“New Finds on Greek Jewish Heroism in the

Holocaust”

Yitzchak Kerem, Aristotle University,

Thessaloniki, Greece

At the end of the 1990s, when it seemed that

most of the major episodes of Greek Jewry in the

Holocaust have been researched, uncovered, and

published, several new instances of heroism of

Greek Jews have been uncovered in the 21st

century. Also noteworthy for each case are the

reasons for prolonged anonymity and recent

uncovering.

Jacko Maestro, who arrived at Auschwitz on

21 March 1943 from Salonika at age 14 in the first

deportation of Greek Jews knew German and became a

translator. Within weeks, he became an integral

part of the Arbeitsdienst (Labor Service) in

Auschwitz; coordinating and assigning work to

16,000 Jewish inmates on a daily basis. He worked

in an office in the Politische Abteilung with other

political prisoners and even had contact with high

Nazi officials. Daily, he supervised the exit to

work from Auschwitz, the work groups themselves in

the area of the large Auschwitz-Birkenau camp

complex, and their return to Auschwitz. He was

free to go wherever he wanted throughout

Auschwitz-Birkenau. He worked under the political

prisoner Yeze Pozinski in the morning hours in the

Fuhrerbarrack of the Arbeitsdienst.1 There he learned

to type. Jacko and Pozinski coordinated the daily

camp work schedule based on the work requests for

the specific work kommandos (work groups) and

1 Jürgen Matthaüs, Approaching An Auschwitz Survivor: Holocaust Testimonies and Transformations (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 21.

registered the details of the prisoners in the

card files of the Kartei Department.2 Jacko had

the capability to ease conditions for prisoners,

and not send them to harsh labor, or even not send

them at all to labor and to permit them in stay in

their bloc. Also, he sent people to satellite

camps of Auschwitz (including Warsaw) in order to

fill quotas, but also in accordance with requests

of prisoners or in order to ease their situation.

In such a way, he succeeded in helping many Jewish

prisoners survive.

Jacko also saved a fellow Salonikan,

Shabetai Chanuka, from sterilization. Shabetai

explained:

“One day I was taken to the

hospital at night; and he was

2 See Lore Shelley, Secretaries of Death, Accounts of Former Prisoners Who Worked in the Gestapo of Auschwitz (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1986) 3-10, 42-54, 370.

surprised because I was not sick. As I

walked in the hospital I

realized that the Germans for their

experimentation were using Jews.

I understood that this is what they were

going to do with him. But

that night a man by the name of Jako

Malach came and told me that

he had placed some money under his

mattress. He was to take it to

Jacko Maestro who would use it to bribe

the doctors. This is what

happened and he was taken to the operating

room, but instead of

experimenting on him, they fixed his

hernia.”3

3 Haim Asitz, Yitzchak Kerem, et.al, The Shoa In The Sephardic Communities, Dreams, Dilemmas & Decisions of Sephardic Leaders (Jerusalem: The Sephardic Educational Center in Jerusalem,

Maestro worried about the fate of the

Greek Jewish inmates, passed on announcements, and

notes between family members who were separated

according to sex, Kommando (work group), or camp,

and provided extra food.

He saved many Jews by easing their work

assignments,4 exempting them from forced labor,

and sending them to the infirmary; as well as

finding food for starving inmates. He excelled in

black marketeering, and bribing Nazi officials and

non-Jewish political prisoners, who were oversaw

Jews in the barracks and in labor. In order to

help a Jew and alter the daily work assignment

schedule, he would bribe Nazi commanders with

money, food products, or vodka (that he attained

2006) 49.4 Yitzchak Kerem and Bracha Rivlin, "Saloniki", Pinkas Hakehillot Yavan (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1999) 217-299

through the black market of the camp or from

political prisoners or free civilian camp workers

who would purchase items for him outside of the

camp). He would use bribes in order to ease

conditions for prisoners or in order to appease

and gain the favor of the Nazi commanders. He

would also bribe German soldiers and officers in

order to assist prisoners to avoid being put on

trial or receiving punishment for crimes like

stealing or for concocted accusations by the

Nazis. He defended many “Mussulmen”5 and prevented

them from being sent to death to the gas chambers.

In his rounds through the camp, he would reach the

slaughter house and take away sausage, which he

would later divide amongst prisoners.6

5 Musselmen were those reduced to skin and bones, who lookedlike skeletons, and were selected for death by gassing.6 Yitzchak Kerem, “Maestro, Jako”, Shoa, Enciclopedia Del Holocausto(Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and E.D.Z. Nativ Ediciones, 2000) 339.

