M-T
The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, May 31,1984 - Page 7
By
DAVID BIRKAN
On June 6,1944, the Jews of Crete were pat on a boat by the Gennans and sent to their death. The very same day, the Jews of another Greek islandv Zante, about 250 miles to the northwest, were shielded by the local archbishop and mayor hi defiance of Nazi orders... andsaved. ., /
Between 1941-3, the bulk of the Jewish inhabitants of the Greek maihland suffered massacres and deportations to death and forced labor camps. Some 70,000 were killed, including the community of Salonika, Greece's largest.
Athens' community of about 8,000 was more fortunatis. The active sympathy of the Greek Orthodox patriarch and the cooperation of the Greek underground resulted in the saving of about halfofthe ancient seaport's Jews.
The Nazi efforts to annihilate Greece V Jews, onder the oltimate Jarisdlctibn of Adolf Eichmann, did not overlook those scattered among the country*s nigged far-flong islands. Neither thefa* relative Isolation nor the foct that the Germans were in the final stages of losfaig the war served to obstruct the process. The laLtter actually gave a note of urgency to the entire diabolical project.
Crete, a sleepy island in the sunny Mediterranean about 150 miles south of Athens, hosted a Jewish community as early as the 2nd century BCE. For hundreds of years earlier, it was an important stopover for Jewish merchants.
Cretemadehistotyof sorts as one of the first sites of Jewish false messianism in the Piaspora. In the year 431 CE, a stranger convinced the comrnunity that he was the reincarnation of iMoses, sent to lead the island's Jews dry-shod through the sea to the Promised Land some 500 miles to the west. They abandoned their affairs, and, >yith women and children, followed him to a promontory overhanging the sOa. At his command, they proceeded to fling themselves' into the rocks and water below.
Jews deported to Candia
Some were dashed to pieces and others drowned. TTie timely intervention of some nearby fishermen and traders halted the slaughter. The psetido-messiah disappeared and was never caught —^ to be regarded locally, according to contemporary church chronicler Socrates Scholasticus, as "some malignant friend who had assumed a human form for the destruction of their nation in that place."
On May 21. 1944, the Nazis imprisoned the 300 Jews of Rethymhon and Canea, and deported them to the seaport city of Candia, on the north coast. On June 6 -r-the very moment, the Allied forces were launching D-Day on the beaches of Normandy — they were put aboard a steamer, along with 400 Greek Gentiles and 300 Italian prisoners-of-war (former German allies) and taken 120 miles northwest across the Aegean. Therci off the isliand of Poly-gandros, the ship was sunk. All aboard were drowned. Seven Jews survived in Crete by hiding.
The same day, on Zante, off the other side of the Greek mainland, Archbishop Chrysos-tomos and mayor jLukos Karrer refused to assemble the island's 260 Jews on the dock for deportation, "ff the deportation order Is carried out," said the archbishop, wID Jobi the Jews and share their fate."
The Nazis,,somewhat taken aback, proceeded with the liquidation of the community of Corfu, 100 miles to the north.: Its 1,800 Jews were seized/The women were taken overland to the train depot across the mainland at * Larissa, almost due west. The men were put on a ship and routed south to Zante, to pick up its Jews, on their way to the depot in Athens. The rail line ran/north through Greece, Yugoslavia, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and southern Poland, into Auschwitz.
Meanwhile, all the able-bodied Jews of Zante were disbursed throughout the remote rugged hills. The gestapo managed to seize some 60 elderly and children. The boat from Corfu steamed by without stopping — there was no more room aboard.
While the Jews of Corfu, and other centres where they could be directly controlled by the Germans, perished, those — a minority — in areas where they could be aided by a largely sympatheticGreekpopulace, survived.
MPs express concern
By
PATRICIA RUCKER
OTTAWA—
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau has made an appeal in the House of Commons on behalf of Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov and his wife Yelena Bonner.
In response to a question from David Orlikow, Trudeau said that the governnient had expressed its concerns to the Soviet embassy in Ottawa and "pleaded ifor compassionate treatment in this particular case of Dr, Sakharov."
Orlikow, a New Democrat MP who participated in a recent day long hearing of the Par-liamentaiy Group for Soviet Jewry (CJN May 24), referred to the plea for more public advocacy on human rights issues made by one of the witnesses at the hearing, McGill law professor Irwin Cotler, in asking the Prime Minister to go beyond "quiet diplomacy.''
"There is no more public place than the House of Commons," Trudeau replied. "I hereby make a public appeal to President
in
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banon and the settlements on the West Bank.
On the issuie of bringing alleged war criminals living in Canada to justice, Roberts said that "we should do everything Ave can," btit did not spell out any specific ways of ensuring prosecutions.
