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The History of the Jews of Salonica 1941-45
The story of the Jews Of Salonica is barely known, even inside Greece. This was one of the reasons for creating Les Juifs, as an act of remembrance for a lost community. Below is a brief account of the history of the Jews of Salonica between the years 1941-1945.
On April 9, 1941, Germany conquered Salonica and its fifty thousand Jews. Within a week the Jewish leadership was arrested, apartments were confiscated, and the Jewish hospital was taken over for use by German troops. Jewish newspapers were shut down.
There were no anti -Jewish measures during the next fourteen months, but the Jewish community faced the threat of starvation. On July 11, 1942, nine thousand Jewish males aged eighteen to forty-five were forced to gather at Plateia Eleftheria (Liberty Square); about two thousand were sent on forced labour for the German army.
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Beginning on February 8, 1943 Merton issued a series of edicts to implement the Nuremberg laws. From February 25 onward, Jews were assembled in the Baron Hirsch quarter, located near the railway station, in preparation for deportation. Transports, nineteen or twenty in all and comprising at least 43,850 Jews, reached Auschwitz - Birkenau from March 20 to August 18, 1943; most of the Jews were gassed on arrival.
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Although 11,200 survived Selektionen, most of these died later. Some of the women were subjected to Dr. Carl Clauberg's sterilisation research at Auschwitz. In August, Rabbi Koretz, the Judenrat, and the Jewish police, were deported to Bergen - Belsen.
Hundreds of Jews from Salonika survived the many labour and extermination camps. After the war they joined the Jews who had taken refuge in the mountains or those (about 500) who had fought with the partisans. In 1945 the Salonikan Jewish community numbered 1,950.
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