The Sephardic Holocaust: The Destruction of the Jews of Greece with Prof. Devin Naar

Although often omitted from standard presentations of the Holocaust, the Jews of Greece suffered one of the highest mortality rates of any Jewish community under Nazi occupation. The largest of all Ladino-speaking communities, Salonica (Thessaloniki), known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans,” where Jews comprised half of the city’s residents at the turn of the century and where the port closed on Saturday in observance of the Jewish Sabbath, was completely decimated. This lecture will explore the distinctive processes of destruction, possibilities of survival, and the echoes of the memory of this once great community.