Obj. ID: 44662
Modern Jewish Art Holocaust Memorial plaque in Drama, Greece, 1997
Who is Commemorated?
1200 Jews of Drama murdered in the Holocaust
Description
A rectangular marble plaque with an inscription is affixed to the exterior wall of the former tobacco warehouse.
Inscriptions
The inscription in Greek reads:
ΣΤΟ ΧΩΡΟ ΑΥΤΟ ΣΤΙΣ 3 ΜΑΡΤΙΟΥ 1943
ΣΥΝΕΛΗΦΘΗΣΑΝ ΚΑΙ ΦΥΛΑΚΙΣΤΗΚΑΝ ΑΠΟ ΤΙΣ
ΓΕΡΜΑΝΟΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΙΚΕΣ ΑΡΧΕΣ ΚΑΤΟΧΗΣ
1200 ΕΒΡΑΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΔΡΑΜΑΣ ΟΙ ΟΠΟΙΟΙ
ΕΚΤΟΠΙΣΘΗΚΑΝ ΣΤΑ ΝΑΖΙΣΤΙΚΑ ΣΤΡΑΤΟΠΕΔΑ
ΤΟΥ ΟΛΕΘΡΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΘΑΝΑΤΟΥ
ΤΡΕΜΠΛΙΝΚΑ ΑΟΥΣΒΙΤΣ-ΜΠΙΡΚΕΝΑΟΥ
ΟΠΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΘΑΝΑΤΩΘΗΣΑΝ
ΑΙΩΝΙΑ Η ΜΝΗΜΗ ΤΟΥΣ
ΔΗΜΟΣ ΔΡΑΜΑΣ
ΚΕΝΤΡΙΚΟ ΙΣΡΑΗΛΙΤΙΚΟ ΣΥΜΒΟΥΛΙΟ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ
ΔΡΑΜΑ 1 ΙΟΥΝΙΟΥ 1997
Translation: On this site on the 3rd of March 1943/ were arrested and imprisoned by the / German-Bulgarian occupying authorities / 1200 Jews of Drama who were/ transferred to the Nazi camps / of calamity and death / Treblinka Auschwitz-Birkenau/ where they were killed / May their memory be eternal / Drama Municipality / Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece / Drama 1 June 1997
Commissioned by
Municipality of Drama
Jewish Community of Kavala
Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS)
sub-set tree:
| Saint Barbara Park (Αγίας Βαρβάρας ) Drama, 661 00
In 1997 public remembrance of the Holocaust history of Drama began with the installation of a memorial plaque. It was installed on the wall of the tobacco warehouse where the Jews of Drama had been imprisoned in 1943 on the edge of Agia Varvara (Saint Barbara) Park.
On the night of March 3-4, 1943, the Jews of Drama were forcibly gathered in the warehouse, from where they were transported by train to Bulgaria, and on March 20-21 to the Bulgarian harbor of Lom on the Danube. From there they were taken to by riverboat under horrific conditions to Vienna. Finally, the exhausted and starved prisoners were taken to Treblinka in Poland, where they were immediately murdered. By 1948 only 39 survivors of the Holocaust had returned to Drama. The community could not be reconstituted and was dissolved.
In 1999, a more substantial free-standing monument for all the Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust – but especially for those deported by the Bulgarians from Macedonia and Thrace - was erected in the adjacent park.
Gruber, Samuel D., “Greece: In Drama, Remembering the Murder of Jews of Macedonia and Thrace,” Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments, July 21, 2022., https://samgrubersjewishartmonuments.blogspot.com/2022/07/greece-in-drama-remembering-murder-of_21.html (accessed August 26, 2022)
Kone, Loise and Roula Kone, Jewish-Greek Communities: little Beloved Homes (Volos: The Ladies of the Jewish Community of Volos, 2006)
“The Jewish Community of Drama,” Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece, https://kis.gr/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=374&Itemid=114 (accessed September 11, 2022)