Book Description

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject History Europe - Other Countries - Ages of World Wars, grade: AA, Bogazici University (History Department), course: Seminar, language: English, abstract: One of the most interesting chapters in the history of modern Greece is the German Occupation during World War Two. Soon after the German invasion of Greece the deportation of Jews in Greece started. Salonica had a Jewish community consisting of roughly 50.000 members. On March 1943 and after a fast marginalizing process by relocating the Jews into Ghettos, about 45.000 of them were deported to Auschwitz- Birkenau, where many of them were immediately gassed, others were kept as slaves and labored till death. What is interesting about this historical event is the fact that many Jews didn't decide to flee after the Germans arrived in Salonica. In Athens, for instance, a large number of Jews managed to escape death. The deportation of Salonica Jews seemed to be very effective and did not trigger much resistance on behalf of the Jewish community or the vast majority of local people. This, of course, raises one big question that will be the core of this research: Why was the German deportation of the Jews in Salonica so effective (than elsewhere in Greece)? In answering this Question, different testimonies of Jewish survivors are to be examined. My focus will be on the testimony of Jacques Stroumsa who was deported with his whole family to Auschwitz and fortunately survived the genocide. In order to clarify the authenticity of his testimony, I will compare his sayings with others. Furthermore, I will debate the role of Chief Rabbi Zvi Koretz, who might willingly or unwillingly helped the Germans in deceiving his own community by promising them a better life in Krakow. Koretz has been branded as a traitor and a Nazi collaborator by many survivors. He was accused of betrayal, which caused the death of thousands of Jews. These accusations created a narrative among survivors, that