-
,
., .
,
,
.
.
,
. WEAK MONUMENTS
After a little, an Israelite came by and told us that there
were
some armed thugs at Varsanos coffeehouse, and they had axes
and clubs; that same moment K. came by, he had a coffee and
left. A little while later, we heard noise in the coffee shop,
and
then we entered our house and went to the main room, when,
from the left side of the house they started throwing stones;
I
went out to complain and they told me it was a mistake. After
a
while, some mounted gendarmes came by and I complained. As
soon as the gendarmerie left, I heard a stone. And they
began
breaking the windows as well, and then one of them
hit me with a club.
#23
///// K a m b e l c a s e // WITNESS // 18.04.1932
///// K a m b e l // // 18.04.1932
katalog texts 2.indd 1 13/10/2009 2:15:12
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#24
2 3
These transmutations took place on every level. The productive,
the political, and the
cultural. As the social composition of the population changed,
the political physiog-nomy of the city ultimately, also
changed.
Thessaloniki was a city defined by a polarization, which was
strengthened by its multi-
ethnic character, as well as by the fact that it was located
near the border, in regions
that had constituted the apple of discord among neighbouring
states in areas where
civil war took place, a few kilometres from the Cold War
borderline, which divided
Europe and the entire world. As a result, Thessaloniki possessed
a powerful Left and
a powerful (and radical) Right.
The Left had its roots in the Federacion, the tobacco workers,
the refugees. It was
nourished by a working-class culture that in Thessaloniki had
particular characteris-tics, in relation to Athens, as well as due
to the University and its student traditions.
It had its trade unions, its Red neighbourhoods, its mayors,
poets, and literature, its
symbols, its human and family solidarity networks. Running
parallel was an intellec-tual Thessaloniki, which, since it was far
from the various power centres of Athens,
was more independent, more critical, less hurried, and needed no
go-betweens to
communicate with the major international trends. This world
constituted a culture. An
everyday culture, defined both in space via itineraries and
local haunts (coffee shops,
tavernas, bookstores), and time by the regular weekly meetings
of various groups,
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///// A n t o n i s L i a ko s // T h e H i s t o r y o f a n o
t h e r T h e s s a l o n i k i // Few cities, I think, underwent
so many great changes and were transformed in just
one century like Thessaloniki. A typical Oriental and
cosmopolitan, multiethnic and
multi-religious city at the beginning of the previous century,
it underwent a literal
transmutation. In the 20th century, Thessaloniki resembled a
palimpsest. As the old
text was erased, it was overwritten with a new one. Losing its
large and small commu-nities one by one, the city was not only
losing people. It was losing ways of life, neigh-bourhoods, local
haunts, languages, publications, cultures. And new people, new
communities would come, inscribe their own culture upon these
old traces and leave
their own. During the two wars, the city lost its Jewish
population and was abandoned
by its Muslim and Slavic populations. Along with their actual
presence, the area lost
their language and their culture. Other peoples appeared,
refugees who created their
own neighbourhoods. In the post-war period, internal refugees
arrived. And at that
moment, with its transformation from a multiethnic to a
mono-ethnic city complete,
new refugees arrived, from Albania, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kurdistan, and turned the
city multiethnic again, bringing with them their way of life,
their language, and their
customs. The body of the city was inscribed with new names, new
sounds were heard,
new foods perfumed the air.
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katalog texts 2.indd 2-3 13/10/2009 2:15:12
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4 5
dictatorship, which accelerated it, and increased during the
post-junta era. The old
working-class culture disappeared, as its productive base shrunk
and the citys ur-ban texture changed. The deluge of internal
migrants turned the citys old left-wing
population into a minority. Moreover, the political as well as
the politicizing models
changed. The political nucleuses established in the citys social
networks became sec-toral. A 19th century historian used to say:
power tends to corrupt and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. In the decades that followed the
restoration of democ-racy, the influence of authority even on the
micro-level increased the role of interven-tion and corruption
spread. The strongest blow to left-wing ideas did not come from
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but from the pervasive
political cynicism created
by two decades during which the citys left-wing forces in many
ways participated in
that exercise of authority. I think the heterogeneous post-junta
Left was unable to
create a new model of municipal government and to administer the
citys heritage to
create a separate identity for the city. The opportunity
provided by the selection of
Thessaloniki as cultural capital, created, on the one hand new
cultural frames, but was
exhausted as a creative source for a cultural model worthy of
the city, which would
keep pace with the capabilities and the activities of the citys
residents.
What gave new life to the Right was the individualistic hedonism
of an era during
which financial prosperity was tangible. But the city also
suffered the consequences of
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1989,
. and the political or literary events. These are the tesserae
of this other Thessaloni-kis history. Of our Thessaloniki. I want
to tell you about the loss of this Thessaloniki,
which shaped generations.
This other Thessaloniki frequently bled.
It faced a Right rooted in the ethnic conflicts bequeathed by
the Balkan wars, and
the nationalist organizations of the Interwar Period. In the
post-war period, political
or para-political constructs, created during the Occupation, in
collaboration with the
occupation forces, which took part in the appropriation of
Jewish wealth (another un-opened chapter in the history of the
citys post-war financial elites). These constructs
survived, infesting the official structures of political life
during the post-Civil War peri-od, together creating an explosive
governing combination, which in two decades piled
up five political murders. Beginning with Yiannis Zevgos, George
Polk, Grigoris Lam-brakis, Giannis Chalkidis, and ending with
Giorgis Tsarouchas. Five murder victims,
including two members of Parliament (Lambrakis, Tsarouchas), in
such a short period,
cast a stain upon the city. This was the Thessaloniki of
political assassinations.
The Left aspect of Thessaloniki, however, did not bend in the
face of persecution. Far
from it; the influence of the Left peaked during the most
difficult Cold War period.
Despite the fear of the gendarme, the left-wing human networks
endured, house to
house, and hand to hand. The decline of the Left became evident
even before the
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katalog texts 2.indd 4-5 13/10/2009 2:15:12
-
, ,
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.
And then, when I saw the soldiers, bayonets at
the ready, facing the gendarmes, I became afraid
and left, went to the pharmacy, drove off the
wounded man and went home. I saw the windows
were broken and went in. Then a large group
came by; they set my house on fire, and we didnt
know what to do, and if the gendarmes had not
come to get us out, we would have burned alive.
#25
6 7
80.
.
.
. . .
,
.
, .
the changes in the Balkans, not only as regards the Macedonian
name issue, but also
as regards new immigration from former Eastern-bloc countries.
After 1990, the issue
of the designation of Macedonia absorbed the citys energy to
such a great extent that
its unique personality dissolved in a new nationalism. This is a
mixture of references to
past military feats and the church, which constitutes the
structure and aesthetic of a
typically Balkan form of nationalism. This type of nationalism
may be encountered in
all Greeces neighbouring countries. For the past 15 years, one
encounters it in Greece
as well. This new nationalism became a cleansing ritual, which
allowed people and
ideas excluded since the dictatorship to rejoin the public
sphere. The other Thes-saloniki was overshadowed by the rise of the
culture of the Right, which triggered the
new Macedonian issue and rekindled 1980s nationalisms. This
culture of the Right ex-tends much further than its entrenched
political positions, squeezing like a clamp the
society of Thessalonikis citizens. The old, sorely afflicted
face of the city is lost under a
new rhetoric. The debate over police IDs eclipsed the citys
varied identities. Primarily,
it overshadowed the debate over the future. Regardless, this is
a spirited city. Ground-breaking things take place, to a certain
extent offsetting the official uniformity. In my
opinion, these are the nucleuses of the other Thessaloniki, the
elements of the citys
potential new face.
.
,
,
.
.
,
,
. 90
.
:
. 15 .
.
///// K a m b e l c a s e // WITNESS // 18.04.1932
///// K a m b e l // // 18.04.1932
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#26
8 9
Greek who was then serving as the Consul of the United States in
the city. This action
fanaticized the citys Turkish inhabitants even more, and
infuriated, they gathered in
front of the Governors Residence. Led by the mufti Ibrahim Bey,
they were deter-mined to retrieve the woman, by force if necessary.