Jacko Maestro was born in 1927 is

Salonika.7 He studied Jewish and Greek courses 7

hours a day in a Jewish communal school. He came

from a poor family with two sisters and two

brothers. The mother did not work, but two of his

sisters did in order to provide the family with

enough money. He also got up early each morning to

work before school cleaning and worked at a

restaurant until midnight. He was able to take

home leftovers for his family. He used to shine

shoes at the train station as well. This was of

great use to him during the occupation. The Jews

were not allowed any contact with the Germans. He

7 Yitzchak Kerem, "Maestro, Yaakov", Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Vol. 22. For background of childhood of Jacko in the Baron Hirsh Quarter see biographical details of his mentor Ovadia Baruch in film "Yehi Zichrecha Ahava, Sipuro Shel Ovadia Baruch" ("May Your Memory Be Love, Story of Ovadia Baruch") Yad Vashem and the Center for Multimedia, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 2007, and Yigal Shahar, Ho Madre, A Love Story in Auschwitz, Aliza and Ovadia Baruchin Auschwitz (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2002). [Hebrew]

was able to get close to and speak to the Germans

thus allowing him to learn German. He also learned

Italian in this manner. He would shine their

shoes, and offer them gifts to take home to their

families in exchange for bread or supplies that

were in high demand, like cigarette wrapping

paper. On the 14th of March they were put on

transports to what they were told would be Poland.

They spent about 7 days in horrible conditions

packed into cattle cars. Once they arrived at the

camp, they were separated into groups of men,

women, adults, and children. His mother asked a

neighbor to watch over him, so he ended up in the

group with the adults. He was only 14 at the time.

At this point the Germans tried communicated to

the Greek Jews and were getting very frustrated

because they realized no one could understand

them. One of the friends of Jacko asked him what

they were saying, and when he translated, his

friend told him to step out of the line and let

the Germans know that he understood. The soldier

called him up and made him translator. They were

brought into Auschwitz I (which was like paradise

compared to the death camp Auschwitz II / Birkenau

that was right next door), stripped, showered, and

given clothes and shoes. They were then sent to

quarantine for about 40 days. The first night,

they were warned by other inmates not to but the

blankets over the heads because they were treated

with very harsh chemicals and would make them

sick. When people inquired about their families,

they pointed showed them the smoke stacks and told

them what happened to their families. The next

morning, those that had not listened and pulled

the blankets over their heads felt very sick and

had a difficult time getting up. This first

morning in Auschwitz, a prisoner was beat to death

in front of them. There were no delusions as to

what type of place they were now in. They were

given brown water, bread, butter, and jam for

their daily rations. Jacko was now told to teach

the group the commands for role call, how to

march, and how to salute. It was an odd site. A

little 14 year-old boy ordering around groups of

grown men. Some of the prisoners were taken for

important/hard work and were hit because they

could not understand the directions. He was in

charge of dividing people according to their

skills. He was chosen by Pozinski, a Polish

political prisoner who was a translator (in charge

of assigning people to their work commandos), to

be a translator.8 He was taken to live with the

political prisoners and Pozinski told him to help

himself from anything he needed from his closet.

Since he was a political prisoner, he was allowed

to receive care packages from home. He was brought

into Auschwitz headquarters and given a desk in

the office with Pozinski and three other people.

He was the first Jew allowed to work there. Their

job was to decide who worked where. He made cards

with the names of the commandos and how many

people where needed in each. He needed to make

sure each commando have the proper amount of

people each day. He was able to move people to an

easier commando if there was a vacancy. He was

also able to listen to the radio and get updates

on what was happening in the war. His daily

8 Gidon Greif, Yaakov Jackito Maestro – The Good Angel from Auschwitz (Copenhagen: Introite Publishers) .[Danish, in press]

schedule went something like this. Once the

commandos were arranged and everyone went to work,

he ate breakfast. This was not the normal

breakfast of the Auschwitz inmates. He got a full

breakfast every day. He would then go to the post

office. People would write Auschwitz to request

slave laborers. He would arrange the workers and

the S.S. would arrange the guards to go with

them.9 He would then go to the girls who worked

with the cards to check the cards for workers with

the needed skills and make a new commando. He also

learned from Pozinski how to bribe the guards and

work the system.10 Next to his office was the cafe

of the high up S.S. officers, which had a radio

9 Maestro was referred to as a "High ranking member of a work detail" in the glossary of Heinz Salvator Kounio, A Literof Soup and Sixty Grams of Bread, The diary of prisoner number 109565 (New York: Bloch Publishing Company for Sephardic House, 2003) 218.10 Netty C. Gross, "A Greek Tragedy", The Jerusalem Report, March31, 2008.