He placed the responsibility for dealing with hate literature squarely in the lap of the provincial attorneys-general: "What is needed," he said "is a more vigorous administration of the present law by provincial administrations."
Roberts came out firmly fai favor of affirmative action prognuns, [programs which set specUQc hiring goals for members of minoritfes] and said that he would make a conscious effort to include members of ethnic minorities In cabinet, ciyU service, judicisd and other appointments.
Protection of minority rights, particularly as spelled out in the federal Charter of Rights, is very high on his list of priorities, he said.
"The next step in multiculturalism policy," he continued in answer to a question on the soundness of fostering distinct minority cul- ■ tures, "is to open doors to participation at all levels of our society —
including politics and government.
Chemenko to consider compassion in his treatment of Soviet citizens."
Sakharov and his wife are currently on ahunger strike In Gorky, the industrial city In which they Uve in Internal exile.
Sakharov began his iiEwt May 2 to obtain permission for Bonner to travel to the West for medical treatment. She is sfaice reported to have Joined him In the strike.
Both suffer from heart conditions, and Bonner also has a serious eye aliment.
Neither has ever requested permission to emigrate — in fact, Sakharov did not travel to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize for fear of not being allowed back.
Flora MacDonald, a Conservative MP who visited Refuseniks in the USSR two years ago, made a statement Of concern in the House in which she called the Sakharovs' situation "critical."
And the cHairmaii of the Par 1 iamentary Group, Liberal Jim Peterson, has sent his own personal appeal as an MP to the Soviet ambassador to Canada, Alexey A. Rodionov,
"Some moderate revisions in budget (of the multiculturalism department) might be justified," he added.
He concluded that he would be willing to meet fireqiiently with Officials of the Canada-Israel Committee and Canadian Jewish Congress. "I have as a cabinet minister done this frequently in the past. I would continue this practice as Prime Minister."
Andrei Sakharov [Tfane Magazine photo]
"Any situation such as theirs can serve only as a complicating factor in our bilateral relations and detract from building trust that is critical to detente," Peterson wrote.
The expressions of Canadian concern came against a background of protests from Western statesmen and tough talk from the USSR.
There was a particu-larly sharp Soviet response to an American letter circulated to delegates at the 35-nation European disarmament conference in Stockholm (an offshoot of the 1975 Helsinki Accords), reminding them of the link between the conference arid human rights, and enclosing copies of a Congressional resolution calling on President Reagan to intervene on behalf of the Sakharovs.
Soviet officials accused the United States of deliberately complicating the European conference by distribut-faig "falsified fabrications" about Sakharov^s condition, and said the case was irrelevant to the agenda at Stockholm.
In a similar vein, the Soviet ambassador to Italy was quoted as saying, after a meeting with Italian President Sandro Pertini, a Socialist, that "for the Soviet Union, the Sakharov problem doesn't exist. It's a dirty provocation fomented by Washington."
Pleas on behalf of the
Sakharovs have come from the Pope, the European Economic Community, the Nobel Prize Committee, the Norwegian government, Italian Prime Minister Bruno Craxi, the Italian Communist Party and French Communist Party leader Marchais.
West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher raised the case at a Moscow meeting »4tb Chemenko, and the
European Parliament has appealed to French President Francois Mitterrand to postpone a planned visit to the Soviet capital pending "satisfactory assur-ances" regarding the
Sakharovs' fate.
But Bonner's daughter Tatiana Yankelevich fears that her stepfather is dead.
"The official newspaper of the Soviet government has published an article in which my mother is accused of every sort of baseness," she said in an interview in Rome.
"There is a sentence saying she wanted to draw personal gain from her husband's death ... and this could mean that the Soviet press is preparing international public opinion ifor the fact that Sakharov no longer exists."
The family has heard nothingsince May 6.
O
INFORMATION OFFICER: NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION
The Canadian Jewish Congress is looking for an individual with a strong community background to act as part-time information officer on a one-year contract in Ottawa.
The successful applicant will work in English and French and will have had experience in Jewish communal work, government relations, and community development.
He/she will liaise with the ethnocul-tural groups represented in the national capital region and will provide support for Congress activities in Ottawa.
The successful applicant will be able to work independently as well as with local community leaders. He/she will report to Canadian Jewish Congress' national headquarters in Montreal.
The salary is in the $20,000 range, based on a 28-hour work week.
Applications or nominations, complete with personal resumes, should be marked "personal and confidential" and forwarded on or before June 15
'to:.'/
Search Committee, Information Officer, National Capital Region, Canadian Jewish Congress, 1590 avenue Docteur Penfield, Montreal, Que. H3G 1C5.
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