The Vali, Mechmet Rifaat Pasha,
tried in vain to calm the raging crowd that was threatening
everything.
The next day (May 6), while the crowd of fanaticized Turks was
still gathered outside
the Governors Residence and the nearby Saatli Mosque1, the
French Consul, Jules
Moulin, and the German Consul, Eric Abbott2 were sighted making
their way unac-companied to the Residence. The two consuls were
planning to visit the Vali, Rifaat
Pasha, to suggest that, given the volatility of the situation,
he take measures to pro-tect the Christian population.
Just the sight of the consuls was enough to fire up the Turkish
mob. The consuls were
seized by the fanaticized crowd and forced to the Saatli Mosque,
where they were
hacked to pieces.
Subsequently, the fanaticized mob poured out into the streets
heading towards
the Hadzilazaros man- sion. Thankfully, the Turks were notified
in time that the woman, over whom the
events had taken place, had been given up, and the
turmoil died down.
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///// // 1 8 7 6 // 1856
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///// A l e k a G e r o l y m p o s // T h e 1 8 7 6 S l a u g h
t e r o f t w o We s t e r n C o n s u l s // Beginning in 1856,
extensive reforms went into effect in the entire Otto-man Empire.
During that period, now known as the Tanzimat, the state was
eman-cipated from its dominant religion (Islam), and all its
subjects acquired equal rights,
regardless of religion. Non-Muslims greeted the reforms, which
were included in an
overall effort to modernize (Westernize) the institutions of the
Ottoman Empire with
satisfaction; however, a great deal of discontent was created in
large sections of the
Muslim population.
In this environment, an event took place in April 1879, which
brought Thessaloniki to
the forefront of international news reporting in an unfortunate
fashion (and led to the
creation of many lithographs and drawings of the city).
In the district under the jurisdiction of the Vali of
Thessaloniki, a young, Slavic-speak-ing Christian woman fell in
love with a Muslim and, in the face of her familys reaction,
followed him to Thessaloniki to embrace Islam. When the woman
reached Thessalo-niki for her official induction into Islam at the
Governors Residence (konak), clashes
took place in the street leading to the Residence between local
Christians and the
Turkish police (Zapties) accompanying the woman. This incident
ending in her be-ing abducted by Christians, who took her to the
residence of Pericles Hadzilazaros, a
1 . K 19172 - .
1The Mosque of The CloCk. IT was desTroyed durIng The 1917
fIre.2The faMIly reMaIns well-known In Thes-salonIkI.
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10 11
. 56
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, . armed sailors, positioned at both Catholic and Greek
churches; they faced each other
to the right and left of the coffins. [] The Germans were
slenderer and taller, the
French well-built, with broad shoulders, strong. The faces of
the French bore unmis-takable signs of suppressed passion,
challenge denied. The Germans appeared calm.
Moulins remains were embarked to the accompaniment of a
reverberating cannon-ade.
THE VICTIMS FUNERAL / The ceremonial funeral service fulfilled
part of the agreed
upon reparation. The compensation of the widows satisfied
another. Madame Moulin
received 600,000 francs, Mrs. Abbott 300,000. In the case of the
former, her husbands
professional position, the familys main support and source of
its future prospects,
was taken into account.It then remained to punish the guilty,
and here they demonstrated a great deal of haste. Six individuals
were randomly selected from the crowd that had participated in the
murders, and condemned to death after summary proceedings. The
foreign consuls were invited to be present at the execution.
According to Schwans superior, a black man, after serving as the
executioner of the other five, then, taking his own time, as if
completing an assigned task, placed a noose around his own neck
hanging himself in the spot intended for him. The final convictions
of the former vali, the head of the gendarmerie, as well as other
officials, removing them from their positions, as well as various
liberty depriving sentences were also not late in coming
The slaughter of the consuls caused an uproar in Europe. The
Great Powers reacted
violently, demanding the Sultan mete out exemplary punishment to
the guilty, safe-guard the Christian population against violence,
and conduct the consuls funerals
with full honours in Thessaloniki. Indeed, they threatened that,
were the Sultan un-willing to comply, an allied fleet would sail
into the port of Thessaloniki to guarantee
the citys security.
And indeed, the gulf of Thessaloniki was filled with military
vessels from nearly every
nation [] The thunder of greeting salvos echoed continuously in
the streets of
Thessaloniki. From every rise, one had a view of the sea of
masts, while, visible eve-rywhere on the clear horizon, spread the
distinct, airy silhouettes of the webbing the
ships ropes created.
The Turks partially met the demands of the Great Powers. None of
the 56 individu-als arrested in Thessaloniki were among the actual
ringleaders of the slaughter. On
May 16, in what is nowadays Eleftherias Square, six gallows were
erected for an equal
number of ordinary Turks, plucked from the fanaticized mob that
created the inci-dents. The Vali of Thessaloniki was not severely
discomfited. Scapegoats were found,
once again among the insignificant, even for imperial Turkey,
common masses.
THE VICTIMS FUNERALS / According to Schwan, the funeral services
for both consuls took place with great magnificence at the same
time. The new Vali, in full uniform,
walked behind the coffins; he was followed by the consular corps
with the captains
of the military vessels. The Germans and the French had each
sent a detachment of
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12 13
EMBALMING MEANS INJECTING FORMALIN INTO THE BODY ANDTHAT. BUT
ITS HAPPENED TO ME,
LATELY, TO GO WITHOUT EMBALMING, JUST WINGING IT. ALBANIA. THE
SAME APPLIES TO SKOPJE,
SUPPOSEDLY, BUT LATELY I HAD AN INCIDENT IN SKOPJE, AND THE SAME
THING DOESNT APPLY, AND
THE CONSUL HAD TO INTERVENE FOR IT TO TAKE PLACE AND THERE WAS
THIS WHOLE FUSS. - AND IT
TRAVELS BY CAR, RIGHT? - UP TO THE BORDER. -OH, AND SOMEONE ELSE
PICKS IT UP FROM THERE? -
FROM THERE THEY COME FROM ALBANIA, OR FROM SKOPJE. THE LAST TIME
WE CROSSED THAT WAY,
FOR 12 MILES WITH A LITTLE KID, IT WAS APPROxIMATELY FIVE YEARS
OLD, FIVE, MAYBE FOUR, I HAVE
THE INFORMATION ON IT, AND WE PUT IT IN A CHILDS COFFIN AND LEFT
WITH A DEATH CERTIFICATE,
NOTHING ELSE. WE DID NOTHING. THE RELATIVES SAID: OH, COME ON,
WELL GET THERE, WELL
HASSLE THEMWERE HEARTBROKEN, WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH BUREAUCRACY
TOO? I SAID: IF YOU
ASSUME THE RESPONSIBILITY, I HAVE NO PROBLEM. NEVERTHELESS, I
PICKED IT UP, I TOOK IT TO THE
GREEK BORDER, LEFT IT, AND TOOK OFF. IM TELLING YOU THAT
NORMALLY ITS NECESSARY. AND,
AS A MATTER OF FACT, THOSE PEOPLE PASSED WITHOUT THE EMBALMING.
SEE EMBALMING IS NOT
JUST ITS THE WHOLE DEAL OF GETTING THE EMBALMING DONE, AND
GETTING A CERTIFICATE THAT
THE EMBALMING TOOK PLACE. FROM A DOCTOR. - WHO DOES THE
EMBALMING? - A DOCTOR. OR, IN
PRACTICE, ANYBODY. BUT THE PAPER THOUGH: ONLY A DOCTOR CAN GIVE
IT TO YOU. THEY CALL IT
AN EMBALMING CERTIFICATE. AND ITS THIS PIECE OF PAPER THATS
REqUIRED ALL OVER THE WORLD
AND IN THIS CASE, ITS THE ALBANIANS WHO WANT IT. THAT MEANS ITS
IMPOSSIBLE TO GO BY PLANE
WITHOUT AN EMBALMING CERTIFICATE. NO WAY. BUT IN ALBANIA, WELL
NO, THEY. THEY, WELL YOU
NOW, IF WE LET IT SLIDE A LITTLEGUYS, EMBALMING COSTS. 200300
EUROS. THE DOCTOR WANTS
IT, YOU SEE, WE DONTWE DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ALL THAT.