with the news. The waiter would turn it up so they

could hear in their office, but told the S.S. it

was so he could hear it better. He was never

struck in his entire time in Auschwitz except for

one time. He saw the head of the camp and the gate

was stuck so he told him to run and tell someone

to unlock it now. He ran and told an S.S. officer

to come immediately and open the gate. The officer

hit him and yelled at him for daring to tell him

to hurry. When he returned to the head of the camp

he told him what happened. Later, he overheard a

conversation between the two of them. The head of

the camp was yelling at him. He told him the order

to hurry came from him, not Jacko; and how dare he

keep him waiting. He was now going to send him to

the front lines where he would most likely die.

There are many stories of people whom he saved.

Yaakov Mano had spent two weeks in a bad

commando and asked to be moved to an easier one,

so he moved him. Mano considered this act saved

his life and regarded Jacko as an angel in

Auschwitz. He put one man into the group that

prepares food for the S.S. (the first time a Jew

worked there).11

Once, when Jacko went to look at Birkenau,

a man he knew, Emmanuel, signaled to him that he

was in the line for gassing and asked for help.

Jacko walked up to the S.S. officer and said he

needed Emmanuel. All he had to do was give the

officer four bottles of vodka and he saved the

man’s life. There was never a time he turned down

a request for help. He always found a way. He also

11 See Aharon Mano, The Secretary (Ranana: Docostory, 2008).[Hebrew]

attained medicine for Jewish prisoners from the

pharmacy that served the S.S. personnel.12

On one occasion in Auschwitz, in the Strassen Kommando (road

pavement work group), Jacko was given by Greek Jewish female inmates

gun powder in a rag wrapped within napkins and papers, and brought it to

the Shuh-Kommando13 where it was passed on to Birkenau where it was

used in the revolt by Polish and Greek Jewish inmates on 7 October 1944.

In 1945, things changed as the German

officials Auschwitz and the prisoners were sent on12 Aharon Rubin, "But He Was My Angel", Insert Issue And I Rescued, Rescuers and Survivors Meet For A First Time, B'Kehila, Maayanei Yeshua Medical Center, Tel Aviv (Passover 2010) 49-53.[Hebrew]13 Salonikan female Auschwitz inmate Erika Kounio Amarigliowrote about messengers who commuted back and forth from one camp to the other and many of them worked in the Shuh-Kommando, Bloc 10, or in Union-Metallwerke where Rosa Robotaand others smuggled gun powder to Auschwitz, where it was passed on for the revolt. See Erika Kounio Amariglio, From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back, Memories of a Survivor from Thessaloniki (London and Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2000) 75-76, 86, 103, 115-117.

the death march. Jacko left Auschwitz riding on a

roller wagon carrying the card files of Auschwitz

and hid brother Daniel on the wagon since he was

too sick to walk. Jacko was in Mauthausen for less

than a week, and then arrived at the labor camp

Melk.14 There the prisoners were hollowing out the

mountains. Jacko was assigned to use a an air

drill, but he was so small to control it and would

just fly around. He was now made a runner. His job

was to take broken drill bits to the blacksmiths

and return with fixed ones. He did this for about

two weeks when he met someone who know the Greek

doctor in the hospital. He brought Jacko to him,

told him they were both Greek, and requested that

he help him. The doctor was not Jewish, but did

what he could. All he could offer him was to live

14 For details on Greek Jews in Melk see Heintz Salvator Kounio, I Survived Death, The Diary of Number 109565 (Thessaloniki: Aoaoni, 1981) 102-142.[Greek]

in the hospital, so he did not need to work and

was a little more comfortable.

In the death march, Jacko was at

Mauthausen15 for less than a week, worked at Melk

in Austria for three months with an air hammer,

and was liberated at Wells near Lambach by the

American Army.

A few days before the liberation, there

were a lot a bombs falling and the Jews with Jacko

thought they were going to die. When they were

freed, they still had it hard as they had no food.

Jacko heard about group of non-Jewish Greek former

prisoners, and went to find them to see if they

would help him. There, he saw an old man he

recognized him from his work at the train station

back in Salonika. He helped him out and brought

15 See Steven B. Bowman, The Agony of Greek Jews (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009) 111.

him to Italy. He eventually found his way to

Israel in 1946.16

Jacko’s sister Esther (later Sidikario)

also rescued Jews. In three instances in Birkenau,

she removed from Bloc 25 large groups of girls who

were destined for the gas chambers by jumping them

out of the windows to a nearby shack and thus,

saving them.17 Jacko sent cigarettes and oil to

Esther in Birkenau. The oil was for rubbing to

avoid soars. The sick girls would hide in upper

bunks from selection and Esther gave them oil to

rub on the their bodies. The Germans sent an

inmate to gassing even if they detected one soar.

