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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 5, 1989-Page 7
of a People
DAVID BIRKAN
The Jews of Athens \yere ordered by the Nazis ~io register at the-city's main synagogue on Oct. 3. 1943. Uniilce (heir brethren in other lands of occupation, including othQr parts of Greece, most were saved, thani^s to the local populace.
The.Nazis invaded Greece in April 1941 to bolster their flagging Axis partners, the Italians. Some 75^000 Jews were trapped, most in the Nazis' self-assigned occupation zone of Salonika, the capital of European Sephardi Jewry. Therie, anti-Jewish measures were enacted at once. The community was plundered, its leaders arrested, Jewish-owned businesses confiscated, its famous cemetery destroyed, a ghetto established, and the yellow badge instituted. Deportation to the extermination camps in Poland began oh March 15. 1943, and continued with transports of 3,000 Jews every other day until most of the city's Jews were taken away. Over 46,000 Jews were removed in all, 45,650 to Auschwitz and 441 to Bergen-Belsen.
In the Bulgarian zone of occupation, over 4,000 Jews from Thrace and 7,000 from Macedonia were sent to the death camps; some 2,200 survived.
In their zone, the Italians refused to comply with the Nazis' orders to deport jews. They were not persecuted, nor were racial laws against them put into effect. The reprieve for Athens' Jews lasted until September 1943. Italy's surrender to the Allies on Sept. 3 prompted the Nazis to occupjUhe entire country.
On Sept. 20, Adolf Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny. organizer of the Czechoslovakian community's destruction, arrived in Athens with a detailed program for Athens Jewry. However, it did not run as scheduled.
-Instead of cohiplying with Wisliceny's order to provide him with a list of all the members of the community. Chief Rabbi Eliahu Barzilai sounded the alarm and was led into hiding by the EAM. the Greek underground, in a neighboring town.. Many Jews fled Athens to be sheltered in the coun-tryside before the Nazis could tighten their ring around the city.
On Oct. 3, the order for Athens' Jews to register, was given by SS Geh. Juergen Stroop, of Warsaw Ghetto infamy. ' I:;' . ^
On Oct. 10. the EAM newspaper called upon the population to disregard the Nazis' anti-Jewish measures and to offer asylum to the Jews. -
On Oct.T4i the EAM published the folloWing plea: "The Chief Rabbi of Athens sends a message to the Greek people in which he begs them to imitate the example of the EAM for the saving of the Greejli Israelite against whom the Hitlerite beasts have unleashed their monstrous persecution." The EAM's call was publicly reinforced by Greek Orthodox Archbishop Damask-ipos, who instructed all monasteries and convents in the Athens area to shelter all Jews who came to their door.
The EAM organized a transport system of it,s--own. Couriers, autos, and buses were mobilized to whisk Jews out of Athens into the rugged countryside, where effective fighters, including many Jews; discouraged the farspread Gerifian troops from following loo closely. The EAM helped some to sail for Palestine via the Aegean Islands and Turkey. The EAM kept a benign eye on Athens houses of refuge, warning of and sometimes- impeding Nazi raids. ;
Obliging Jewish and non-Jewish petitioners, the Archbishop complained to the German occupation authorities against the transport of Jews in Thessaloniki. He organized a petition of Athens' leading academics, lawyers, judges, triade unions, and professional organizations that was sent both to the puppet government and the leading Nazis. Damaskinos arranged certificates of baptism and supplementary papers for some 560 Athens Jews.
The chief of Athens police. Col. Angelds Evert, issued 18,500 false identity.papers for all Jews and non-Jews hiding from the Nazis. Fugitives were allowed temporary refuge in Greek police stations, and were occasionally escorted in transit by Greek policemen to avoid German security checks. Jewish members of the police, authentic or temporary, were posted to public ceremonies at Greek Or-thtxlox churches. Police hid the aliens' register from the Germans.
When the British asked for; the register after the war to facilitate their barring of Jews from Pales-tine7 the police burned it and claimed that it had been destroyed during the occupation. Evert, and three senijQT police officers D. Vranopoulos, M. Glykas, and D. Vlastaris, werejionored by Yad Vashem in 1970. -v ^ "
About 900 Athens Jews were caught by the Nazis, largely through a ruse. Over 3'000 emerged from hiding at war's end.
The 1990 Marcli of the Livirig will take^^ 18th to May 2nd.
For more information please contact your local Jewish Federation or EH Rubenstein at the United Israel Appeal of Canada, 4600 Bathurst Street, Suite 315vWiUowdale, 6nurioM2RJV3, telephone (4
LOCAL FEDERATIONS
The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver
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Vancouver; B.C. V5Z 2N7
Tel: (604) 266-8371 -
Gary Gpldsand
Jewish Federation of Edmonton
7200-156th Street Edmonton, Alberta T5R 1X3 Tel: (403)487-5120
Drew Staffenberg
Jewish Community Council of Calgary _
1607-90th Avenue S.W. Calgary, Alberta T2V4V7 Tel: (403) 253-8600 ."
Brenda Barrre M , _ -Winnipeg Jewish Community Council
202-370 Hargrave Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2K1
Tel: (204) 943-0406 r. ■ .,.,.....
Dr. Allen Juris
Jewish Community Council of Windsor
1641 Ouellette Avenue Windsor, Ontario N8X 1K9 " Tel: (519) 973-1771
Gerry Enchin
Jewish Community Council of London
536 Huron Street London, Ontario N5Y 4J5 ' Tel: (519) 673-3310 _
Beverly Lasky
Hamilton Jewish Federation
1030 Lower Lions Club Road
Ancaster, Ontario L9G3N6
Tel: (416) 528-8577 _ ^ _
Board of Jewish Education
4.600 Bathurst Street, Suite 232 Willowdale, Ontario M2R 3V3
NeiiSilvert
Jewish Comniunity Council of Ottawa
151 Ghaper Street Ottawa, Ontario Tel: (613) 232-7306
Yudke Grossman
Jewish Education Council of Montreal
5151 Cote St. Catherine Road, Suite 200
Montreal; Quebec H3W1M6
Tel: (514) 345-2610 ^ ; -
Emmanuel Zabar Atlantic Jewish Council
1515 South Park Street, #304; -Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 2L2 Tel: (902) 422-7491 _ :