THE GREEK ISLANDS AND THE HOLOCAUST

Mention of the Greek Islands conjures up idyllic scenes of starch white villas with blue shutters scattered like birthday candles on the steep slopes of rugged mountains. Red bougainvillea flowers drape over the balcony overlooking the calm turquoise sea with the azure blue skies above. But the picture belies the over two millennia history of the islands that has seen bloody massacres and genocide - the most historic being the Crusader invasion and the most recent being the Holocaust where two thousand of the six million Jews who succumbed to Nazi genocide were domiciled. Furthermore the Isles only became part of Greece following the end of the Second World War having for thirty odd years been under the Italian flag who in turn, just before The Great War, succeeded the Ottoman Empire.

On two of the Greek Islands, Rhodes and Kos, that were then Italian colonies, in July 1944, the entire Jewish population was rounded up to undertake the longest journey of any of Europe’s Jews, to the death camps - almost three weeks, 13 days of which were in the cattle trains. This cold-blooded slaughter of men, women and children was part of Hitler Germany’s Third Reich’s “final solution”. Within one day of their arrival nearly nineteen hundred were no longer alive.

For seven days in July 2019, including the twenty - third, a Memorial was held on the seventy - fifth anniversary of the martyrdom of the Jews of the Dodecanese Islands. Over two hundred and fifty of their descendants gathered to pay tribute and jog the numb memory of the world. Also they assembled in the hope that atrocities of a similar nature would never take place again. Sadly genocide has since been perpetrated in Kosovo, Cambodia and Africa. 

 The over two hundred and fifty descendants, including the one remaining survivor who lives on Rhodes, gathered in solemn commemoration. The martyrs were not to be forgotten. Hopefully the lesson would be learned that even the most sophisticated, cultured and civilized countries in the world could give birth to the most racist and irrational inhumanity ever recorded. 

THE SECOND WORLD WAR WAS ABOUT RACE EXTERMINATION

The second world war wasn’t, in the final analysis for economic reasons. It wasn’t even to create an empire as repeated rationalizations have argued. Nothing illustrates the fact more than in1944, with the war already lost, essential transport by rail, which was much needed to ferry life sustaining supplies to the battle fronts, was rather being mobilized in a manic bid to round up every possible civilian jew that was in the grasp of the Fuhrer. The Jews of Rhodes and Kos were ferried to their deaths in July 1944 after Mussolini had already been deposed and Italy defeated. Italy’s and Germany’s legacy will be forever associated with the genocide of the “vermin” that were contradictorily blamed for world wide capitalism and international communism or for being too rich or too poor.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF RHODES AND KOS

The major influx of Jews, known as Sephardi, to the Dodocanese Islands followed the Spanish and then the Portuguese Inquisitions. That immigration reached its peak in the early sixteenth century. Then there is strong evidence, to be confirmed archeologically, that a “Romanesque” Jewish sect immigrated following the fall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem with the Roman expulsion of the Jews from Palestine in the year seventy of the common era. At its peak the Jewish population of Rhodes was six thousand. However extreme poverty resulted in four thousand emigrating to Central Africa and the Americas so in the 1930’s the community was about two thousand. The Islands always experienced poverty and at the time of the Holocaust eighty percent of the Jewish populations were classified as such. 

The Jews lived for nearly half a millennium in a ghetto, “The Jewish Quarter”, in the “Old City”, where all their education, worship, social activities and commerce took place. The community was tightly knit and a number of families were wealthy and were benefactors. In 1913 Baron Edmund de Rothschild founded a school which allowed several children to gain an education that they otherwise would not have had. On Rhodes there were at least four houses of worship which also served as social centers. One of these, Kal Shalom whose most recent rebuilding dates to 1841, is still in service. A Fountain in the Courtyard has the Hebrew Calendar date corresponding to 1577 indicating that an earlier construction had taken place after the arrival of the Jews who had been expelled by the Inquisition. The configuration of the interior is strongly suggestive of the Synagogues that were built early in the second millennium following the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. There is thus every indication that Jews were on the island for two thousand years, 

Today the permanent Jewish Community consists of thirteen souls one of which is Sammy Modliani who went to the concentration camps at the age of thirteen. Descendants of the survivors extending to the third generation as well as from those that had emigrated in the twentieth century visit regularly and constituted the demographic of the attendees to the anniversary. 

