Two handmade bronze ribbons 10X50 cm., one in Kalamaria (at the height of the National Resistance) and another in the center of Thessaloniki (corner of Velissario and Agia Triados) remind from today the point where the burning of the Campbell Jewish neighborhood of Thessaloniki started and also the headquarters where the orders were given for the extermination of the city's Jewish Community 76 years ago.
At the same time, in the last few days, the placement of another 68 hand-made bronze memorial stones was completed at the entrance of the 1st Boys' Gymnasium of Thessaloniki, next to the 81 that were placed in September 
of 2015 in memory of the Jewish children who were deported and exterminated in Auschwitz. The unveiling will be done by the German consul Walter Stechel, the president of the Israeli Community of Thessaloniki David Saltiel, the German creator-artist Gunter Demnig and the initiator of the idea, Apostolos Dereklis on Saturday June 1, 2019.
Ο Thessaloniki businessman Mr. Dereklis having attended the 1st Boys' Gymnasium, he was curious, as he told ethnos.gr, to find out together with another graduate of the school what happened to the Jewish children who attended his school and how many of them perished in Auschwitz.
"We assumed that the number would not exceed 4-5 students. But searching through school files and records we found that 143 students were murdered and only 6 survived Auschwitz. We cross-referenced all the evidence with the state records after a thorough investigation," Apostolos Dereklis told ethnos.gr. Some time later, Mr. Dereklis visited the famous German artist Gunther Demnig, who created bronze plaques, which were placed instead of statues on sidewalks and walls of spaces to remind of tragic events, giving all the names of the Jewish students who attended the 1st High School in order to to create memorial stones with their name.
The first 90 plaques were placed in Thessaloniki in September 2015 with their name, date of birth and cause of death at the entrance of the school in the presence of the German artist who visited the city twice. "Students of all classes of the 1st Boys High School of Thessaloniki. He retired as a student on 8.4.1943. One hundred and forty-three were murdered in concentration camps, six survived," reads the biggest joke of them all.
"Everyone who passes by and steps on these stones will wonder what they mean. Every passerby will stop and ponder what exactly happened. It is a very positive move. Every passerby will stop and reflect on what happened. It helps to keep the memory alive" he told ethnos.gr David Saltiel, president of KISE and I.K. Thessaloniki on the occasion of the unveiling ceremony on Saturday.
MEMORIAL STONES
These are small bronze inlays on streets and sidewalks, which are engraved with the name of a Holocaust victim, his date of birth, but also the date of his deportation to one of the concentration camps during World War II or the date of his death (if known).
The metal plates are handmade and manufactured in a workshop in Berlin, where the names are also engraved by hand.
Already, more than 54.000 such "stones of memory" have "taken root" in the streets and sidewalks of more than 500 European cities, while in Thessaloniki the project "came" in 2015.