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On the occasion of the Remembrance Day for the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis, the historian and translator Odette Varon-Vassar, founding member of the Society for the Study of Greek Jewry, professor at the Hellenic Open University and author of the book The Emergence of a Difficult Memory (Hestia Bookstore, 2013nd edition XNUMX) speaks to LIFO.gr for the difficulty of emerging and forming this memory, as well as the necessity of its emergence and preservation.
By Thodoris Antonopoulos
The genocide of the Jews of Europe was the leading Nazi crime, not only for the extent of the persecution and the number of victims (5.5-6 million souls), nor for the chillingly scientific methodology with which it was carried out: Its most despicable side was the systematic "ostracism" of an entire population group from the human species based solely on their supposedly inferior racial origin, which allowed abusers to express and project onto their defenseless victims the worst human instincts. It is a memory that does not concern only one people but humanity as a whole since it indelibly marked its moral and cultural status, its evolutionary course as such. For indeed "If this is man," as Primo Levi's iconic testimony of the Shoah is titled, then all the philosophical, ethical, and existential quests of our species throughout the ages, our cultural achievements, the gods we have created trying to define the unspeakable are simply cancelled. This is what makes it so important to preserve this collective memory against not only the oblivion of time but also attempts to question what has come to be known more widely as the Holocaust in a global environment conducive to the cultivation of racist ideas and practices.
The Greek Jewish community was one of those who paid the greatest price, having almost disappeared between 1941-1944. The memory of the extermination of 60.000 Greek Jews (87% of their total population) was one of the last to emerge in a country where even the memories of resistance had been erased for decades due to the civil war. With my interlocutor, who also directs since 2011 an educational seminar on the history, memory and representations of the genocide of the Jews of Europe at the Jewish Museum of Greece, we discussed the adventures of Greek Jewry in the Occupation, the meaning of today's Remembrance Day, the causes of the "delay" and the important steps taken in recent years in highlighting and institutionally recognizing it with the organization of events, the construction of monuments, its even rudimentary inclusion in education, the increased interest of the media, etc., something encouraging in a country where, more or less the same time, a party with clear Nazi and anti-Semitic origins emerged as a third political force, where anti-Semitism in public discourse is not rare and where the vandalism of Jewish monuments is "routine" news. However, she is very careful in her wording, avoiding brackets, simplifications and generalizations as she believes that a cool, objective approach is more essential, fruitful and effective.
More: INTERVIEW OF ODET VARON-VASSAR ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE GREEK JEWISH COMMUNITY DURING...
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On 29.1.2017 it was published in the Newspaper Everyday the following article by Ioanna Fotiadis entitled A meeting that was delayed... regarding the story of the rescue of the family of Isaac Eliezer.
Viktor, Sofia-Maria and Georgianna chat animatedly, make jokes and tell truths looking straight into the eyes – without, however, the three of them being friends or relatives in the conventional sense. They are descendants of two families on whom the German occupation left an indelible mark and History brought together in a metaphysical way. Victor, the firstborn son of Isaac Eliezer, is a descendant of one of the Jewish families that were saved from the atrocity of the Nazis. Sofia-Maria and Georgianna Moraitou are granddaughters of Maria Dimadi, heroine of the Resistance, who saved Victor's father, but was executed two weeks before the liberation of her town, Agrinio. "We've only met three times, but I feel a great intimacy," Viktor says excitedly to "K", emphasizing that he has paid off a debt inherited from his father. For the two women, the meeting in question strengthens the link with a grandmother they only knew through stories and completes a "puzzle" that had remained incomplete for decades. "I'm only sorry that we didn't manage to meet earlier, so that my 90-year-old mother, who is now suffering from dementia, could also participate in it," says the first-born daughter, Sofia-Maria, bitterly.
The different surname and the distance from Agrinio made it difficult for decades to "identify", which refers to an ancient tragedy. The solution came last October when Victor received a message on Facebook from a mutual friend. Within a few 24 hours they meet for the first time, while a wider meeting of all the members of the families on both sides follows. "The story has touched my daughter a lot, who, looking for additional information about her great-grandmother, has led us to other descendants of people who were saved thanks to the intervention of Dimadi," notes Georgianna.
The child of a bourgeois family, Maria Dimadi, having returned to Agrinio in 1939 from studying Literature in Hamburg, has been assigned as a secretary and translator for the German guard, while she has set up "Center 3", the information network of the EAM.
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by Efi K. Basdra*, on the blog Detail, 27.1.2017:
The UN General Assembly decided in November 2005 to declare January 27 as the International Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust by the Nazi regime during World War II.
The following story, very touching, happened about three years ago.
Then, as I was looking for some information on the internet about an event in Thessaloniki, completely unrelated, I came across the announcement of the screening of the documentary "Beyond History" - "By-standing and standing-by" by F. Terzidou and produced by P. Kortsari, in the context of the commemoration of the Holocaust, by the Greek Women's Jewish Non-Profit Charitable Association Benoit Berit "Judith". The footnote read: The film is about the rescue of the Jewish community of Catherine. This alone was a powerful stimulus to seek out the space and time of the documentary. Actually, with the kind invitation of the "Benoit" association, I was given the opportunity to watch the documentary in a closed audience that was suffocated by memories of pain.
The film begins by unraveling the history of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, with references to the rest of the Greek Jewish communities. The Nazi persecutions and the cruel images depicting the extermination of 96% of the population of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, the oldest Jewish community in Europe, cannot but cause feelings of sadness at least in the independent viewer. Entire families were exterminated by being taken to crematoriums, mothers lost their children, siblings were separated and lost forever. For peoples like ours with a history of heartbreaking Pontian genocides and memories of uprooting and displacement, such similar events carve out memories of pain. The annihilation of Greece's most important Jewish community was almost total, if you consider that it even exceeded that of Berlin. The same happened in almost all Greek Jewish communities.
Except one!! Katerina's! The unknown story of the rescue of the smallest Jewish community in Greece unfolds through rare photographic and archival material and personal testimonies of people who lived through the events.
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On her chance International Holocaust Remembrance Day, The European Commissioner for Migration Mr. Dimitris Avramopoulos, he visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, took a guided tour of the place of Martyrdom and sent a resounding message about the need to preserve Memory.
View HERE the video from the visit.
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Her show Sias Kosionis "Stories", which was broadcast by the TV station SKAI, on 25.01.2017, was dedicated to
Angelo Koutsoumaris, a Thessaloniki judge who tried to save dozens of Jewish children from the Auschwitz crematoriums during the Occupation, setting up - under the nose of the German occupation authorities - an industry of adopting Jewish children into Christians.
The President of KISE and I.K. Thessaloniki David Saltiel, as well as descendants and relatives of A. Koutsoumaris gave interviews to Sia Kosioni. See here is the video of the show.
Read about:
- Leon Saltiel, "An Unknown Ring of Illegal Adoptions," Chronicles, no. issue 244, 2015.