THEY THINK WE HAVE, YOU
UNDERSTAND? BECAUSE THEY GIVE IT TO US, BUT WE GIVE IT TO THE
DOCTORS. THEY SAY FOR THAT
TO GO BEYOND A COUNTRYS BORDERS IT HAS TO HAVE AN EMBALMING
CERTIFICATE. ITS A PUBLIC
HEALTH RULE. OR, IF YOU GO BY BOAT, ONCE AGAIN, YOU NEED AN
EMBALMING CERTIFICATE.
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#28
600.000 , 300.000.
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#27
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The impression constructed regarding the area of the city
located far from our
home is partly constructed by the mass media. We observe from
responses to
relevant questionnaires, and in various surveys, that the closer
to home, the
better the impression, the farther away the more dismal. When
our impres-
sions of a citys sections are formed via indirect knowledge, the
mass media
actually constructs the images we obtain. Many speak of the
criminality of the
mass media. It is a criminality associated with the construction
of stereotypes.
///// // // 08.08.09 // ...///// Angel iki Pitsela //
CRIMINOLOGIST // interview in her office
///// Funeral Shop Employee // INTERVIEW // August 2009 //
///// // //
katalog texts 2.indd 12-13 13/10/2009 2:15:12
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14 15
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. M Around four in the afternoon, he set off for his daily walk,
his retinue consisting of
his aide-de-camp Frangoudis, and two Cretan gendarmes in
traditional dress, who
followed at a distance. This was his entire security detail,
since he detested having
guards around him. They arrived at the White Tower, where a
multiracial throng of
Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Jews, and Albanians were idling
about, eyeing the Gben.
Around five, George and his retinue headed back. Alexandros
Schinas, the assassin
was sitting in a coffee shop opposite the White Tower. He stood
up and followed the
King. On the way, his path crossed that of the clerk of the
Metropolis, who would later
state: I was walking in the city, coming from the Villa
Allatini. Approximately 500 me-ters from the later site of the
assassination, I saw the King and his aide walking from
the opposite direction towards me. I felt great satisfaction,
stood at attention, doffed
my hat, and waited until his majesty passed by. Twenty paces
behind himI realized
Schinas was following them. I knew what a good-for-nothing he
was and turned my
back so he would not start asking for money again. Behind
Schinas came the Kings
two guards. I was surprised they allowed him to follow the King
like that.
Indeed, Schinas appearance was anything but inconspicuous. This
is how he was de-scribed by Second Lieutenant Vassileios Kandares
in his interrogation report: Tall
and thin, with hollow cheeks, his eyes had a strange glitter; he
gave the impression of
a man with a lively and restless spirit and a quick wit. He had
a protruding forehead,
///// // H A 5 M 1 9 13 // O / E 5 M
1913, . E ,
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///// S a k i s S e r e f a s // T h e A s s a s s i n a t i o n
o f G e o r g e I o n M a r c h 5 , 1 9 13 // THE KINGS LAST STROLL
/ It was March 5, 1913, according to the old cal-endar. For months,
Thessaloniki was providing medical care to the wounded arriving
from the front of the first Balkan war. Two weeks had gone by
since Bizani fell into
Greek hands. The Thessalonikians, celebrating the liberation of
Ioannina, were enjoy-ing the free bougatsa pastries distributed by
Skordas and Giannakis, owners of the
Dodoni bougatsa store, located on Egnatias Street. The day was
sunny, almost spring-
like. King George I, who for months had been staying at the
villa belonging to Cleon
Hatzilazaros, on present-day Vassilissis Olgas, was
exceptionally happy that day. In
the morning, he had received a visit from Captain Von Gopfen of
the German battle
cruiser Gben, moored in the port of Thessaloniki. It was an
exceptionally important
visit, since Germany, allied to a scheming Austria, thus
appeared to be formally recog-nizing Greek sovereignty over a still
contested, as regards its nationality, Thessaloniki.
Thus, at noon the king cheerfully took luncheon. He mentioned
the naval Battle of
Elli, and expressed the wish that he were on the bridge of the
battleship Averof. Do
not fear, bullets cannot touch me, he laughingly responded to
the company at the
table that was worried by his reckless wishes. Three hours
later, a bullet would give
him the lie in the most irrefutable manner.
#29
katalog texts 2.indd 14-15 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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16 17
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, off and attacked the assassin. In the grocery, the King was
dying, but as the blood had
been unable to penetrate his thick khaki uniform, they thought
he had simply fainted,
and so the grocer ran to fetch a glass of water to revive him.
When the aide unbut-toned the royal tunic, blood poured out. The
victims heart was beating. He whispered
once or twice: But whywhy A carriage arrived and the King was
transported to
the Papafio Orphanage, which had been turned into a military
hospital. Another car-riage followed, with the regicide inside. On
the way to the police station close to the
Papafio, the crowds threw stones at the carriage, while a Greek
cavalryman tore its
canvas roof with his sword, the point touching Schinas back
lightly. The two Cretan
gendarmes were forced to arm their weapons and turn them
threateningly against
the crowd so as to save him.
PROCEED WITH THE EMBALMING / The carriage with the King arrived
at the Papafio.
Two military doctors, Manoussos and Efstratiadis were there.
They transported
George to surgery on a stretcher, but by then, he had passed
away. Prince Nicholas
arrived at that moment. Crying, he bent over and kissed his
deceased father on the
forehead. Then, he calmly addressed the doctors: Gentlemen, you
duty now is to the
departed. Proceed with the embalmment. The post-mortem, signed
off by Manous-sos and Efstratiadis reports: The bullet entrance
hole is located on the back and to
the right, near the angle of the right shoulder blade. Its
diameter is equal to a two-
.
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. O prognathic jaw, hollow cheeks, broad forehead, small, thick,
whitish moustache, and
thin salt-and-pepper hair. He was practically in rags, his
clothing old, frayed, without
a collar, a long, endless, ancient, threadbare overcoat.
Nevertheless, what immedi-ately and particularly would draw the
attention of anyone setting eyes on Schinas
and attract, in a manner of speaking, ones gaze, simultaneously
causing a rather un-easy feeling in a viewers soul were his ears.
Very thick and elongated, set close to his
temples, they constituted two almost shapeless masses of flesh,
lacking almost all the
channels the shell of a normal ear usually has.
THE MURDER / The regicide overtook George and waited for him at
the corner of
present-day Vassileos Georgiou and Aghias Triadas, on the side
of the sea, at the
precise spot where a commemorative marble stele stands today.
From his pocket,
he removed a Montenegrin pistol, holding it hidden beneath his
overcoat. The King
approached with his aide on his left. Schinas shot George once
from a distance of
one and a half meters. The bullet entered under the right
shoulder blade. He kept
trying to shoot again, alternating between the King and the
aide, who attempted to
stop him, but the weapon misfired. Only the first shot was
successful. The King stag-gered. While the two Cretan guards
disarmed the assassin, the aide took the King in
his arms and carried him to a nearby Jewish grocery, laying him
down on two chairs
in there. The scene was observed by the passengers of a passing
streetcar, who got
katalog texts 2.indd 16-17 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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18 19
. ,
N. E
: K ! O B ! Z
B ! . Z B ! .
K N : H
.
.
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. H German battle ship Gben to allegedly maintain order; at the
same time, supposedly,
an Austrian battle ship, waited at a distance from the shore,
somewhere off Thessalo-niki, expecting a signal from the Gbens
wireless to put into port during the night and
debark officers to assume command of the city. The same rumour
wanted the Jews
involved, since a portion of the Jewish community had indeed
requested Thessaloniki
be pronounced a free port under Austrian control. Thus, a few of
the Gbens officers
and sailors who were in the city and had not managed to return
to their ship, were
detained by Greek soldiers on a small platform in Eleftherias
Square until eight that
evening, when they were picked up by steamboats and transported
to their ship.
By seven that afternoon, the city was calm. The market had
closed, the residents hud-dled home, while the only movement in the
streets were gendarmerie and military pa-trols. At the same time,
however, Bulgarian military and komitadji (irregular) patrols
were still in the streets. Nicholas notified the Bulgarian
General Hesapsiev: H.R.H.
the Military Governor of Thessaloniki, asks General Hesapsiev,
the representative of
the Bulgarian Commander-in-Chief, to please order the immediate
recall of all Bul-garian units patrolling the city. There are
sufficient Greek forces to maintain order,
and the Bulgarian units need not fatigue themselves for this
purpose. Hesapsiev was
enraged, but was finally persuaded by his civilian advisor
Stantsiev not to bring mat-ters to a head. In his memoirs,
Hesapsiev wrote regretfully: Such political advisors
. O
,
.
N / H .
M E. T
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N.
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. O . 68 .
. A lepta coin, with a singed inverted circumference. The bullet
exit hole on the other side
is located exactly three centimetres above the xiphoid process
in the centre of the
sternum; oblong, horizontal, and measuring approximately three
millimetres, it is full
of thrombi and blood. The large diameter bullet is made of lead.
Resulting death was
instantaneous. He was 68 years old.
The nurses and hospitalized solders were weeping and lamenting.
Officers began
gathering from all corners of the city. Suddenly, Prince
Nicholas appeared at the head
of the main staircase. He silenced the crowd with a single
gesture and in a formal
voice announced: Gentlemen! The King is dead! Long live the
King! Long live the
King! responded a chorus of tearful officers. Nicholas
continued: There is a danger
that order will be disrupted in a way that could have unhappy
consequences for the
Nation. I ask you all to please return to your stations and try
to maintain order in the
city in every way possible.
RUMOURS AND BULGARIAN CYCLISTS / Indeed, in the beginning,
rumours referred to
some Turkish assassin. The Cretan gendarmes began firing at
anyone wearing a fez,
and consequently panic-stricken Turks, Jews, and Albanians ran
to barricade them-selves at home. There were dead reported. Another
rumour spoke of a Bulgarian con-spiracy to take advantage of the
unrest Georges assassination would cause and inca-pacitate the
Greek authorities, assisted, moreover, by forces disembarking from
the
katalog texts 2.indd 18-19 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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20 21
E.,
. 10
.
T / ,
. P
. B. A .
N, : A
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, ... .
O
B. K. 9
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B. B. 12 M. H
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23 A,
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vestochori, Thessaloniki, had graduated from a secondary school
in Thessaloniki; un-employed, a former teacher, a gambler, and
long-time vagrant in Athens, he had yet
to reveal anything regarding his actions, hiding behind a veil
of confused ramblings
regarding anarchism and personal vengeance. Suddenly, while
waiting for the investi-gator, he escaped the attention of the
single guard, leaped out of an open window and
smashed onto the stone paving of the courtyard. In
1916, after a military coup broke out in Thessaloniki,
the 3rd Army Corps archives, along with the Schinas
interrogation file were sent to Athens on the steam-ship
Eleftheria; it caught fire, however, resulting in
the incineration of the critical file.
THE CONSEqUENC- ES / To this day, many interpreta-tions exist
regarding the assassination of George I. Many historians assert
Schinas was
a tool of the German secret service, which on orders of the
Kaiser, the brother of So-phia, the wife of Crown Prince
Constantine, armed Schinas. The purpose was to elimi-
DETAILS WERE TAKEN FROM
A SERIES OF REPORTS FILED
BY IN 1931 IN THE Makedonika
nea NEWSPAPER.
E,
A. ,
,
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.
7 . H ,
,
. T ,
. O N
x: H A.B.Y.
x, B A,
. A
. O x ,
.
x : A should not exist on the Staff. Thus, Bulgarian messengers,
horsemen, and cyclists
took to the streets and transmitted the recall order to the
patrols. At ten that night,
no Bulgarian patrols were making any more rounds.
THE REGICIDES FATAL LEAP/ In the meantime, Schinas was being
questioned at the police station by a prosecutor, Romanos and the
President of the Court of the First
Instance, Vaos. Let me be, he answered arrogantly. Nicholas, who
had hurried to
the station, promised him: If you tell the truth, and reveal who
made you do this evil
thing you have my word, your neck is safe. I care nothing for my
life, I have third
stage tuberculosis, Schinas replied. The prince assigned the
interrogations to an ar-tillery reserve officer, Second Lieutenant
Vassileios Kandares. By nine at night, the
embalming was complete and Georges remains were transported for
viewing to the
villa of Cleon Hatzilazaros, where the royal family was staying.
His funeral, through
present day Vassilissis Olgas and Vassileos Georgiou Streets
took place on March
12. The funeral procession concluded at the platform of the
White Tower, which was
draped in black crepe and from there, was carried onto the
steamship Amphitrite des-tined for Piraeus. The funeral took place
in Athens on March 20.
On April 23, Schinas was transported from the Heptapyrgos prison
hospital where
he was recuperating, to the office of investigator Kandares, on
the third floor of the
Residency, for yet another interrogation. The 52-year old
Schinas, originally from As-
katalog texts 2.indd 20-21 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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22 23
///// // //
,
1880 . ,
,
: , , ,
.
.
.
19 . ///// Ta s s o s S a ke l l a r o p o u l o s // n a b i l
i t y t o b r i d g e // During the fifty years of the reign of
George I, Greece peacefully increased its territories with the
agreement and assistance of the Great Powersthe Ionian Islands
at the beginning
of the era, Thessaly in 1880. Much later, just in the final
months of his reign, in the
midst of war efforts, and allied with the other Balkan states,
the country succeeded
in impressively increasing the range of its borders: Macedonia,
Epirus, the Eastern
Aegean Islands, Crete. This expansion was made possible, on the
one hand, by the
Ottoman Empires obvious political and military weakness and on
the other hand, by
the successful alliance of the Balkan States to move against the
Empire contesting
the greater part of its European territories. On the Greek side,
then Prime Minister
Eleftherios Venizelos was instrumental in forging the alliance,
while managing the
internal political situation and the ambitious military
preparations in an admirable
collaboration with the Crown and its adherents.
By and large, the unlimited expansion of the borders of the
Greek state constituted
the basic goal of the ideological movement known as Megali Idea
(Great Idea), which
was the irredentist objective of the majority of Greeks
inhabiting the nations territo-ries during the entire 19th century.
This movement appeared as the continuation and
outcome of the 1821 Greek War of Independence, the permanent
unresolved issue of
#30
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. 1916,
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.
nate the Anglophile George, replacing him on the throne with the
pro-German Con-stantine, which occurred; he was expected to support
Austro-German interests, and
correspondingly influence the Greek political scene. Others
claim Schinas was mur-dered to avoid revealing the name of Georges
actual assassin, supposedly an Austrian
officer. What is certain is that Georges assassination damaged
Greek interests, since
the unavoidable rift between the new king, Constantine, and
Prime Minister Elefthe-rios Venizelos led to a catastrophic split.
Georges assassination began the cycle of
famous murders that took place in Thessaloniki during the 20th
century: American
journalist George Polk, Communist Party Member Yiannis Zevgos,
and MP Grigoris
Lambrakis are only a few of those who wandered into the dark
side of the city.
A
M N
1931.
katalog texts 2.indd 22-23 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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24 25
.
. ,
,
( )
.
.
,
:
, ,
. had. In general, we might say he tried and succeeded both on
his own behalf, and on
behalf of his throne, to keep for himself the roles of
coordinator (wherever he could
safely do so) and of observer of the operation of the gears of
Greek life. Avoided and
smoothing over any friction that produced impediments, he ruled
like a Western lord
in an Eastern or even Oriental country.
A great rift occurred with the political arrival of Eleftherios
Venizelos; in his dyna-mism, George I perceived two basic elements
and a decisive purpose: A very powerful
irredentist background, originating in Crete, the main source of
the phenomenon, and
the support, which was provided, or would be provided to
Venizelos himself by a Greek
urban economic environment potentially capable of developing
into an economic
power with enhanced trading and productive abilities,
essentially different from the
up until then dominant economic ruling class. The decisive
purpose he discerned was
the pairing of the two, without risking social upheavals, yet to
the advantage of irre-dentist purposes; the success of the latter
would guarantee the dynasty true longevity
and acceptance by Greek society. However, a basic prerequisite
remained: The pairing
needed to be indissoluble, and demands for primacy from the old
environment or the
new nascent urban environment needed to be avoided.
When George I met his end, the above connection broke down. His
assassination did
not serve as the symbol of union but began the tug of war
between the two tenden-
1821,
,
,
.
( :
)
.
,
.
.
,
.
1897 a process, which remained incomplete after the countrys
borders were defined. This
was due to the existence of a large number of Greeks residing in
territories outside the
newly established Greek state.
The search for and the academic discussions regarding the
intentions and desires of
the unredeemed Greek populations (or unredeemed Greek
populations, it does not
matter) is thankfully still a matter of research and
investigation. The inquiry into the
solutions and proposals, i.e., the methods devised to complete
this process, which
aimed at a national or territorial integration is still very
important. This effort was ulti-mately based on nationalistic
impulses and not on developing political processes that
would safely promote this goal and correspondingly, be able to
absorb the impact of
the enterprises failure so as to avoid irreparably wounding and
discrediting the politi-cal and social process.
The long reign of George I was a national experience that
maintained and maintains
the quality of an unclouded national memory. The unsuccessful
uprisings on Crete
during his reign, as well as the defeat in the 1897
Greco-Turkish War did not prove to
be events capable of irreparably injuring his authority and
placing the stability of the
throne at risk. Since the progressive proposals he rejected as a
monarch never suc-ceeded in taking root to any extent in Greek
society during the period, they were un-able to function as a
credible challenge and wear down any objections he might have
katalog texts 2.indd 24-25 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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26 27
: , , ,
.
, .
,
,
.
.
.
,
.
element on the canvas rather than a point of departure.
His assassination fell into the void created by his absence.
Whether foreign agents
were behind it, or whether the assassin was insane, or an
anarchist were equally grave
questions, which were assigned the same negligible importance.
The dynamism of
the new king permitted his circle and the social group around
him to decide power
was now in their hands, obviously far removed from the boring
and hazardous politi-cal configuration necessary to create a
healthy political life as well as thriving empires.
Moreover, the restoration of the Byzantine Empire the Megali
Idea preached could
only be achieved on the imaginary level, ignoring whether the
goal was, or was not
feasible, unless its adherents mistakenly thought that to attain
the goal, the name
Constantine sufficed; that and the designation Constantine xII,
successor to the last
Palaeologus emperor, Constantine xI, rather than his actual
position in the new dy-nasty he belonged to, i.e., Constantine
I.
There is no advantage to anyone in having the weak death of
George I operate as
an element of the metaphysical history of the city of
Thessaloniki, a city already heav-ily burdened by the preservation
of its characteristic military fervour. As to the other
numerically and culturally strong communities that existed and
operated in the city
before its incorporation into the Greek state, history decided,
irrevocably, as it usu-ally does when pressured and aggravated.
However, their departure brought the city
neither peace nor tranquillity. From then until now, much has
ensued, and tranquil-lity continues to threaten clangour, i.e., the
harsh sound transforming every different
voice into a danger.
,
.
.
.
.
,
.
,
,
,
.
cies. Although the fact of the assassination of a king in a
city, which had just been
incorporated into the body of the state after a bloody and
successful war, could be
used advantageously to promote national purposes and operations,
and in spite of
the subsequent war, which would follow three months later, no
one claimed the kings
assassination in order to exploit any ensuing symbolic and
political advantages. The
dead king belonged to a system Venizelos did not control, while
the system the de-ceased belonged to preferred to assign a role to
a king who, himself, constituted a cog
in the Greek machine, i.e., to activate a king who functioned
like the local conductor
of a well-known repertory, where there were no vacant places.
The phrase the king is
dead, long live the king, endowed Thessaloniki with an element
that served as a cata-lyst, the political assassination, which met
up with a basic feature of cities located on
borders, be they national, political, or ethnic; the feature
that stems from maintaining
the regime of a framework under development which is never
achieved.
The assassination of George I was not caused, or at least was
not definitively attribut-ed to any organized activities, but
allowed organized activities to emerge. The event
remained in political limbo, fogging the landscape and symbols
on a path where the
desired conclusion was as obvious as the indifference regarding
the means employed
to attain it. The handling of the political prospects set in
motion other processes that
permitted persecutions and mass killings, transforming the
political death into an
katalog texts 2.indd 26-27 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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28 29
In the matter of the airmen, as I
said, our purpose was to attack the
aviators. Now, there were some
others inside. This cannot be con-
sidered a crime. In an operation,
you have to keep going, regardless
of whether you will face certain
things you had not foreseen. I do
not consider this act, or any of the
others, criminal, because you do
not commit a crime when you are
fighting a war.
,
,
. ,
.
.
,
,
.
,
, ,
.
#32
.
,
, , ,
.
,
.
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.
.
,
.
.
F o r t h e e v e n t
t o t r a n s p i r e
w e m u s t
s e t a s i d e
a l l f a c t s .
#31
///// A l a i n B a d i o u // .
///// A l a i n B a d i o u // fragment, 1985.
///// // // Accused // 1947 //
katalog texts 2.indd 28-29 13/10/2009 2:15:13
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30 31
. -
.
,
,
--
.
, ,
, 400 ,
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Italo Calvino,
, .
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,
. 1400 1500,
,
, .
I want to speak to you of the voidthe void the systematic
extermination of the Jews
of Thessalonikicreated in the body of the city, as well as of
the void it leaves in our
understanding of the past.
A passer-by, with no knowledge of history, would be hard put to
imagine that for over
400 years Jews represented the majority of this citys
population. In our days, the
traces of this Jewish presence are hidden behind buildings,
sounds, new languages.
You have to search, frequently behind the faade of the city, to
find the few signs of
a recent, yet uprooted past. If I might borrow a phrase from the
great Italian writer
Italo Calvino, I would say a city does not speak of its past,
nevertheless, it contains
it like the lines in ones palm. Its a shame that the lines of
Thessalonikis hand were
deliberately retraced, almost violently, as if the city and its
recent residents wanted
to fool the chance passer-by.
Allow me to go over a few details, you are unquestionably
familiar with. Towards the
end of the 1400s, and during the first decades of the 1500s, a
large wave of Sephardic
Jews, expelled from Spain and Portugal, arrived in Thessaloniki.
Here, they lived
alongside Jewish settlers of long agothe Apostle Paul found one
such community
///// // // [ . ] // .
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///// A n t o n i s M o l h o // T h e G h o s t s o f T h e s s
a l o n i k i // [ to the memory of Mrs. M. ] // Thessaloniki is my
home. I feel bound to its history, to my family, teach-ers, and the
friends I grew up with in this city. Their love, words, and example
helped
me mature. My youth in this city taught me something special.
This specific lesson
has to do with the meaning of loss, the feeling that develops
when considering what
it means to observeto experiencethe decline of a culture, the
disappearance of a
way of life, the merciless uprooting of people, of your people.
Naturally, we Thessalo-niki Jews are not the only ones whose fate
was largely defined by loss. The thousands
of Christians and Muslims forced from their homes in the early
1920sthe former
from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace, the latter from Thessaloniki
and its environs
they too experienced displacement and loss. The same happened to
emigrants from
Pontus, the Caucasus, and many other places in Eastern and
Southern Europe, who,
one way or another, found themselves in this by and large open
and hospitable city.
I believe ones relationship with Thessaloniki, whether one is
born and bred here, or
has settled here for some reason, cultivates sensitivity in the
face of the experience,
actual or psychological, of loss and exile. We suffer
alongsidewe have to suffer
alongsidethose who suffer or are tortured.
