The Jerusalem Of The West |
ARTICLE
by Willard Manus Because it is to Athens what Chicago is to New York, Thessaloniki is known as Greece's second city and for that reason has been bypassed in recent decades by most tourists. The Greeks themselves haven't done a good job of promoting Thessaloniki, despite the fact that it is not only a waterfront city but a gateway to the Balkans and East Europe and can boast of an international trade fair and film festival every year. In 1997, however,
the city was designated as "the cultural capital of Europe,"
completing a European Union cycle of cities which started with Athens
seventeen years ago. The institution was intended to preserve a city's
cultural heritage within the framework of a united Europe. It spurred
the Greeks to schedule a plethora of cultural and sports events and, even
more significantly, to confront the city's origins and recent history. |
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The Jews lived in
their own quarter, ran the port, started the rag trade, worked as artisans
and bakers, built 32 synagogues and innumerable libraries. Thessaloniki
was all but closed on Saturdays. A marked silence hung over the commercial
heart of the city from late Friday afternoon until Sunday morning, when
life began again. Jews were merchants, bankers, policemen, garbagemen,
doctors, lawyers, water sellers and stevedores. A Jewish poet called Thessaloniki
"Metropolis of Israel, city of Justice, mother of Israel, like Jerusalem." |
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The Jews who had
not emigrated to Palestine began to regroup and rebuild, only to face
a holocaust of another, more destructive kind when the German army entered
the city on April 9, 1941. The Jews were isolated into three ghettos,
forced to wear the yellow badge, and to register all of their personal
belongings. The pipeline to the concentration camps began to run two years
later. By war's end, only about 2,000 Jews returned to a city that was
all but unrecognizable in terms of a Jewish presence. |
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All that has finally begun to change. Thanks to its E.U. designation--and to pressure within from both Jewish and non-Jewish Greeks--Thessaloniki is beginning to come to terms with its own past. An imposing downtown statue to the victims of the Holocaust was unveiled a few years ago as part of a Memorial Week. The monument stands at the junction of Nea Egnatia and Papanastasiou Streets, where the Hirsch Jewish Settlement House once was located. Related concerts, exhibitions, TV documentaries, a CD of Jewish music of Thessaloniki, the completion of the Thessaloniki Museum of the Jewish Presence, and the publication of a number of books have followed. It is also now possible
to visit some of the remnants of Thessaloniki's Jewish past, notably several
turn-of-the-century villas and the Monasterion Synagogue, built in 1927
and saved only because the Red Cross requisitioned it during the war.
Don´t miss a visit to the famous Jewish-owned bookstore, Molho's,
at 10 Tsimiski St. It has been in existence for 115 years. |
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For a list of books dealing (in English) with Thessaloniki's Jewish past--contact the publisher John Chapple at jchapple@ath.forthnet.gr |