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.
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.
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.
HUFFINGTON, 25.1.2017, of Vassos Kollia, former g.g. Gender Equality: On January 2, 2005, the United Nations General Assembly decided to declare January 27 as the International Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust. Rejecting all denial of the Holocaust as a historical fact, the General Assembly adopts resolution A/RES/60/7, in which it condemns "without any hesitation" all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, abuse or violence against persons or communities, based on national origin or religious beliefs, wherever they come from.
This particular date was chosen because on January 27 1945 advancing Soviet troops liberated the largest concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.
Already in 2004, with its unanimous decision, the Greek Parliament had established January 27 as a day of remembrance and honor for the Greek Jews who lost their lives in the Nazi concentration camps, but also for those who selflessly and courageously risked their lives to save their fellow citizens from certain death.
In his message a year later, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon says:
«International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day to reaffirm our commitment to human rights. [...] We must move beyond the memory and ensure that new generations know this history. We must apply the lessons of the Holocaust to the world. And we must do our best to ensure that all people enjoy the protections and rights that the U.N. represents.»
The knowledge of History is anyway a valuable tool for the progress and evolution of humanity, so that we do not relive the mistakes of the past.
of STAVROU JIMA
A sudden downpour that broke out in June 2003 in the city of Thessaloniki was to reveal another tragic aspect of the holocaust of the city's brilliant Jewish community, that of the extermination of the schoolchildren.
As the building of the Italian Educational Institute on Vasilissis Olgas Street was flooded, the professor-employee of the institute Antonio Crescenci ran to the basement where the vaults and boxes of files were kept, in an attempt to save what he could of the precious documents. As he recounts, a page of floating paper got stuck to his water-soaked trousers at one point, and when he took a quick look at it, he saw that it was an exhibition from the interwar period, by Jewish student Giacomo Modiano, entitled "My First Bicycle ». He realized that the boxes with the spidery envelopes threatened by the water were hiding something very serious and he hurried to move them, those first, to a safe place. When he opened them and started flipping through the documents, History leapt out. They were, for example, graduation certificates and exhibitions of Jewish students who studied at the Italian school in Thessaloniki, but they never received them because, in 1943, the "death trains" to Auschwitz caught up with them and some left the city to save themselves.
More: THE SECOND GRADUATION OF THREE STUDENTS WHO SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST