Greek Jewry in the twentieth century, 1913-1983

A study based partly on interviews conducted in 1983 with elderly Greek Jews, most of them survivors of the Holocaust. Every territorial acquisition made by Greece in the late 19th-early 20th centuries was accompanied by an upsurge of antisemitism, including mob violence and massacres. There was a rise in antisemitism in 1912-13, after the Greek acquisition of Macedonia and Thrace with their population of 105,000 non-hellenized Jews. Pursuing a policy of hellenization in Salonika in 1920-23, the government obstructed Jewish economic activities in the city; a Sunday-closing law was introduced in the whole country. The restrictions led to the emigration of Jews. The deportation and annihilation of Greek Jews during the Holocaust began in the Bulgarian occupation zone, but the most massive operation was in the German zone. The Holocaust drastically changed the demographic picture of Greek Jewry; pp. 68-69 contain tables documenting this change. Antisemitism, both on the official and popular levels, still exists in postwar Greece. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)