Stories from a Thessaloniki basement

The missive successful which lawyer Moses Saul informed Italian Consul General Guelfo Zamboni of the impending persecution of Thessaloniki’s Jews was discovered buried successful the archives of the Italian Cultural Institute of Thessaloniki (Instituto Italiano di Cultura), a gathering precocious sold to a German supermarket chain.

Saul, who served arsenic ineligible advisor to the consulate, wrote to his superior connected February 17, 1943:

“The main rabbi of Thessaloniki spoke yesterday astatine the Beth Saul Synagogue, informing the Jewish colonisation that arsenic of the 17th of this period the use of trams and telephones is forbidden, arsenic is question aft sunset and gatherings connected the main streets. These orders person not been published successful the newspapers, but for the 1 concerning registration. Furthermore, arsenic reported successful the newspapers connected the 10th of the month, from the 15th each Israelites, with the objection of nationals of the Allied powers and Turkey, are required to reside successful designated zones and to wear a distinctive mark…”

An aerial view of the building. [Alexandros Avramidis]

The archetypal train

A period later, connected March 15, 1943, the archetypal train carrying Jews bound for decease departed from Thessaloniki for Auschwitz. By August, the Germans had organized a total of 18 such “missions,” deporting astir 50,000 Jews from the city, of whom lone astir 1,200 would return.

In an effort to forestall arsenic galore Greek Jews arsenic imaginable from boarding these decease trains, Zamboni forged idiosyncratic documents astatine large idiosyncratic risk, presenting them arsenic being of Italian origin. He managed to prevention galore earlier the Germans uncovered his strategy – though it was intolerable to prevention them all.

Saul’s missive was discovered successful 2003 by Italian prof Antonio Crescenzi successful a dusty cardboard container successful the basement of the ample Italian-owned gathering astatine the country of Vasilissis Olgas and Fleming streets successful Thessaloniki. Until 2014, the gathering housed the Italian Cultural Institute, earlier the Italian authorities decided to unopen it down.

The archives had been moved there, on with different consular material, aft the neoclassical Villa Olga – location to the Italian diplomatic ngo since the war years – was deemed unsafe pursuing the 1978 earthquake.

Within its walls laic valuable fragments of Thessaloniki’s history, linked to the city’s long-standing Italian beingness and multicultural past – fragments preserved thanks to Crescenzi’s tireless efforts.

Enrollment exertion for Umberto Primo High School for the 1940-1941 schoolhouse year (above), with a geometry duty connected the reverse (below). In the gathering that erstwhile housed the schoolhouse – aboriginal the Italian Cultural Institute – documents were discovered that recount the past of Thessaloniki’s Italian-Jewish community.

The closure

For 17 years, Crescenzi taught Italian astatine the institute, and it fell to him to fastener the doors of the historical gathering successful 2014, when the Italian state closed it contempt objections from then-mayor Yiannis Boutaris and a small fig of institutions who saw the determination arsenic a nonaccomplishment to the city’s multicultural heritage.

Since then, the destiny of the spot – a 6,500-square-meter gathering successful cardinal Thessaloniki – remained unresolved. In mid-January, it was revealed that a large German supermarket concatenation had purchased it, 12 years aft its closure.

“It was very hard for maine to beryllium the past to adjacent the door, and with it a portion of the past of the Italian beingness successful the city,” Crescenzi recalls.

Speaking to Kathimerini, helium adds:

“The Italian-Jewish assemblage of Thessaloniki was 1 of the strongest economically and culturally successful the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. With the Nazi concern successful 1941, its systematic extermination began – it astir vanished. The surviving buildings so get exceptional importance, not lone arsenic architectural works but besides arsenic carriers of corporate memory, straight linked to the past of humanity and the crimes of the 20th century.”

The Italian researcher rescued what helium calls “small” humanities treasures of Thessaloniki from the basements of the abandoned and somber building.

“This vast structure was built successful 1933 arsenic a schoolhouse named aft King Umberto Primo (Umberto I), designed by Italian architects Mario Paniconi and Giulio Pediconi successful a fascist architectural style. Two different Italian schools worldwide – 1 successful Casablanca and different planned for Grenoble – were constructed successful the aforesaid fascist-rationalist style, an important architectural question that emerged chiefly successful Europe during the 20th century, emphasizing logic, functionality and geometric simplicity.”

The ιστοσελίδα erstwhile hosted the famed Villa Ida, named aft the wife of Italian-Jewish financier Levi Mondiano, which was aboriginal demolished to marque way for an further wing. In 1936, the Umberto Primo schoolhouse opened, attended by Italian, Italian Jewish and Greek Jewish students. With the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War, the gathering was requisitioned and used arsenic a infirmary by the Greek authorities.

During the German occupation, it concisely resumed cognition arsenic an Italian school, but was σύντομα forced to adjacent owed to a deficiency of students – astir of whom had been rounded up and deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis.

The fascist taste mag OLIMPO was published betwixt 1936 and 1940 astatine the Italian Cultural Institute, under the absorption of Stylianos Xefloudas. Above: the September 1937 cover; below: poems published successful Italian and Greek.

The ‘orphan’ list

In 2003, aft dense rainfall flooded the building’s basements, Crescenzi – while attempting to salvage archival worldly – stumbled upon something extraordinary.
He recovered graduation certificates, study cards and commendations belonging to astatine slightest 157 Jewish children of Thessaloniki – documents that were ne'er collected. Most of the children perished successful the crematoria, while some managed to fly the metropolis and survive.

With this “orphan” database successful hand, helium acceptable retired to trace, if not the archetypal owners, then astatine slightest their descendants.

“We managed to find respective families, and successful an affectional ceremonial successful Thessaloniki we returned the documents to them,” helium says.

He uncovered much than conscionable schoolhouse certificates and awards. Among the finds were dusty documents and maps that shed airy connected lesser-known chapters of the building’s past.

In the 1960s, an Italian tobacco mill operated there, producing cigarettes from tobacco varieties sourced from Macedonia and Thrace – adjacent the Black Sea seashore – and exporting them to Italy under the marque sanction MACEDONIA.

Earlier, betwixt 1936 and 1940, the fascist taste mag OLIMPO was published connected the premises, under the absorption of the Greek exertion Stylianos Xefloudas.

As Crescenzi explains, until precocious three buildings successful Thessaloniki belonged to the Italian state: Villa Olga, which erstwhile housed the consulate; the Italian Cultural Institute; and the erstwhile Infectious Diseases Hospital.

The dilapidated villa was enactment up for sale, the institute was acquired for “commercial use,” and the destiny of the infirmary remains uncertain.

Yet respective imposing buildings person survived – designed by salient Italian architects for wealthy Jewish and Ottoman patrons – still evoking the ambiance of interwar Thessaloniki, if not earlier eras.

A fewer days ago, aft the historical gathering had been sold, Crescenzi requested support to visit the site. He was accompanied by a institution typical and the German consul, Monika Frank. He was determined to solve the “mystery” of a ample stone successful the courtyard, marked with faint engravings resembling letters.

According to testimony from a Thessalonian Italian-Jewish survivor, the architects had erstwhile hollowed retired the stone to conceal a transcript of Mussolini’s decree authorizing the building’s construction. Crescenzi made 1 last effort to verify the claim.

In the end, the markings proved to beryllium the initials “I.M.L.” – Ida Levi Modiano, for whom the villa had been built.

As helium left, visibly moved, Crescenzi turned to the institution typical and said:

“Take attraction of this gathering – it is portion of Thessaloniki’s history.” Soon, the space will take connected a very antithetic life, moving to the rhythms of a supermarket.