Obj. ID: 45667
Memorials Holocaust Memorial in the New Jewish Cemetery in Thessaloniki, Greece, 1962
To the main object: New Jewish Cemetery in Thessaloniki, Greece
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
50,000 Jewish Holocaust victims from Thessaloniki and destroyed Old Jewish cemetery
Description:
The monument is in about the middle of the cemetery at the end of a paved Plaza set on the main axis. It is a wide low marble platform supporting a wide inscribed marble wall, set on a base with a small footprint, over which the wall protrudes on all four sides. The inscribed wide wall give the appearance of, and is intended as, a giant gravestone. From the top center of the wall rises a stylized menorah on a short thick base that supports a half oval from which the vertical branches of the menorah rise. The Hebrew letters תנצבה (abbreviating the traditional memorial phrase “May their souls be bound up in the bond of life”) are carved to protrude from the menorah base. Long memorial inscriptions in Greek and Hebrew are carved into the front of the monument, separated by a Magen David. In front of the memorial, placed flush to the ground is a rectangular marble plaque with matching Greek and Hebrew inscriptions indicating the bones from the destroyed old cemetery are buried here.
Inscription:
On plaque on ground, in Greece:
ΕΝΘAΔE KEINTAI
TA OΣTA TΩN
ΠPOΓONΩN MAΣ
ΣYΛΛEΓENTA AΠO
TON XΩPON TOY
ΠAΛAIOY
NEKPOTAΦEIOY
IΔPYθENTOΣ TΩ 1945
BEBHΛΩθEMTOΣ TΩ
1942 YΠO TΩN NAZI
AIΩNIA H MNHMH TΩN
Translation: Here are gathered the bones of our ancestors collected in his space from the old cemetery founded in 1495 and destroyed in 1942 by the Nazis. In eternal memory.
On plaque on ground, in Hebrew:
יזכור
כאן נחים שרידי
עצמות אבותינו
שנשארו לפליטה
ונאספו בבית הקרובות
העתיק שהיה קים
בעירנו משנת 1495
ונהרם על ידי
הנאצים הארורים
בשנת 1942
ת' נ' צ' ב' ה'
Translation: Remember / / May their souls be bound up in the bond of life
On monument, in Greece:
MNHMHΣ ENEKEN
OI IΣPAHΛITAI ΘEΣΣAΛONIKHΣ ANHΓEIPAN TO MNHMEION
TOY TO EIΣ ΔIAIΩNIΣIN THΣ MNHMHΣ ΠENTHKONTA XIΛIAΔΩN
AΔEΛΦΩN TΩN ΔOΛOΦONHθENTΩN KATA TO 1943 EIΣ TA
NAZIΣTIKA ΣTPATOΠEΔA ΘANATOY OMOY ME 6.000.000
OMOΘPHΣKOYΣ TΩN EIθE TO MAPTYPION TΩN AθΩΩN AYTΩN
ΘYMATΩN TOY ΦYΛETIKOY MIΣOYΣ NA AΠOBH ΔIΔAΓMA EIΣ
TOYΣ ANθPΩΠOYΣ KAI ΠΛHPΩΣH TAΣ KAPΔIAΣ TΩN ME
AIΣθHMATA AΓAΠHΣ INA BAΣIΛEYH EΦ OΛOKΛHPOY TOY
ANθPΩΠINOY ΓENOYΣ H EIPHNH KAI H AΔEΛΦOΣYNH
Translation: For the Sake of Memory / The Jews of Thessaloniki erected this monument to perpetuate the memory of 50,000 brothers murdered in 1943 in the Nazi death camps with 6,000,000 fellows. Let the martyrdom of these innocent victims of racial hatred teach people a lesson and remain in the hearts of those who have feelings of love. May peace and brotherhood rule through the entire human kind.