Esther's rescue deeds are too numerous to depict

16 Filmed Interview with Jacko Maestro, Bat Yam, Israel, Spring 2004. 17 See Doris Furstenberg, ed., Jeden Moment war dieser Tod, Interviews mit judischen Frauen die Auschwitz uberlebten (Dusseldorf: Schwann, 1986) 99-112, and Shmuel Refael, ed. Routes of Hell, Greek Jewry in the Holocaust, Testimonies (Tel Aviv: The Institute forthe Research Of Salonikan Jewry and the Greek Death Camp Survivors Organization in Israel, 1988) 289-296.[Hebrew]

in this article, but below is one episode at the

beginning of her imprisonment in Auschwitz-

Birkenau:

" At the beginning there were Greek women from the second transport in a different bloc, and the house mother (Bloc Eltester in German – Y.K.) had difficulties to organize them, since she did not know the language. She told on them that theycause the typhus disease. They made a large selection and tookall the Greek women to Bloc 25. Also I was amongst them. The house mother told me that I am the translator of the Bloc, and that I am clean, and that my brother is the work coordinator of Auschwitz. She returned me to the Bloc. Bloc 25 was a collection bloc to be sent to the crematorium. When we arrived, Mengele issued an order that every pregnant woman must register, and they received porridge with milk. All the hungry women registered in order to get milk. The girls were collected and sent to Bloc 25. I succeeded to take out of the row Bella Torres, Rachel Levi- Cohen, and Allegra (she died a few months ago). We succeeded to

transfer them to the hospital of "Union". Afterward, I was called to come to Bloc 25. I brought with me the housemother, and I said that they were from my family, and in exchange fora cigarette I took away three women."18

Due to the emotional toll of the memories

encountered for decades after the liberation and

distancing by himself and his immediate family

members, Jacko did not reveal his story to the

outside world. Only recently, after the passing of

his wife and with advanced aging, has Jacko made

his story accessible to researchers and the media.

Two groups of Salonikan Auschwitz inmates

were sent in August and October 1943 to the

destroyed Warsaw Ghetto to clean it up and build

an Auschwitz satellite labor camp there. The

18 Excerpt of testimony of Esther (m. Sidikario) Maestro in Refael, 293. "Union" refers to "Weichsel Union Metallwerke";the munitions factory in Auschwitz III.

Salonikans, as "foreigners' who had no knowledge

of the Warsaw Jewish past, were the first group

sent from Auschwitz to Warsaw and built the

initial barracks in the camp. The Salonikans

totaled some 1,000 of the 3,683 Auschwitz inmates

in the Warsaw camp that were sent there in 1943.19

There were also Jewish inmates of Dutch, French,

and Belgian origin.

It has been known for some twenty years of

the failed escape attempt from Gensha of the

Salonikan Shaul Senor and his hanging, but one

Salonikan Jew did succeed in escaping. Through the

uncovering of photos taken of Salonikan Jewish

prisoners in Warsaw found recently in the archives

of the Maidonek death camp,20 the identity of

19 Edward Kossoy, "The Gesiówka Story: A Little Known Page of Jewish Fighting History", Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. 32 (2004)323-350.20 Maidonek Archives, ZIH – II-10-33.

Shaul Senor and another one of the inmates, Gabi

Ben-Ouzilio was traced. Although the latter had

passed away in Haifa several years ago, through

the testimonies of his children and a widow of a

first cousin, Moshe Ben-Ouzilio, who had escaped

with other Salonikans through the sewers of the

Warsaw Ghetto during the Polish resistance revolt

after August 1, 1944, it was revealed how Gabi had

escaped with two other Jews, one being a French

Jew named Weinstein and the other a Salonikan Jew

named Matalon, from the Warsaw Ghetto in the

spring of 1944 and wandered through Poland for

many weeks.21 While hiding with a Polish Gentile

family, he was reported to the authorities in the

summer of 1944, and was sent by the Germans to

Auschwitz. Upon arrival in the that death camp for

21 Interview with Daizy Ben-Ouziel Rothenberg, Haifa, 10 March 2004.

a second time, he was sent to Bloc 26 and the

above Jacko Maestro covered for him before he was

to be put on trial and executed. Jacko gave him

clothes of a Polish political prisoner and he

further mixed in with the prisoners.22 Later in

Israel, Gabi established himself in Haifa, but

changed his name to Ben-Ouziel, which led further

to his obscurity and anonymity.

