Issue H974 of 1 Dec. 1997

Moscow's Jewish Secret

Jews in Salonica, Greece in the early 20th c.

Historians from the University of Tel Aviv in Israel discovered the allegedly lost archival records of the Jewish communities of Salonica (Thessaloniki), in Greece, for the period 1870-1941 and of Athens for the period 1901-1942. The records were found in Moscow, Russia.

Although it was believed that the archives were destroyed during the German occupation of Greece (1941-1944) some Greek Jews were convinced that the material was removed by the Germans during the last war. Information was collected and submitted to Professor Mina Rozen and her colleagues from the University of Tel Aviv who study the Jewish communities of the Balkans. Prof. Rozen began investigations and she discovered that indeed the Germans had moved and had left archival material related to the Jews in East Silesia (Central Europe) just before the end of the war. Immediately it was assumed that this material, if not destroyed, fell in the hands of the Russians.

In 1991 it was confirmed that the archives were in Moscow. Prof. Rozen visited the place where these documents were kept and she was informed that in the same building there were 27 klm of shelve space holding the archives of many Jewish communities from all over Europe, the Gestapo archives, the archives of the German Chancellery during the Nazi period, documents from the concentration camps, the archives from occupied Paris, the records of the Bulgarian royal house and material related to a number of well known politicians, such as Leon Blum, intellectuals and artists.

The Greek records consisted of 250,000 documents which the Russians only allowed to be videotaped. The material includes various certificates, membership lists, correspondence and information on the financial position of Jews. The documents are in the process of being categorized and studied by Prof. Rozen and colleagues.

Researchers will soon be able to reconstruct life in the Jewish communities of Greece in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries.




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