“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.
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