Moshe Ben-Ouzilio, when escaping from the

Auschwitz Warsaw Ghetto camp “Gensha”23 with other

Salonikan Auschwitz inmates like Baruch Almaliah,

had to cross Warsaw from the former ghetto area to

the new city.24 Escaping German shooting, Moshe

and Baruch took an injured Polish officer by

22 Interview with Jacko Maestro, Bat Yam, Israel, 18 July 2006.23 Other names for the Auschwitz Warsaw Ghetto labor camp are Genshya, Genshovka, and Gesiówka. 24 Yosef Ben, Greek Jewry In The Holocaust And The Resistance 1941-1944, (Tel Aviv: The Institute for the Research of Saloniki Jewry, 1985), 157-165 [Hebrew].

stretcher via the sewer.25 The water reached their

chests and they had to hold the stretcher high

above the water level. When they left the sewer,

they had to run from street to street to avoid

German bombing. Furthermore, in order to avoid

detection as a Jewish prisoner, Moshe erased his

number and triangle from his hand, and was left

with a scar. He joined the Polish resistance, and

after the liberation, he found his cousin Gabi in

Warsaw after the latter was liberated. Moshe was

on hachshara (pre-aliyah agricultural training) in

Athens at the Patission hachshara farm and came to

Palestine illegally on the Haviva Reik boat in June

1946 with other Greek Jewish Holocaust survivors

and illegal immigrants.26 Moshe established 25 Interview with Daizy Ben-Ouziel Rothenberg, Haifa, 10 March 2004.

26 ? Yitzchak Kerem, "Greece and Illegal Immigration, 1934-1947", in Itshaq Gershon, ed., Shorashim Bamizra'h, Vol. IV, (Efal: YadTabenkin, 1998)

himself in Haifa, changed his last name from Ben-

Ouzilio to Ben-Ouziel, married Daizy Kapon, a

Salonikan-born immigrant established in Haifa

since 1933, and died of an aneurysm in 1960 at the

young age of thirty-nine.

Salonikan Auschwitz and Warsaw camp

survivor, Peppo Gerassi, who also is the gabbai of

the Haifa Salonikan synagogue “Heichal Rabi Haim

Haviv” on 126 Allenby Street, knew both Moshe and

Gabi in the Warsaw ghetto and in Haifa years after

the liberation. Peppo, who was in Warsaw from

October 1943 until late July 1944, identified Gabi

and Shaul Senor in the Warsaw Ghetto camp photo in

prisoner pajama-like uniforms.27 Peppo noted that,

in his opinion, Shaul in the picture was too thin

and was taller in actuality, but sixty years later

241-282.[Hebrew]

27 Interview with Peppo Gerasi, Haifa, 10 March 2004.

this may be an instance of fading memory. Peppo

also added the following details:

Shaul Senor had made aliyah to Kibbutz

Beit Oren in the late 1930s, but returned to

Greece to bring his Salonikan bride back to Eretz-

Israel, but was stuck in Greece due to the war,

where he was drafted to fight as an officer

against the invading Italians in Albania, and the

ensuing German occupation. Regarding Gabi, Peppo

noted that after he escaped from Warsaw he was

roaming through the Polish forest and was caught

by German soldiers. He told them he was a Greek-

Orthodox, but they saw the number on his arm, knew

he was a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp,

and sent him back to Auschwitz.

In August and October 1943 non-Polish

Auschwitz inmates were sent to clean up the

destroyed Warsaw Ghetto.28 Chosen for their

unfamiliarity with Warsaw and its Jewish past, the

Salonikan Jews were the largest ethnic Jewish

group there.29 The first group, 500 Salonikans and

2 Polish doctors, were sent to build the Gensha

camp on the rubble of the destroyed ghetto.30 They

mostly dealt with tearing down walls, blowing up

cement structures, and clearing away the rocks,

28 Lavon Institute for the Research of the Labor Movement, Archives, Tel Aviv, 104IV-89/141,29 Yitzchak Kerem, "Forgotten Heroes: Greek Jewry in the Holocaust", in Menachem Mor, ed., Crisis & Reaction: The Hero In Jewish History, Proceedings of the Sixth

Annual Symposium of the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization held on Sunday-Monday, October 10-11, 1993", Center for the Study of Religion and Society. (Omaha, Nebraska: Creighton University Press, 1995) 229-238, and Yitzchak Kerem, "Sephardic and Oriental Testimonies: Their Importance for Holocaust Commemoration and Memory", in Richard K. Roth and Elisabeth Maxwell, eds., Remembering For The Future, The Holocaust In An Age Of Genocide, III (Hampshire, UK : Palgrave, 2001) 142-149.