On monument, in Hebrew:
לזכרון נצח
את המצבה הזאת הקימו יהודי תיסאלוניקי לזכר חמישים
אלף מאחיהם בני העיר הזאת 96% מבני קהילתם אנשים נשים
וטף אשר נעקרו מבתיהם בשנות תש''ג ע''י צבאות גרמניה
שולחו אל מחנות - המוות של הנאצים ונרצחו שם באכזריות
בתוך שישה מיליוני החללים מעם ישראל ארץ אל תכסי דמם
ואל יהי מקום לזעקתם עד אשר יעורו כל באי עולם ויטו שכם
אחד להעביר זדון ולהשבית מלחמות מן הארץ למען לא ירדה
עוד עם בעם ואיש לא יקום על אחיו בחרב בלע המות
לנצח ומחה אדני יהוה דמעה מעל כל פנים
Translation: In eternal memory / This grave marker was erected by the Jews of Thessaloniki in memory of fifty thousand of their brothers from this city, 96% of the members of their community, women and children, who were displaced from their homes in 1943 by the German armies, sent to the death camps of the Nazis and brutally murdered there, among the six million martyrs from the people of Israel, of all the world. Let them be united to transfer malice and stop wars from the land so that no nation will attack another nation, and no one will rise up against his brother with the sword. Death will be swallowed up forever and the Lord God will wipe away a tear from every face.
Commissioned by
Jewish Community of Thessaloniki
16 image(s)
sub-set tree:
| New Jewish Cemetery Καραολή και Δημητρίου, Σταυρούπολη 564 30
The new Jewish cemetery, which is approximately 17,000 square meters, was established after the old Jewish cemetery in Thessaloniki was totally destroyed in December 1942. With over 300,000 graves from four centuries, that was one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world. Today the campus of Aristotle University is located on the site.
Renna Melina Elfrink, one of few researchers who mentions the 1962 cemetery monument at all, places it in its historic context – where the Jewish Community has been unable to obtain permission to erect a public memorial, and so built it monument in the privately controlled cemetery.
"In 1954, the board of the JCT decided to send a request to the municipality of Thessaloniki for the erection of a Holocaust memorial, but this was rejected. Despite the rejection, in the following years, every new board of the JCT submitted a similar request. These were all turned down and instead, the municipality decided to turn Platia Eleftherias into a parking space. The repeated decline to establish a memorial supports the statement that the municipality of Thessaloniki and the Greek people had no interest in remembering the Holocaust. Given the lack of response by the city's municipality, the first steps towards a memorial had to be taken by individual efforts of the Jewish Community. Jewish survivors took it upon themselves to fully finance and establish a memorial in Thessaloniki, which was unveiled in April 1962. Apart from Jewish community members, some Greek officials were present, but it is important to note the memorial was an initiative of the Jewish community and not an initiative by the political authorities.129 The memorial consisted of a white block of stone with a stone Menorah - one of the oldest Jewish symbols– on top. The memorial uses Jewish imagery, such as the menorah and the star of David in the middle of the memorial, arguably making it less accessible to the general public" (Elfrink, pp. 44-45)
Until the construction of the new Holocaust Memorial in 1997 in the city center, this was the only place where the deportation and almost complete annihilation of the largest Jewish community in Greece, which had around 50,000 members before the German occupation began, was commemorated. Another large memorial in the cemetery commemorates the fallen Jewish soldiers and officers who took part in the fight against the Germans and Italians in 1940/1941.
Droumpouki, Anna Maria, “Shaping Holocaust Memory in Greece:
memorials and their public history,” National Identities, DOI: 10.1080/14608944.2015.1027760, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14608944.2015.1027760 (accessed September 22, 2022)
Elfrink, Renna Melina. Breaking the Silence: Memorialization of the Holocaust in Thessaloniki, MA Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Universiteit van Amsterdam, July 2021., https://www.academia.edu/59899587/Breaking_the_silence_Memorialization_of_the_Holocaust_in_Thessaloniki (accessed January 29, 2023)
Lewkowicz, Bea, Jewish Community of Salonika: History, Memory, Identity, (Elstree: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006)
Molho, Rena and Vilma Hastaoglou-Martinidis, Jewish Places in Thessaloniki - A Historical Tour, (Athens: Lycabettus Press, 2011)
Varon-Vassard, Odette, “The Emergence and Construction of the Memory of the Shoah in Greece (1945–2015): From Oblivion to Memory,” Historein 18, no. 1 (2019).
Droumpouki, Anna Maria. "Μνημονικοί τόποι και δημόσια ιστορία του Β' Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου στην Ελλάδα[" [Memorial sites and public history of World War Two in Greece] 'Cultural Memory studies: An introduction.' In Cultural Memory Studies. An Interdisciplinary Handbook, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning. 1 – 18. Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2008