Today, on a day dedicated to the memory of the thousands of
victims of Nazi hatred,
#33
katalog texts 2.indd 30-31 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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32 33
. 1946, ,
4.000 . ,
,
,
.
.
: 60 , .
.
. .
; ; ;
;
, , .
. , 20
,
.
1946 tinations both near and far; others distanced themselves
from Jewish traditions, yet
others entered into mixed marriages, something which is not at
all rare. An optimistic
calculation puts the Jewish population of Thessaloniki at the
beginning of our century
at approximately one thousand.
To summarize: Out of 60,000, approximately one thousand now live
in the city. I hope
my reference to the void created in the city is now clear.
Today, my subject is that void.
The void is a difficult subject. How do you discuss the void?
Silence? Absence? How do
you describe what present-day Thessaloniki would be like had the
violent displace-ment of World War II never happened?
Of course, many things have not changed; or at least their
essence has not. To cite an
example: For centuries, until the first decades of the 20th
century, Jews excelled at
activities that allowed them to form tiesand not only
financialwith the European
West. I shall read you an extract from a wonderful book
published in New York in 1946.
Its author, Leon Sciaky was born in Thessaloniki in 1892 and
immigrated to New York
in 1912, at the age of 20. When contemplating the contrast of
the various civilizations
and traditions of his childhood, the mixture of East and West
that characterized the
contents of his Thessaloniki home, he wrote of the living room:
Nowhere did these
two meet is as conspicuous incongruity than in the living hall
upstairs, the verandado,
[please note the Spanish word, I shall return to it shortly]
where they glared uneasily
.
.
15
16 . ,
,
. : 16
(
,
), 17
18 ,
, 19 ,
. ,
40 :
60, 80 .
, 60.000.
, ,
1943. , when he visited the city. It was precisely these
Sephardic Jews who, after settling in
the city, gave a special character to Thessaloniki and its
Jewish community. It is diffi-cult to calculate how many of these
Jews settled in Thessaloniki around the end of the
15th and the early 16th centuries. Nevertheless, almost
immediately after their settle-ment, they constituted the citys
largest religious group, and for approximately four
centuries the citys majority population. Other Jewish groups
arrived later: During the
16th century, Marranos (i.e., Jews of Iberian descent, forced at
a certain point to em-brace Christianity, but who, shortly after
leaving Spain, returned to the traditions of
their forefathers), at the end of the 17th and the beginning of
the 18th centuries, Jews,
mostly merchants and entrepreneurs, arrived from Leghorn in
Tuscany, and at the end
of the 19th century, came Jewish refugees from the Russian
pogroms. Right before
Thessaloniki was incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece, the
Jews represented ap-proximately 40% of the citys population: They
numbered over 60,000 perhaps even
reached 80,000.
A little before World War II, less than 60,000 remained. Many, a
great many, were
then murdered by the Nazis and their allies, between March and
August 1943. In a
few months, the majority of Thessalonikis Jews disappeared from
the face of the
city. In 1946, after the camp survivors returned, there were
less than 4,000 Jews in
Thessaloniki. However, immediately after the war, many of the
survivors left for des-
katalog texts 2.indd 32-33 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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34 35
, ,
, ,
, .
,
1800 1900. .
,
, .
,
.
, .
, veran-dado Schiaky.
; Schiaky
, ,
brought socialist ideas and union organizing methods appropriate
to the gradual in-dustrialization of the city; Avraam Benaroya, a
Jew, came to Thessaloniki from Bul-garia and founded the first
trade union in the Ottoman Empire. Jewish businessmen
persuaded the Austrian tycoon, Baron Maurice de Hirsch, to
finance the railway net-work linking Thessaloniki to Vienna, and
from there to other European capitals. Jews
played a vital role in all these, as well as other, activities
between the end of the 1800s
and the beginning of the 1900s. Their contribution cannot be
doubted. But their post-war absence did not prevent other groups
from following and frequently extending
the paths they had created. One might say that in all these
sectors, the void created
by the destruction of practically the entire Jewish population
may be viewed primarily
as a matter of numbers.
Elsewhere, it is very difficult to limit this void to numbers.
Lets go back to the extract
I read you a little while ago, the description of the verandado
in Sciakys home. What
is a Spanish word doing in a text written in elegant English? It
is a fact that Sciaky and
his family, like the majority of Thessalonikis Jews,
communicated among themselves
primarily in a language that was a variant of the Spanish
Castilian idiom, i.e., the lan-guage their ancestors spoke at the
time of their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula.
For many generations, Ladino, also known as Judaeo-Spanish, was
the language used
by Thessalonikis Jews to communicate among themselves.
Naturally, they knew oth-
. , Leon Schiaky, 1892
1912, 20 .
,
,
: T ,
, veran-dado, [ , ]
, .
.
, ,
,
,
.
.
. , ,
.
.
,
: , , at each other. One end of the uncommonly large room was
distinctly Occidental. The
massive walnut table, the elegantly upholstered easy chairs and
sofas, the console
with the gilt-framed mirror and the elaborately carved
grandfathers clock might well
have graced a tastefully appointed living room in Vienna or
Paris, where the furniture
had been made. The other end was almost bare in its simplicity.
Two, low, wide divans
bearing a profusion of brightly colored downy pillows lined the
wall. To this side, with
its proferred hedonic comfort of the East, would the family
gravitate instinctively.
The description of this private space and the portrait of a
culture that sprang from a
European way of life reflect a network of ties with the West,
which becomes evident
in other activities as well. Jews established foreign schools
where their children were
educated according to European standards. Jews brought life to
the citys intellectual
circles, publishing dozens of newspapers and magazines, full of
interesting political
and cultural news from abroad; a Jew from Leghorn, Dr. Moses
Allatini, built what is
considered to have been the first factory in the Southern
Balkans. Thessaloniki Jews
katalog texts 2.indd 34-35 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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36 37
.
,
, .
.
, Machiavelli (D. II, 25)
,
.
:
;
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,
;
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500 ,
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Extending the Italian intellectuals argument, I might ask: What
might the disappear-ance of a language, which for centuries had
expressed the thinking of a large part
of its population mean for present-day Thessaloniki? What might
this silence signify?
What consequences might the expulsion of this language from the
citys cultural
framework have for the city, for its character, its deeper
essence?
Let us move on to another type of void. An imaginary traveller,
following the traces
of what he remembers hearing from his elders or read in old
descriptions, continues
north of the White Tower. His recollection tells him that in
less than 500 meters he
,
,
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1875
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, , er languages: Turkish, Greek, Serbian, Hebrew and a series
of other Western languag-es such as Italian, French, and German.
Yet Ladino was the everyday language. Permit
me to bring up a personal memory. My grandmother, my fathers
mother, who was
born in Thessaloniki in 1875 and miraculously survived the
German occupation thanks
to the generosity of a Christian friend, knew only Ladino well.
Of course, she spoke
Greek, remembered may Turkish expressions, and knew how to read
the Hebrew she
used during the Jewish High Holidays. But her language was
Ladino. It was the only
language she knew how to read (in Hebrew, not Latin characters),
and whenever her
sons and grandchildren returned to Thessaloniki from travels in
Western Europe, they
were tasked with bringing her French, Italian, and English, but
not German, novels
translated into Ladino and written in Hebrew characters. Since
the corresponding
published output was poor, and because her sons and
grandchildren did not want to
upset her, you could frequently find two or three different
editions of the same book
in my grandmothers house.
Today, it would be hard to find in Thessaloniki one person under
fifty who understands
Ladino, or anyone under eighty who speaks it. The void created
by the disappearance
of Ladino is not just a linguistic one. Because as Machiavelli
(D. II, 25) wrote, approxi-mately during the period the Sephardic
community was being created in Thessaloniki,
the disappearance of a language constitutes a sure sign that a
culture has vanished.
katalog texts 2.indd 36-37 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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38 39
,
,
.
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Modiano,
, villa Fernandes...
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. Haussman
19
boulevards .