30 For details on the Gensha camp and its activities in cleaning up the destroyed Warsaw ghetto see Yosef Kermish, "The Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and its Demolition", Yediot Beit Lochmai Hagetaot, Nos. 5-6 (April 1954) 17-21.[Hebrew]

bricks, and rubble. Most of the Salonikans lived

in Bloc 5 in Gensha.31 A second group of 500-600

Jews, mostly Salonikans, arrived in October 1943.

Two weeks later another group arrived - mostly

Greek Jews, but also many Dutch Jews, but also

many Dutch Jews. With time arrived other Jewish

prisoners from France, Holland, Belgium,

Yugoslavia, and Hungary.32 On January 15, 1944

began the severe continuous typhus epidemic, which

killed some 50-60 Jews daily.33

Shaul Senor, a Zionist who made aliyah to

Eretz-Israel as a Halutz (pioneer) and returned to

Salonika in the late 1930s to organize aliyah

groups, tried to escape with the help of his

Polish girlfriend, who worked in the laundry work

31 Interview with Solomon Hagoel, Thessaloniki (Salonika), Greece, 17 September 1986. 32 Yad Vashem, 03/4150.33 Ben, 157-168 [Hebrew].

group with him, and the Polish resistance. At the

last moment, after he killed two German guards and

took their weapons, he was caught and later

executed about a month later on 25 June 1944 in

front of all the prisoners in a dramatic scene.34

Most of the 4,000-5,000 prisoners were cleared

out of the ghetto in late July 1944, and led on a

forced march through Germany to Dachau.35 Many of

the Salonikans in this group ended up working in

the Dachau satellite camp Muehldorf and its sub-

camp Waldlagger several kilometers away in the

forest.36

34 Interviews with Albert Levi, Tel Aviv, 8 and 25 June 1986, and 12 August 1986; Isaac Senor, Tucson, Arizona, October 1993, and Shabetai Menachem, Jerusalem, 25 March 1991.. 35 Yad Vashem 03/269036 Ibid. See also Survivors of the Shoa, Archive, Universityof Southern California, Los Angeles, California, Interview by Yitzchak Kerem with Gabi Kamhi, Tel Aviv, 15 June 1995.

Those who felt they could not walk on the

march had been ordered to appear at the camp

infirmary, and on that night of 27 July 1944, they

were shot to death by the Germans along with some

250 sick prisoners who had been infirmed there

previously. In the next days most of the remaining

prisoners in Gensha were occupied with the task of

removing the executed corpses and emptying the

barracks and stores.37 Mostly Greek and Hungarian,

as well as Czech, Dutch, and Slovakian Jewish

prisoners had been transferred to Gensha at this

time from the Pawiak prison. According to the

research of Kassoy, a crematorium had been built

in Gensha and was ready for use since June 1944,

but had not yet been activated.

Some 400 Jews remained in the ghetto and

when the Polish Armaya Kraiova (AK) began their 37 Kossoy, 3, 7-8.

revolt on August 1, 1944, most of the Jews were

caught in the crossfire and died. A group of 17

Salonikans escaped and joined the Polish

resistance. Some fought in the "Vigri" Battalion

(of the Polish Scouts) in their battles in Warsaw.

