Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece Holocaust Victims

Introduction by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulous
Museum Director - Kehila Kedosha Janina Museum
https://www.kkjsm.org/

BACKGROUND

Greece has the ignominious distinction of having lost the largest percentage of Jews in any occupied country during the Holocaust: 87% of Greek Jewry was lost.  The Jewish population of Salonika accounted for one third of the city’s population. Salonika (Thessaloniki), alone, had 56,000 Jews in 1940 and was the most populous city of Sephardic Jews in the world for over 400 years.

The first gas chamber at Auschwitz (Crematorium I) began functioning on August 15, 1940. Attached to the gas chamber was a crematorium to incinerate the corpses. This would be the procedure used in all additional facilities erected at the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Additional gas chambers and attached crematoria (a total of 4) would be erected in the camp of Birkenau. Two of the four crematoria were functional as of March 13, 1943, just in time for the arrival of the first transport of Greek Jews from Salonika: the third would be completed in April, 1943 and the fourth in June, 1943, during the arrival of additional transports from Salonika.

The first transport of Greek Jews left Salonika on March 15, 1943: the transport contained 2,800 Jews. They arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on March 20. According to the Official Records of Auschwitz: “2,800 Jewish men, women and children from the ghetto in Salonika have arrived with an RSHA transport from Greece. Following the selection, 417 men, given Nos. 109371-109787, and 192 women, given Nos. 38721-38912, are admitted to the camp as prisoners. The other approximately 2,191 people are killed in the gas chambers.” From this transport, immediately on arrival in the camp, 78% would be sent to their deaths. The percentage would rise to over 80% with subsequent transport arrivals.

For more information on the Jews of Salonika and other Greek towns, please see the Museum’s website at https://www.kkjsm.org/

DATABASE

This database includes 37,529 victims from Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece. The fields for this database are as follows:

• Sequential Number
• Surname
• Given Name
• Maiden Name (Maiden name is usually the birth surname for a woman or could be the mother’s maiden name if the victim was a man.)
• Father’s Name
• Mother’s Name
• Spouse’s Name
• Gender
• Thessaloniki Street Address (Persons living in other towns are noted in the Comments field.)
• Concentration Camp
• Comments

As mentioned in the Background, please contact the Museum for more information that might not be included in this database.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are deeply indebted to Heinz D. S. Kounto, the President of the Jewish Community Assembly of Thessaloniki – Greece, who researched what happened to the Jewish members of the of the community.  The data was processed by Sam Abastado who was also responsible for data entry along with Tilda Abastado and Ida Kounio (from the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, Greece).  We also want to thank Marcia Haddad Ikonomopolus, Museum Director for the Kehila Kedosha Janina Museum, for making this database available to JewishGen.  For more information on the Jews of Ioannina and other Greek towns, please see the Museum’s website at https://www.kkjsm.org/

Finally, we thank Mike Kalt, html Volunteer, for placing this description online, and to Nolan Altman, Director of Special Projects and Coordinator of the Holocaust Database, for his continued devotion and dedication to JewishGen's important work.

June, 2021

Search the Database

This collection can be searched by via the JewishGen Holocaust Collection, or the JewishGen Unified Search.