less than 2,000 Jews living in the city. While there is a Jewish museum and memorial to the Holocaust, little else remains of the city’s past, when Salonika was a vibrant center of Sephardic Jewry and a Mother City in Israel.