FORERUNNERS TO THE ROUNDING UP OF THE COMMUNITY. 

As early as 1936 discrimination began and there was a fascist anti - semitic campaign. Initially the discrimination was against “foreign” Jews who did not have Italian citizenship who were issued expulsion orders. Jews were forced to keep their shops open and work on the sabbath. All children had to have a fascist education. Jews could no longer teach or be in academia.The Rabbinical college was closed. Furthermore they were forced out of any government position including the army. As the pressure built up Mussolini appointed his son in law as Governor. He inflicted more and more economic hardship confiscating trade licenses and forcing the sale of businesses and shares at rock bottom prices. There were the racial purity laws making intermarriage a crime and generally outlawing everyday communication between the communities.

The thoroughness of the round up can be put down to the fact that the Italian Royal Secret Police had compiled a detailed list of each and every family. In addition there are letters and photos in the recently discovered files. The whole heinous deed could not have been effected without the cooperation of them and the local administration.

Hitler and Mussolini had paid one another reciprocal visits and the Italian’s entry into the war in June 1940 was a further cause for consternation. German troops were stationed in Greece and the Dodecanese Islands. In October 1943 a highly ranked Secret Field Officer was transferred to Rhode Island .On July 13, 1944 the head of the German Garrison gave the order for the round up. All but about a hundred and fifty of the over two thousand from Rhodes and Kos survived. 

The marches, sea and rail transport and detentions were marked by brutality, torture and beatings by the captors on an unimaginable scale. For example on the thirteen day train trip from the Concentration Camp in Greece to Auschwitz forty died. Periodically the journey was halted to throw the dead out.

THE WEEK LONG MEMORIAL OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HOLOCAUST OF RHODES AND KOS.

Besides the memorial services in the Rhodes synagogue, at the Rhodes and Kos Cemeteries, and at Martyrs’ Square Rhodes, several other events were held. Many of the activities were centered around the old Jewish Quarter in the Old City including the Kal Shalom Synagogue which includes offices and a museum. A two and a half hour walking tour featured all the old landmarks. Many of the houses are now occupied by poor sections of the Island’s community. Those buildings that lined the streets are now shops and restaurants which are visited by tens of thousands of tourists annually. Nearby the Synagogue is a fountain where the victims were coralled. At the square is a recently erected Holocaust Memorial  where a wreath laying ceremony took place. The area has been renamed Martyrs' Square by the local authorities.

Amongst the events was a march on the route that the victims took to the docks at the Rhodes harbor and the sea trip that the Kos hundred undertook to join their brethren in Rhodes.

The various services were attended by Greek dignitories. the Imam of Turkey, a Bishop from the Greek Orthodox Church as well as a representative of the German Embassy in Athens. The latter expressed remorse and sorrow and outlined the efforts that her Government was making to fight the current resurgence of anti - semitism. A prominent Greek journalist berated officialdom at not doing enough in this regard.  

While there were many poignant moments to reflect on a few stood out. Watching the wreath cast in the water at the site where the future concentration attendees entered the cargo ship, slowly float away until it became a speck in the vast ocean was one. Another was the realization that the unpleasant long bumpy sea trip between Kos and Rhodes in a well fitted boat made the attendees reflect on the indescribably traumatic journey the terrified brutalized community undertook. (The fact that Germany was on its last and racial genocide was the agenda when these enormities took place was epitomized by the delay of five days in proceeding to the gas chambers due to fuel shortage),

There was a day long seminar on the research being done on the subject of the Holocaust. Topics spanned the vast archives that were available to research the atrocities, the archeology being conducted of the destruction across Europe, the testimony of survivors and their descendants and the coping of the guilt and anger of the descendants. Many of the latter were bearing witness to the memorials at the cemetery more than aware that had their forefathers not been one of the one hundred and fifty that survived or one of the four thousand that had left the Islands before the war, they would not have been there either. 

