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The monument commemorates all those killed when the Greek-owned, but German-operated ship Tánaïs was sunk. The entire Jewish community of Chania was on board, on the second leg of their deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were headed to death but found it sooner than even their German captors expected. Also killed with them were hundreds of Cretan resistance fighters and Italian prisoners of war.

The Etz Hayyim synagogue, built as a church and transformed into a synagogue in the 17th century, fell into ruin after the deportation and drowning of the Jewish community of Chania in June 1944. At that time the community was transported from Heraklion on the ship Tánaïs en route to Auschwitz when the ship was sunk when hit by a British torpedo.

Beginning in the mid-1990s art historian and artist Nicholas Stavroulakis began the restoration of the synagogue as a project of the World Monuments Fund’s Jewish Heritage Program. After the structure was restored, Stavroulakis began to recreate the interior, based on knowledge of Greek Jewish history, religion, and architecture. Today the site is a functioning synagogue and a historic site.

During this period Stavroulakis created a small memorial shrine to the Chania Jews killed when the Tánaïs sank.