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The contemporary art exhibition, titled "Tanais: History as Trauma Management", unfolds around the tragic story of the sinking of the Tanais during which the Jewish community of Crete, members of the local resistance and Italian prisoners of war lost their lives on June 9, 1944.
On the afternoon of Thursday 1.8.2024, the exhibition opened its doors at the former Archaeological Museum of Chania, with works by seven distinguished artists.
More: ART EXHIBITION in CHANIA: Tanais, history as trauma management
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The memory of the 300 people who lost their lives after the tragic incident with the sinking of the Tanais ship was commemorated on the afternoon of Sunday 16.6.2024 by the Regional Unit of Chania, the Municipality of Chania and the Synagogue of Chania.
On June 9, 1944, Cretan resistance fighters, mainly from Kerameia, Chania, together with Italian prisoners of war who had refused to join the German Wehrmacht after the Italian capitulation in September 1943, as well as the entire Jewish community of Crete, whose presence dates back to the Hellenistic era, they lost their lives inside the steamship "Tanais", on their deportation journey to the Nazi extermination camps. The ship, which had been seized by the German occupation forces and was one of the last Wehrmacht ships in the Mediterranean, was spotted by a British submarine and subsequently torpedoed. The result of the sinking was the death of all the prisoners on board.
As every year, this year too a religious memorial service was held jointly by the Most Reverend Bishop of Kydonia and Apokoronos Damascenes, Father Loukas Romani of the Holy Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, as well as the Rabbi of Athens Gabriel Negrin, at the memorial to the victims of Tanais, in Koum Kapi.
More: 1944 – 2024. 80 YEARS SINCE THE SINKING OF TANAIS – EVENTS IN CHANIA
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On 11.2.2024, on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, AMKE Ets Haim and the Region of Crete - Regional Unit of Chania organized a special honorary event with a walk in the area of the former Jewish cemetery of Chania. The walk was attended by representatives of the local authorities, the army and the Coast Guard body, and Chaniotes who knew exactly the boundaries of the city's Jewish cemetery.
The General Secretary of KIS Victor Eliezer made a special reference to the donation of the Central Jewish Council of Greece which granted part of the cemetery destroyed by the Nazis to the Greek State in order to build the 6th Primary School of the city.
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*Photo by Thrasyvoulos Papastratis
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A original project of the Jewish Cultural Center Ariowitsch-Haus of Leipzig and the Etz Chayim Synagogue of Chania connects Crete with Leipzig, which will be presented in Chania on 5.10.2023 at the Synagogue of Chania and will conclude in 2024 with the premiere of a play
Those who vacation in Crete enjoy the wonderful beaches, meet the special hospitality and discover the wonderfully preserved monuments of the ancient civilization of the island. Cruise ships anchor in Souda Bay, planes land in Akrotiri, visitors explore the maze of alleys in the historic Old Town of Chania with its Venetian Harbor and four hundred year old synagogue.
Not far behind: the German Maleme Military Cemetery. The German occupation of Crete during World War II - the largest airborne operation in the history of warfare - still carries the aura of heroic history in Germany to this day. It is therefore no surprise that Maleme is, according to the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund), the most visited war cemetery in Europe. By contrast, the mass executions of hundreds of civilians - men, women and children - and the total destruction of many villages in so-called "retaliatory raids" are little known to the public. In addition, all Cretan Jewish residents of the island were arrested in May 1944. In order to be deported to Auschwitz, they were taken to the ship "Tanais". The ship, which was not classified as a prisoner of war transport and also carried other Cretans (insurgents), and Italian prisoners of war, sank in the early morning of 9 June 1944 north of Crete, torpedoed by a British submarine. None of the captives survived.
The 2024 marks the eightieth anniversary of the tragic wreck, which was the end of a history of 2300 years of Jewish presence in Crete. On the occasion of the anniversary, the Ariowitsch-Haus Jewish Cultural Center in Leipzig, Germany and the Etz Chayim Synagogue of Chania will present an original project at an event to be held in Chania.
Greek and German theater people will jointly develop the scene-musical collage "Carefree holidays next to the gray shadows of history". The project will be presented in Chania on October 5, 2023 at the Etz Hayim Synagogue of Chania at 8.30:XNUMX p.m.
Η the premiere of the play will take place next year, i.e. on October 18, 2024, at the Etz Hayim Synagogue.
More: COLLABORATION OF THE JEWISH CULTURAL CENTER OF LIPSIA WITH THE SYNAGOGUE OF CHANIA
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On Wednesday, September 6, 2023, the photo exhibition of the historian Stavros Sfakiotakis, entitled "Synagogues and monuments – a guide to Jewish history".
The exhibition presents through 32 photographs from 14 countries taken in the period 2011 – 2022 "living" Synagogues and a section of memorial sites and other monuments.
