by zorkmidden. This is the featured weekly post from Discarded Lies at Winds of Change.NET. The Terra Nostra series is about the Jewish Holocaust in Greece, righteous gentiles, tales of heroism and simple human will to survive, and the beauty of human souls even in a horrific tableau. It's also about contemporary Greek attitudes to Jews, Judaism, and Israel. Other posts in the Terra Nostra series on Winds of Change include Reina Gilberta, Liliane Fernandes, Loving God and Hating Jews, The Exodus From Spain, The Occupation, The Deportations, 'We were from a different level', Athens and Rabbi Barzilai
Rabbi Zvi Koretz, has been a controversial figure in the Holocaust of the Salonica Jewish community. Many survivors accused him of collaborating with the Nazis and of knowing about the deportations and not informing the community. Crowds of people would gather at the community offices and express their fears of deportation and ask the Rabbi for advice. Rabbi Koretz would calm them down and assure them they would not be deported.
He really was in a very tough spot. The Germans were subjecting him to terror, intimidation and constant demands for money. He tried to handle that the best way he could and in the best interests of the Jewish community. As community president, he ransomed thousands of people from forced labour. But the Germans were asking for enormous sums of money which the Salonica community was not able to raise, even with the help of the Athenian Jews.
He did create the Jewish Police Force that ended up including collaborators, war criminals, rapists, extortionists and murderers. He naively thought that this was a measure to maintain order during a tough period in the community's history. Koretz did inform the Jewish communities of Florina and Veria to report for deportation, but he was relaying German orders.
Documents from the Italian Foreign Ministry show that Rabbi Koretz was in touch with the Italian consul at the time and his staff about rescuing Jews. He also proposed to the Germans to exile the community to an uninhabited Greek island, anything but deportation to Poland.
In the beginning of April 1943, after the deportations had been in full swing for several weeks, he begged the Christian Metropolitan Gennadios to arrange a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Rhallis in order to try to prevent further deportations. The Prime Minister did not show much interest in his pleas and the next day Rabbi Koretz was ousted from his position as Chief Rabbi and community president. He was detained until deportation.
Rabbi Koretz was also deceived by the Germans. The Salonica Jews were not sent to labour camps in Poland, as the Germans had assured him, but to the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka.
In August 1943, he was deported to Bergen Belsen, where the prominent Jews and those who held Spanish citizenship were taken. He suffered greatly until the liberation, and died of typhus six weeks after that.
ABOUT THE COMUNITY OF SAQLONICA I WROTE THE ESSAY
"THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF SALONICA DURING THE SHOAH"
YOU AND YOUR READERS CAN FIND ON
www.scapbookpages.com/contribution/MURMELSTEIN
Considering all the facts considered by Raul Hilberg
I reached conclusions opposite to those of this
historian as the tragic figure Rabbi Koretz concerns
Rabbi Korets was in no way guilty of cooperation with the Nazis but tried to do what seemed to be
still possible.
Kindly consider the opinion of someone who still
remembers how an SS had been dressed and how we all
feared when we saw a grey-green uniform nearing.
At USA Universities Professors are teaching who
know little or nothing about THAT DARKNESS.
[ Mr Murmelstein: Thanks for your contribution. Please consider not posting entire paragraphs in ALL CAPS as it is hard to read and might put off people who would otherwise be receptive to your message. --NM ]
Hi,
My mother was reminded a couple of years by my uncle of 2 Jewish families that she helped. The Jewish community of Florina at the time which would have been 1943 (my mother would have been around 15 years old) was rounded up for transportation and 2 families apparently approached my grandfather Naum Milosis for help. As I understand it the families were taken to the near by mountain where they stayed until the coast was clear. A Jewish friend suggested talking to Yad Vashim about my mother which I did, for planting a tree, and I found that she would need a living witness to testify to the deed. After 66 years, it is rather problematic but perhaps some of the children may have survived. It is a small world; in the late 1970s I worked for the late sculptor Kosso Eloul and recently I did a check on the internet for info on him; I already knew that he had been born in Russia and had migrated to Israel and then to America/Canada, I did not know that he had been awarded Israel's highest civilian honour...nor that he had been the sculptor of the eternal flame at Yad Vashim. I know that there were something like 21 Jewish families living in Florina. My mother's town was called Treveno (Tryse) and she was called in Greek Evstathia (Macedonian Stoya). Your help and advice would be most appreciated.