OUT OF THE HOLOCAUST CAME HOPE.

There are the inspiring stories of hope and humanity that are also the legacy of this dark period - Anne Frank’s Diary, Elie Wiesel The Nobel Laureate for Peace who has advocated for humanity, Viktor Frankel who became a Founder of Modern Positive Psychology and the many sung and unsung heroes of this travesty of civilization.

While many non Jews collaborated as the scholarly work by Daniel Goldhagen in his book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” indicated, there were many who risked all to fight against this barbarism. Some are known through movies and novels such as the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved tens of thousands and Oskar Schindler who was immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s epic “Schindler’s List”. The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel has an extensive data base of nearly thirty thousand individuals from fifty - one nations in their project entitled “The Righteous Among Nations”. While none listed appear to have intervened directly in Rhodes Island there are six hundred and ninety - four Italians who have been recognized. In Rhodes itself the Muslim Grand Mufti hid the Torah Scrolls of the Synagogue so they would not fall into the hands of the Nazis.

In spite of all the mounting evidence of the holocaust, the museums erected and school education there is also a growing trend to deny, distort and to even vilify those who remember.

ANTISEMITISM AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN 2019

In the last decade the world has witnessed an escalation of anti - semitism. Former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, has bitterly commented that he never imagined that in the shadow of the Holocaust the specter of race hate of the Jews would rise again. There is statistic upon statistic illustrating the increase in hate crimes, desecration and attacks against the Jews. Sacks has argued that anti semitism is like a virus that mutates. In the Inquisition and through the ages it was based on religion, while following World War One its rationale was on the basis of race and now it is centered on the nation state of Israel. So now the Jews have become the Nazis and the Palestinians the Jews. While no one can but have empathy for the Palestinian citizens it is almost facile to relay the fact that their leaders and Arab nations have refused to create a state since the decision of the United Nations in 1947 to form two nations in the then Palestine. There have been wars and intifadas to reclaim the whole area. Ironically the moderate leader of the Palestinian Liberation Movement Mohammed Abbas’s University thesis was denial that the Holocaust ever occured. 

The objective between the unholy alliance between countries such as Iran, terror groups such as ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah, on College Campuses, the selective morality of the United Nations and left and right wing groups has not been to disagree with the policies of Israel but rather to question its existence. Also there is criticism of the remembrance of the Holocaust. The argument being that the Jews and Israel are using it to perpetrate their racism. Once again, even in America, it is argued that Jewish money controls the world.

THE SURREAL AURA SURROUNDING THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREEK ISLAND HOLOCAUST 

To anyone who has read about the horrors of The Final Solution such as the sheer insanity reflected in Elie Wiesel’s “The Night” attending such memorial events have a surreal aura of normality surrounding them. There is inevitably a mask of deep denial that each and everyone is uncomfortably behind. For on this solemn occasion there is also a joyous reunion of families and friends that have not seen each other for varying periods of time. There is the sumptuous dining of Rhodes, the beaches, the local wares all at low prices….. 

However every now and then lurking into the conscious is the fact that on the anniversary march to the dock there was no separation of men, women and children. That after watching the wreath float into the distance there was a return from the port. That after attending the memorial services at the Kos and Rhodes cemeteries there was a painful awareness that the victims were not buried there but probably lie in the fields of ashes at Birkenau or in an exhibition at Auschwitz.  

But at the end of the day there is hope. There has been progress and giant strides in humanism since the end of the Second World War. Remembrance also serves as a warning that the genocide had an incremental history which was ignored. It never began with the cattle cars. 

There are lessons too to learn from the Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel who never forgot yet established a  Foundation of Humanity. He believed fervently in equality, waging countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed. He had indefinable qualities and empathy. He is quoted in Howard Reich’s book, "The Invention of Hope" as refusing to ever humiliate anyone. Wiesel gives as an example the time he recognized in the streets of Israel the Jewish Kapo that oversaw him in the concentration camp. In spite of the anger that welled in him he didn’t call him out as that would have humiliated him and it was his principle never to humiliate anyone.......