Alberto Levi actively recalled for researchers his

stories of escaping the camp through the sewers of

Warsaw. He also worked in a hospital treating the

injured in battle with the Germans. His brother,

Dario, escaped the camp at the outset of the

fighting; looked for shells to use in order to

shoot from the captured German tanks, that no one

present in the Polish resistance knew how to

operate; and this former Greek army tank gunner

shot the first shells at the Germans in the attack

on the Gensha camp.38 Alberto Levi became an

38 Yitzchak Kerem, "Forgotten Heroes: Greek Jewry in the Holocaust", 235.

officer in the A.K. and performed many sabotage

missions against German installations in the

Polish countryside.39 About a hundred Jews rescued

from Gensha fought house to house in the Old Town

under a vehemently anti-Semitic National Armed

Guard Forces (Narodowe Sily Zbrojne; NSZ), which

compelled the Jews to execute unnecessary

dangerous suicide missions. `When it was

discovered that Sergeant Bedek of the NSZ shot the

advancing Jews from behind, one of the Greek

Gesióka (Gensha – Y.K.) men executed him.40 In

consequence of being sent on suicide missions,

some left the movement and joined the more

hospitable A.L. (Armaya Ludova) movement, where

they fought in the course of a month of battles at

Stara Miasto in the battalion "Strono-Wego

39 Yad Vashem, 03/2691.40 Kossoy, 14-15.

P.P.S.". On October 3, 1944, toward the end of the

revolt, Gavriel Cohen, a former high officer in

the Greek army, died in battle with most of the

other people in his unit after they crossed the

Vitsula River. The group of 17 fell prisoner again

to the Germans, but escaped through the windows of

the train.41 After fighting valiantly in the

Jewish Wigry Platoon against the Germans and not

surrendering to them, the few surviving Jewish

fighters hid in the ruins of the Old Town,

including the Greek Salonikan Jews Isaac Aruh and

Dario Nusen, who hid in a big bunker dug in the

destroyed debris between Sliska and Sienna

41 Alberto Levi, op. cit.; "Eitzleinu Bamishpacha Haya Muvan, Shetsarich Lehatsil Hayehudim", Maariv, 21 June 1966., 7; Bowman, "Jews in War-Time Greece", Jewish Social Studies 48 (Winter 1986) 45-62; Refael, 259-276, 307-312; Shmuel Krakovski, Jewish Fighting in Poland against Nazism, (Tel Aviv: Hotsaat Sifriat Hapoalim, Yad Vashem, and The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977), 311-349, [Hebrew]; and Yad Vashem, Archives, 03/2692,03/2689.

streets.42 Alberto Levy as an officer in the AK

and his brother Dario also fought valiantly in

Warsaw in the second Polish resistance revolt

which ended in early October 1944, after standing

off against the Germans for some sixty-three

days.43

Kossoy in his research on the liberated

Auschwitz Jewish Gensha survivors who fought with

the Polish resistance against the Germans in

Warsaw had additional depictions on the role and

fate of involved Greek Jews:

"Quite a few of the fifty Gesiówka men, some of

them Greeks, who were liberated at the Umschlagplatz in the

very first hours of the 42 Kossoy, 18.43 "How Warsaw Fell", Lavon Institute for the Research of the Labor Movement, Tel Aviv, 104IV-89/141,

uprising by a Kedyw (HQ Diversions Command) unit, joined another Kedyw unit—the Nalecz company. This later came a

battalion under the command of Lieutenant (later promoted to

Captain) Stefan Kaniewski. Kaniewski and his soldiers, among

them the Gesiówka Jews, held up against the incessant attacks of

German armour, air force, and artillery for two weeks, using the ruins of three Warsaw landmarks (Radziwill Palace, Bank Polski, and Simon's Mall) as strongholds. The price of blocking German entry

into the Old Town was heavy: the strongholds held out until the

last days of the Old Town, but then the Nalecz battalion ceased to

exist. After the surrender six of the surviving Greek

Gesiówka fighters

( Baruch, Sami and Yacov Arditi, Josef Nahmias,

Yakov Malah, and Yacov Parente) left Warsaw with the general

evacuation ordered by the Germans. But then, on the advice of two

passing Catholic nuns ,

they fled and boarded the still-functioning

suburban Grodzisk electric train. As they were asking for tickets,

to their astonishment , they suddenly heard the question: Amchu? Upon

their appropriate response to this Jewish code word, they were

advised to get off at one of the next stops because of the persistent

German screenings. Following that advice they fled into the forest

adjoining the rail line. There five of them, hoping—as so many others—

for imminent arrival of the Red Army, prepared a primitive

shelter under the trees. They had to remain there for four and a half

winter months. The five paid a Polish cobbler from the near village to

supply them with food. The sixth, Josef Nacmias, posing as a Greek

Christian, found a Polish lady for whom he worked in exchange for

food and shelter .