, , ,
,
,
. ,
. , scattered here and here, stacked one upon the other; they
were used as construction
material to create gardens or small squares and in one instance
during the German
occupation, to construct a swimming pool. You wonder whether
those responsible
for this vandalism that tarnished the sacred character of these
marbles understood
what they were doing. Our traveller, surrounded by dozens and
dozens of happy and
effusive students, cannot but be rendered speechless by the
reverberating silence
enveloping him. The silence of all those graves and their
inhabitants, awaiting some-one patiently, for generations, or even
for centuries. And you cannot help but wonder
what price should be paid by a city that, along with its
inhabitants, desecrated the
sanctity of a cemetery, violently imposing upon future
generations an ignorance of
the citys own dead.
Other silences are less dramatic, but no less important. I
remember, going to school
in the morning, and the trolley car driver announcing, always in
the same ceremonial
and slightly tired voice, the stops as we reached them:
Misrachi, or Hirsch. These were
echoes of a pre-war Jewish Thessaloniki, sounds that have also
been lost. Today, who
remembers why the citys central market is called Modiano, or why
the large imposing
ruin east of the city bears the name Allatini, or even why the
conservatory is housed in
the Villa Fernandes Someone, and rightfully so, might tell me
that all cities change
with the passing of time. Baron Haussmann radically changed the
appearance of Paris
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will encounter the old Jewish cemetery, ten times larger and
older than the one in
Pragueat least according to the books. Silence is required in a
cemetery. But our
friend encounters a completely different silence. Because the
closer he gets to where
the old cemetery ought to be, the more he is enveloped by a
colourful environment,
noisy, with a restless and happy liveliness he recognizes as
characteristic of a univer-sity environment. Indeed, the area where
the old Jewish cemetery used to be was im-mediately taken over
after the war by the great public university, which takes its
name
from the consummate philosopher born near Thessaloniki: the
Aristotle University,
with a student population of approximately one hundred thousand,
a focal point for
the study of history and languages, one of the most important
European institutions
for such studies.
And the cemetery? Its disappeared. Destroyed by the Nazis and
their collaborators.
Not a trace exists, not even one sign, not even a memorial
honouring its memory,
nothing to recall its centuries-long presence in that area. But
Calvino is right. If you
search carefully, you will find a certain memory, a little
further down, near the en-trance to the university, next to the
Hippodrome. Embedded in a wall, along the visi-tors path, is a
fragment of a funerary plaque taken from the old cemetery. One
can
make out the Hebrew letters, although it is impossible to
ascertain the identity of the
individual this plaque honours. As a child, I saw hundreds of
such funerary stones,
katalog texts 2.indd 38-39 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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40 41
,
, , .
, ,
. , , .
. , .,
. .
, .
.
.
, .
,
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,
1943, . ,
, ,
: she spent many pleasant hours in conversation. Mrs. M. (as the
researcher referred
to her) was very eager to share with her everything she
remembered of the war, her
adventures and those of her family, and her postwar life.
Apparently, at a certain
point, the anthropologist was struck by the fact that, shortly
after the war, Mrs. M.
had left Thessaloniki and settled in the United States. After
being widowed, she re-turned to the city and lived there during her
final 15 years. The young woman asked
her why she left. When all is said and done, she could have led
a more comfortable life
in Thessaloniki. The environment was familiar, she was lucky to
have some relatives
who had survived, and life in Greece would have undoubtedly been
easier and more
pleasant than life as an immigrant in the United States. The
elderly lady replied that
after returning to Thessaloniki from her Athens refuge at the
end of the war, the city
appeared empty to her. Wandering the streets, she expected to
meet her parents, her
siblings, her friends. Yet instead of them, all she saw were
ghosts. And these ghosts
pursued her wanting to know why she was not with them as well.
And thus, Mrs. M.
repeated, she left, because the city had filled with ghosts. She
wanted to escape. But
no one can escape from ghosts, and so she returned. You must
learn to recognize your
ghosts and reconcile with them. This is the only way to continue
living.
Today, very few of Thessalonikis residents remember those
ghosts. Very few linger
before the memorial finally erected, after endless and almost
unbelievable dithering,
in Eleftherias Square to honour the memory of all those members
of Thessalonikis
.
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,
. , in the mid-19th century, uprooting entire neighbourhoods to
construct the great bou-levards of the French capital. Similarly,
Florence, the city I have been living in these
past years, during the period it served as the capital of the
newly established Italian
State, tore down large parts of the old medieval town centre so
the citys grid could
acquire a modern character. In Vienna, cemeteries were
transferred from areas near
the centre to the countryside or the suburbs. From this
perspective, where Thessa-loniki differs is in the combination of
violence with oblivion. This oblivion was culti-vated by the citys
residents, as if wanting, after the war, to erase from their
collective
memory a large and important chapter of their history.
Approximately fifteen years ago, an English anthropologist
stayed a while in Thes-saloniki to study the citys Jewish society.
During her research, she spoke with around
twenty elderly individuals, and tried to understand what they
remembered of their
troubled past, how they had succeeded in escaping the fate of
their relatives and
friends in Auschwitz, and their thoughts on their postwar life.
This young researchers
published account reveals she had been very impressed by an
elderly lady with whom
katalog texts 2.indd 40-41 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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42 43
,
.
.
.
///// - // : ; //
/ , , [] / /
- 1943. - : - ,
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.
( 1943-1944),
( ), (
///// O d e t t e V a r o n V a s a r // T h e D e p o r t a t i
o n o f T h e s s a l o n i -k i s J e w s : A C r i m e w i t h o
u t A n y Tr a c e s ? // How can I find a simpler explanation
for Elias / Claire, Raoul, and Aigyptou Street [] / For how so
many faces become numbers /
Manolis Anagnostakis
The greatest crime against Thessalonikis residents was committed
by the Nazi con-querors against the citys Jews in 1943. Only the
first act of the drama actually took
place in the city itself: Herding the Jews of Thessaloniki into
a ghetto to facilitate their
deportation to the extermination camps. The second and final
act, the implementa-tion of the Nazis greatly desired final
solution to the problem of Jewish existence,
took place in the camps the Nazis had founded in Poland,
primarily in the Auschwitz-
Birkenau extermination camp, which belonged to Auschwitz large
camp complex.
Two high-level, key Nazi officials, Dieter Wisliceny and Alois
Brunner, were respon-sible for planning and implementing the final
solution in Thessaloniki. Moreover, a
principal reason the Germans had not ceded Thessaloniki to their
Italian allies was its
large and important Jewish community, a prime target in their
eyes.
Thus, the greatest mass murder of the citys residents took place
in some other time
(19431944), in some other place (Auschwitz); the victims were
some others (the Jews
were others to the Orthodox, Greek-speaking element), and the
perpetrators were
some foreigners (the German conquerors). Do these parameters
make it possible for
#35
. . 270.000 . , . : , , , , . , , , , ,
.large population who were lead to the slaughter during those
horrible months be-tween spring and summer 1943. And to serve as a
reminder that in the end the actual
victor in the last war turned out to be the Third Reich, which
unquestionably succeed-ing in realizing one of its primary goals:
the extermination of a large part of Europes
Jews.I grew up in Thessaloniki. During my childhood, the city
numbered approximately 270,000 inhabitants. Since then, the
population has exceeded one and a half million. Today, Thessaloniki
is a very pleasant city: the beach, its countless cafes and bars,
where the young and the not so young meet up, its exceptionally
vibrant trade, the energy of its large port, all this and much more
lend the citys life a noisy intensity and an admirable creative
tension. Yet, frequently, having now reached the threshold of old
age, each time I cross the streets and squares I had loved so much
as a carefree child, I wonder if all this frenetic life, this
almost pure hedonism that so impresses me every time I wander the
city, is nothing more than an effort to exorcise the ghosts
that
for so many years had pursued that old lady.
FIRST COMES THE CRIME OF MORALIZATIONS AND LOSSES
OF SERIAL SENSUALISMS
UNTIL THEY SUFFER AND ARE OVERWHELMED
WITH A LOCAL CLEAVER.
