Art Alone

Img. ID: 425156

© Samuel D. Gruber, Photographer: Gruber, Samuel D., 2022 , (Negative/Photo.:   A489384)
Documenter
Samuel D. Gruber | 2022
Author of description
Samuel D. Gruber | 2022
Architectural Drawings
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Computer Reconsdivuction
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Section Head
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Language Editor
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Donor
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Name / Title
Greek National Holocaust Memorial in Athens | Unknown
Monument Setting
Object Detail
Completion Date
2010
Synagogue active dates
Reconstruction dates
Artist/ Maker
Maganias, DeAnna
|Landscape design in collaboration with Simon Rackh
{"4341":"Greek American artist, b. 1967"}
Site
Unknown
School/Style
Unknown|
Period
Unknown
Period Detail
Collection
Unknown |
Iconographical Subject
Textual Content
Unknown |
Languages of inscription
Material / Technique
Yellow Egyptian marble
Material Stucture
Material Decoration
Material Bonding
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Material Cloth
Material Lining
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0
Custom
Contents
Codicology
Scribes
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Number of Lines
Ruling
Pricking
Quires
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Hebrew Numeration
Blank Leaves
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Façade (main)
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Location of Torah Ark
Location of Apse
Location of Niche
Location of Reader's Desk
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Temp: Architecture Axis
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Location of Women's Section
Direction Prayer
Direction Toward Jerusalem
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Summary and Remarks
History

On March 25, 1944, German officials rounded up 1,690 Jews in Athens for deportation. Many were refugees from Thessaloniki and other towns who had taken refuge in Athens during the Italian occupation. In April, about 1,900 Jews were deported from Athens to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1,300 of them came from Athens, the remaining 600 were from the regions of Preveza, Arta, Agrinio and Patras who had previously been deported to the Chaidari transit camp north-west of Athens.  In total, about 59,000 Jews from Greece were murdered during the Holocaust.

After 1945, Athens became the center for Jews who returned to Greece, and the city’s Jewish reached almost 5,000. Today Athens remains the center of Jewish life in Greece. The center of Jewish life has been the tow synagogues and community offices and social facilities on Melidoni Street, not far from the location of the Holocaust Monument.

According to historian Anna Maria Droumpouki:

“In 2004, the President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece Moses Konstantinis, in his meeting with the mayor of Athens Dora Bakoyianni, raised again the issue of constructing a central memorial for the Holocaust, stressing that ‘the lack of such a monument constitutes essential omission for the capital of Greece’ (Sakis Leon private archive [SLA], letter 867, 21 October 2004). The matter remained on the official ‘agendas’ because, according to Konstantinis, ‘for various reasons the Municipality does not wish the erection of a monument’ (SLA, letter 867, 21 October 2004)....

 The municipality questioned the functionality of locating a modern ‘Jewish’ monument near antiquities dating from the fifth century BC on the grounds that there would be a ‘contest with the ancient marbles’ (SLA, Municipality of Athens, dossier 064540). It was stated that the space that the community demanded had concrete historical and archaeological character in which ‘the monument for the Holocaust cannot be included harmoniously’ (SLA, Municipality of Athens, dossier 064540). The state has its own national framework concerning Greek antiquity, and the Nazis’ persecution of Greek Jews, tolerated or even supported by a large number of the Greek population, was clearly excluded from this glorified national imagining. Greek society does not incorporate the memories of its conflicted and painful recent past, and Jews stand for this repressed past.”

In 2008, however, the municipality of Athens donated land near the ancient Keramikos cemetery as the site for a national Holocaust memorial. The site overlooks the ancient cemetery, now a publicly accessible archaeological site and is close to the synagogue in Melidoni street where Jews of Athens were trapped and captured by the Germans, but which remains the religious and administrative center of the Jewish community today.

There was an international competition sponsored by the Jewish Community, with 19 proposals received from well-known artists. A special committee chose the proposal of the Greek American artist DeAnna Maganias for its simplicity of design and symbolism. After long discussions between the Jewish community, the municipality, and the authority of Antiquities (SLA, Municipality of Athens, dossier 064540) the monument had to be reduced by 50% from the size originally foreseen, because of the size of the space provided.

According to a newspaper account at the time of dedication (The Guardian, May 9, 2010):

 "In keeping with the Jewish tradition, it symbolized death and the memory of death in a quiet and calm way," said a committee member who oversaw an international competition for the memorial. The marble monument, which is set in a herb garden, is also about healing. "The herbal garden is a symbol of healing and place," said Maganias. "The idea is that people walk around the monument. The orientation of the star, engraved with the names of cities and towns from which victims were deported and the smell from the herbs aim to act as a catalyst of memory."

The memorial was vandalized twice in 2014 and again in 2017. 

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