Sephardic Judaism's Hidden Children in Occupied Greece
SEPHARDIC JUDAISM'S HIDDEN CHILDREN
IN OCCUPIED GREECE
by Alexios Nicholaos Menexiadis
Published in The National Herald, February 4, 2006 Issue
------------------------------
I am excited to announce that The National Herald has given Hellenic Genealogy Geek the right to reprint articles that may be of interest to our group.
------------------------------
-----------------------
There are many similarities between
the history, sufferings and
fate of the Jews who were living in
Greece during the Second World
War and the Occupation, and
those of the same fate in other
German-occupied territories, but
there are also many differences.
Extensive investigation has
been going on for some years now
into the tragic story of the Jews of
that time, as part of international
historical research into the Holocaust.
Greek historians and researchers
have written noteworthy
and particularly interesting works
documenting events, accounts and
memories which should never be
forgotten, and have made them accessible
to the general public.
The focus of most of these
works has been on the arrest, uprooting
and eventual extermination
of thousands of Greek Jews at
Nazi concentration camps. The
participation of many escapees in
the resistance movement, and the
efforts made by ordinary people,
local political, law enforcement
and religious authorities to save
those who were of the Jewish faith
are quite well documented in historical
works of a purely scientific
nature, as well as published accounts
of personal experiences.
The disintegration of the communities;
the systematic plundering
of synagogues; and the seizure
of the property of displaced Jews
are all issues which have already
been dealt with and researched to
a greater or lesser degree.
There is another aspect, however:
that of the ordinary people who,
with no personal interest, protected
the fugitives when they were at
the utmost limits of despair and
had no means of defending themselves
against the merciless persecution
the occupying forces had
unleashed upon them.
Not only individuals, but also
whole families frequently found
refuge in the homes of their Christian
fellow citizens. Hidden this
way, they managed to survive in
most cases. The people who hid
them were ordinary people with
nothing to gain - indeed, quite the
contrary. They not only placed themselves, but also their families,
in tremendous danger. If they were
found out, they faced capital punishment,
as stipulated in the German
regulations.
And yet, these people - more often
than not acting on their own
initiative and not waiting to be
asked - offered to help their fellow
human beings whose lives were in
danger, people with whom they
had lived peacefully for many
years. They shared the meager
space of their homes with them
and, in many cases, also shared
their even more meager food supplies.
Putting their own lives in
jeopardy at a time when the hardships
and horrors of everyday life
were already tremendous, they
showed that compassion and sensitivity
to others' pain and suffering
are human values which are able to
withstand the most adverse of conditions.
Even in this day and age, when
the absence of such values is considered
commonplace, we can not
help but be moved by this fact and
filled with optimism about human
nature.
After the war, usually at the instigation
of those who had been
saved, the efforts and altruism of
most of these people was officially
recognized by the state of Israel,
and they were awarded the title of
“Righteous Among Nations” by
the Yad-Vashem Institution.
The sequence of events of that
time is more or less familiar. The
Greek-Italian War of 1940-41 was
succeeded on April 6 by the German
invasion. By April 9, the Germans
had already entered Thessaloniki.
On the 27th, they arrived in
Athens, and the occupation of the
whole of Greece was effected with
the Battle of Crete, which lasted
from May 20 to June 1.
SYSTEMATICALLY
PLUNDERED
Thessaloniki, home of the
largest Jewish community in
Greece, became German-occupied
territory right away. That is where
the first systematic persecution of
Greek Jews began, when all male
members of the Community were
gathered together and humiliated
in Plateia Eleftherias (Liberty
Square) on July 11, 1942. Forced
labor was imposed upon them, and
a little later, they were confined to
ghettos. Their property was systematically
plundered. The culmination
came in 1943, with the dispatches
by rail under the most appalling
conditions. Ninety-seven
percent of the city's Jews never
came back from the extermination
camps. Only a few had foreseen
the evil which was in store and
managed to hide in time and save
themselves.
The Athens area was under Italian
administration until September
of the same year. Anti-Semitic laws
did not apply here; so many Jews
from the German-occupied parts
of the country were able to find
temporary refuge there, hoping it
would be impossible to trace them
in the densely populated city. However,
when Italy capitulated and
the Bandoglio government was
formed, the Germans took over
the former Italian-administered
territory and set about their monstrous
task there, too, with nothing
and no one to stand in their way.
The difference, however, was that,
to a greater or lesser degree, the
Jews in Athens had advance information
about the fate of others of their faith and, at lease those with
enough prudence, took steps to
hide. There were many cases of
Christians who willingly helped
their persecuted fellow human beings.
Unfortunately, as in so many other cases, it is no longer possible
to interview many of these people
and record what their motives had
been, and what prompted them to
make such difficult and astoundingly
dangerous decisions. They
were already adults at that time,
and after so many years, most of
them are no longer with us.
Great as a disappointment the
loss of their personal accounts may
be, as they would most certainly
have been of exceptional interest,
so much the greater is the need to
keep the memory of these events
alive through the personal accounts
of those who benefited
from their unfolding before them
as spectators whose powers of observation
were not affected by worries,
anxious calculations, and their
parents' struggle to save the family
now makes it possible for us to
record a sizeable and interesting
part of the history of those difficult
times.
The research conducted for the
purpose of this exhibition harbors
no pretensions of being a complete
and systematic scientific study. It is
based on interviews and written accounts,
and is more like the children's
own direct, living record of
their experiences and memories of
the time they were hunted and in
hiding. The aim was to present
these accounts and make them
known to a wider audience, one
which reaches beyond the community
of those who have made history
their profession.
Attention should be drawn to
the particularly intense emotional
expression, which these experiences
characteristically have the
power to provoke, even now. In
many cases, the people giving the
interviews were unable to hold
back their tears. The anxiety over
survival, which parents transmitted
to their children during their struggle
to stay alive, is one of the most
noticeable features of these accounts.
The same could be said of
feelings of loneliness and separation
from loved ones when concerns
over safety drove families to
split up and hide in separate hiding
places.
It was, of course, far from easy
for children between the ages of
three and sixteen to be so abruptly
separated from their loved ones for
months on end. Feelings of loss,
and in some cases rejection, even if
unfounded, gripped their innocent
souls. The constant need to play a
role, which was necessary for their
survival, coupled with sudden separation
from their real parents and
long periods of time spent with
strangers, towards whom they had
to behave as they would to their
parents, frequently led to confusion,
which in many cases went on
after the occupation was over.
Another feature of the accounts
is the strong expressions of gratitude
the now adult hidden children
of the time feel towards their saviors.
This is true even when the saviors
are not known or contact has
not been maintained. Indeed, it is
usually following the initiative of
those who were saved that YadVashem
awards the saviors.
But the overriding emotion running
through almost every single
account is fear: fear of everything
and everybody which could betray
the children themselves or their
families. It was the fear of even
pronouncing their own names,
which was not overcome for a long
time after the liberation and which,
in many cases, left indelible marks
on their personalities, and even on
their whole adult lives.
Note: Mr. Menexiadis was a doctoral
candidate in History at the
University of Athens in 2006
Comments
Post a Comment