Thessaloniki honored the victims of the Holocaust in the presence of Katerina Sakellaropoulou. Jews who traveled to the city, captivated everyone with their words…
"We defeated the terrible Holocaust that the Nazis wanted to do against us. I stand here, where our brothers, the Jews of Thessaloniki, left for death to light a candle in their memory. In memory of all the Jews of Greece who were exterminated in the death camps. And in memory of all the Greeks, heroes, patriots and resistance fighters who fought for the Jews of Greece. In memory of the Greek people who stood in the difficult moments of the Occupation", said, clearly moved, but with a particularly thunderous voice, the 81-year-old Jew, Esther Sol.
Mrs. Sol, born in April 1942 in Drama, asked to speak at the event held today 26.3.23, at the old railway station of Thessaloniki, to mark the 80th anniversary of the departure of the first trains to the Nazi camps gathering, in order to explain, before the President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, how she, her mother and father were saved, while all their other relatives were excommunicated.
The 81-year-old Jewish woman mentioned that her father, Moshe, was fighting with the Greek resistance fighters against the Germans before she was even born. “He saw me very briefly when I was only two months old. My mother, Miriam, with me as a baby in her arms was chased and had a hard time trying to save herself and me too. With many problems we arrived in Thessaloniki, where we were led to the ghetto of Baron Hirs. From there, with the help of the Greek resistance fighters, we managed to save ourselves and go to Athens", he continued the story, speaking in Hebrew.
The elderly woman, wearing a blue jacket with the message "Never Again", added that unfortunately the families of her father and mother were murdered by the Germans, while she and her parents managed to move to Israel a few years later, where her family grew again. "God called us to make a new family. In the land of Israel, our family managed to see nine grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Truly, my family is the prime example that we defeated the terrible Holocaust that the Nazis wanted to do against us," she added to applause from the crowd.
Source: Newsit.gr, 26.3.23