THE CRIME OF CRAVINGS WITH THEIR INSTANTANEOUS ExCISION.
THE COMPLETE DARKNESS OF THE MIND.
AND THE RAPID COMPLETE DISCHARGE OF THE SENSORY CENTRES.
///// Dimitr is Dimitr iadis // WRITER // fragment // .
///// // // // 1986
#34
katalog texts 2.indd 42-43 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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44 45
500 -! , 500 ,
, 1 .. .,
,
500
( ).
- , - [1]. ,
.
( -, ) 450 (1492, 1943,
)
;
16 , Madre de Israel, -
- . 16 . coming part of a network of cities, but above all, the
opportunity for self-knowledge,
while perpetuating a systematic oblivion. The ghosts
unfortunately remained ghosts,
instead of becoming an actual past and an acknowledged
trauma.
I wonder what could leave a greater mark upon a citys history
than the extermination
of an element of its population (the bearer of a completely
unique civilization, the
Sephardic), which for over 450 years (1492, exile from
Spain1943, deportation by
the Nazis) constituted the most numerous and vibrant portion of
its population? The
one who brought life back to the practically deserted Ottoman
city of the early 16th
century, transforming it into the Madre de Israel, the Jerusalem
of the Balkans,
spreading the glory of Sephardic civilization not only to the
western but also the east-ern end of the Mediterranean Basin, and
of course deep into the Balkans. The 16th
century was thus transformed into a golden age for the
Thessaloniki Jews, and hence
for the city itself, since they were the most powerful element
of the citys population.
Only the first act of this drama would take place in the city
itself. This act, however,
would mark Thessaloniki conclusively, changing its postwar
character. The first act
included the gathering of the Jews to use the language of the
period; in todays
language they were herded into ghettos and deported. The second
and conclusive
act would take place in the death camps, primarily in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau camps
of occupied Poland, where they would be put to death. Thus, the
crime left no bodies
, ) ( -).
;
2008,
.
91% ( 96%),
- ,
!
50.000 -
, -
,
.
the crime to be ex-cluded from the citys
history? This is pre-cisely what the Munic-ipal Council claimed
in
the summer of 2008,
when it refused to include Thessaloniki in the Martyred Cities
Network of Greece.
One argument was that the eradication of 91% of Thessalonikis
Jews (the actual
percentage is 96%) does not make Thessaloniki a martyred city,
because the crime
took place outside Thessaloniki! The approximately 50,000
Thessaloniki Jews who
vanished were murdered in some other place; therefore, this
crime does not belong
to the citys history.
The councils other argument was that Jews had resided in the
city for only 500
years! Apart from being historically wrong, because, although
the presence of the
Sephardim, i.e., the Judeo-Spaniards, dated back 500 years,
there had been Jews liv-ing in the city since the 1st century CE,
this argument was, in any case, completely
lame; it takes an active community much less than 500 years to
leave its mark on
a citys historylet alone a community that for many centuries had
also been the
largest one. Thus, Thessaloniki not only lost the opportunity to
take advantage of be-
1. . . , 17/7/2008.:
500 !.
, ,
, .
2 . , , . .
, 1430-1950, . ,
2007, . 507. . 22
(. . 495-520).
3 . . , , , . 171,.
, 1971 .
4 . . , , , . 173, .
, 1971 .
katalog texts 2.indd 44-45 13/10/2009 2:15:14
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46 47
Sonderkommando Rosenberg. , - , -
, , 1941.
15 . ,
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, as libraries and archives were looted. The destruction served
a double purpose: On
the one hand, to gather precious objects, and, on the other, to
eradicate the historical
presence of the Jews in the city.
THE JEWISH CEMETERY / A short while later, came the turn of the
vast Jewish cemetery,
which would be obliterated by the Nazis. It, too, had a
centuries-long history, since
Jews never disinter their dead. Some of the tens of thousands of
engraved marble
gravestones, works of great artistic value as well as
expressions of respect towards
the dead, would be used to construct the walls of a swimming
pool for Nazi officials.
Hundreds more of these slabs would be destroyed, while others
would be scattered
around the old city and used as building material. Along with
them, thousands of Ju-deo-Spanish names, as well as ways of
expressing affection and respect towards the
dead would be swept into oblivion. When the whirlwind of the
Occupation was over,
the postwar Greek state would take advantage of the huge area,
which the destruc-tion of the cemetery had opened up in the centre
of the city, to erect in its place the
first buildings of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In
fact, the area had been
at risk, since even before the war, as the municipality had been
challenging the Jew-ish communitys ownership. In a way, the Nazis
actions facilitated and expedited the
Greek plans.
Not a single commemorative plaque or monument reminds or teaches
the thousands
in Thessaloniki itself. In fact, there were no bodies anywhere,
since the ovens of the
crematoria burned the bodies the moment they were removed from
the gas cham-bers. Eradicating every trace of the final solution
was an important concern of the
Nazi leadership, and certain camps fell into the hands of the
allies, simply because
there was not enough time to completely obliterate them (in
Auschwitz, they were
destroying crematoria and gas chambers at a feverish pace,
before evacuating all the
prisoners who could still walk).
The crime, however, left all sorts of traces on the body of the
city itself.
LOOTED SYNAGOGUES, LIBRARIES, AND ARCHIVES / The first group of
officials who
dealt with Thessalonikis Jewish community was the so-called
Sonderkommando
Rosenberg, which consisted of scholarly persecutors. With the
backing of the Weh-rmacht, they first attacked the city and its
treasures, mobile and immobile, as early
as June 1941. They looted synagogues established centuries ago,
while religious sym-bols, which, transported from Spain at the end
of the 15th century, had survived in
their new country, now began the reverse journey towards
Germany. Holy sites were
stripped bare of many precious objects. Individuals would have
their turn later. But
objects have their own symbolic meaning. Before the people
themselves, their pre-cious and old books, archives, manuscripts,
the very evidence of the centuries-long
history of the Sephardic Jews, which attested to their roots in
Greece, were destroyed
, ,
.
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. - - -, .
, , - .
,
( -
).
.
, /
katalog texts 2.indd 46-47 13/10/2009 2:15:15
-
48 49
.
,
, .
, , - .
. -
,
. ,
,
, . ,
,
.
, .
/ -. , -,
. ,
, THE GHETTO / So, the city was damaged first, its form brutally
altered. Then came the
turn of Jewish businesses, which closed or changed hands; this
resulted in a long peri-od of paralysis for the local market, and
society was deprived of the services provided
by Jews. Finally, the Jewish houses, from the famous villas in
the good quarters to the
citys simple middle- and working-class residences, were emptied
of their inhabitants,
who were transported to the two ghettos created in the western
and eastern suburbs
of the city respectively. Ironically, in a city, where ghettos
had never existed, ghettos
were created precisely to deport its citizens. The historian
Mark Mazower points out
another irony: A third ghetto, the Baron Hirsch ghetto, with an
exit directly towards
the train station, had originally been established at the end of
the 19th century as
a settlement to house Ashkenazi refugees, escaping from the
pogroms of the Rus-sian Czars. George Vafopoulos wrote: The old,
the children, the sick, and the women
were now gathered in the Hirsch camp. And this camp was a
neighbourhood, a quar-ter surrounded by barbed wire, and it was
named after Baron Hirsch, a rich Jew, who,
in the old days, had built the hospital bearing his name and
other foundations for the
care of poor Jews.
The Departure
A fierce wind sweeps / In my memory across that Egnatia /
George Ioannou
,
- . ,
.
, -
- .
.
.
.
/ 11 1942
9.000 , -, , ,
. ,
.
( 1942
). -of Humanities students about the sites previous history.
ELETHERIAS SqUARE / The first public humiliation and physical
ordeals were suffered
by 9,000 Jewish men in Thessaloniki on July 11, 1942. Made to
stand, their heads un-covered in Eletherias Square, they waited for
hours without any water to register their
names. From this list, those deemed able to work would be sent
to forced labour
in the general vicinity. This was a first selection (although
these men would return
from forced labour in December 1942). The few, w