After the arrival of the Russians, all six were

again reunited ; however, shortly thereafter they were imprisoned

as alleged

"fascists" together with the Germans,

Ukrainians, and Russian traitors. Even the evidence of their tattooed

Auschwitz numbers was of no help. It was only after the final

unconditional German surrender, in May 1945, that they were finally

liberated. When they were released from the well-guarded Russian

refugee camp, they were finally allowed to return to Greece."44

The Salonikan Jews Arie Isaak, David Cohen, and Ishai Moshe, with

other Jewish and Polish fighters after the fall ofthe Nalecz battalion in the

Old Town hid in a self-built bunker until the arrival of Polish and Russian

liberators in January 1945.45

44 Ibid., 18-19.45 Beit Lochamei Ha-Getaot, Archive, 520/2.

Steven Bowman in his research published thebelow depiction of the whereabouts of the Salonkian Jews during the Polish underground revolt

beginning on 1 August 1944:

" On August 1, 1944 , with the Russiansapproaching the east bank of the Vistula, the signal was given for the various underground organizations in Warsaw to rise in revolt. The strongest group was the Armia Kraiowa, under the leadership of General Bor-Komorowski . The battle lasted for two months while the Russians waited patiently across the river for the Germans to destroythe Polish Resistance. The Germans wrought terrible carnage, massacring Polish civilians, among them Jews. The Greeks who remained inWarsaw have their own memories of the revolt. A number of Greek salves were housed on the outskirts of the ghetto area in the military prison on Djika Street. With the other prisoners (Hungarians, Rumanians, and Poles), they were freed on the first day of the revolt and sent to the front lines

to dig defensive trenches. Polish anti- Semites harassed them as they faced Nazi artillery fire. This is confirmed by Albert Levi, who participated in the revolt and claims that the Greeks took an active part in the fighting-we recall that many had seen service in Albania and through their reckless disregard for their personal safety provided inspiration for some of the rebelling forces. Levi himself joined the defenders' medical corps. During the revoltthe Greeks separated on the advice of Isaac Arukh, so that some might survive to chronicle their fate. Levi records several battles and even the formation of a Greek contingent that fought under its national flag. Ultimately only twenty-seven of them survived the war. Greeks could be found throughout the ghetto during the revolt. Bernard Goldstein recalls a Greek pickpocket who entertained his comrades with his skills in the main bunkerat 26 Vspulna Street. Michael Zylberberg notes Greeks hiding in the cellar at 13 Franciscan Street , opposite the headquarters of the officer in charge of the young Poles. Isaac Arukh (no. 124338) recalls fighting in Starowka (the Old

City) near the Bank Polska with the Second Division, a place where many of his comrades fell. He survived in abunker along with David Cohen and Jesse Moissi."46 Avraham Giladi, formerly Albert Gilidi, was

a twenty-three year old Salonikan deported to

Auschwitz/Birkenau, was transferred to the Warsaw

Ghetto Gensha camp, fought in the Polish revolt in

August 1944 in the scout Zoska battalion, and

escaped from the Old Town after its fall on 2

September 1944 through the sewers to Mokotów. He

succeeded in reaching Russian lines by swimming

across the icy Vistula River.47 He eventually

returned to Greece by train and foot. After the

war, he worked for the Joint Distribution

Committee in Greece, moved to Israel in 1948,

46 Bowman, 110. See also Yad Vashem, 03/2691. 47 Kossoy, 22. See also Michael Matsas, The Illusion of safety, The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War (New York: Pella Publishing Company, 1997) 257-263.

joined the Israeli Foreign Ministry and

established the Israeli diplomatic legation in

Athens. His story was too painful to tell and he

never revealed it publicly. Since he had little

contact with other Salonikan Jews in Israel and

shied away from the Greek Death Camp Survivor

Organization in Tel Aviv, he was never prompted by

fellow Salonikans to recall his memories and he

remained unknown to researchers. He died in 1993,

but his story was recently uncovered in a

genealogical investigation by the author of this

article when U.S descendants of the Gilidi family

were searching for relatives of Salonikan origin.

Like Giladi, other Salonikan Auschwitz survivors,

from Gensha, who had Auschwitz prisoner numbers

tattooed on their arms, were under risk of being

murdered by the murderous bands of Dirlewanger and

Kaminski SS units, and some twenty Greek Salonikan

Jews were successfully led to the Russian-held

right bank of the Vistula River by AL guides.48

The above episodes enhance the theory that

increased distance from the given historical

period strengthens knowledge and perspective. All

three stories were uncovered by researchers

decades after the Holocaust and not initially

initiated by the survivors. Time is needed for new

sources to unravel and to understand the diverse

events and the sequence and changes in the German

occupation and Polish revolts. Also the diversity

of the general Ashkenazi narrative and

particularistic Jewish Greek and Sephardic

narrative require time and attention in order to

reconcile differences, gaps, and contradictions.

Furthermore, the finds shed light on future 48 Ibid.

avenues for enriching knowledge of the unfortunate

Holocaust. As time proceeds, increased cooperation

between Polish and Eastern European archives, and

the West and Jewish institutions and researchers

contribute to a strengthening of Holocaust

research and historiography.