Jewish history – Judy and Valerie On the Road

Ioannina

Again we stopped for a few days in Ioannina staying at the campsite by the lake and walked into town drifting between cafes.

Folk Museum

We visited the folk art museum which is housed in a 19th century Ottoman Manor House.

It displays traditional costumes of the area , musical instruments and household items such as looms and old kitchen utensils.

Many of the outfits were felted overcoats with rich embroidery elaborated with red silk strings

Wooden Carvings

We went to a fascinating exhibition called “Carving wood, sculpting memory with the shepherds of Haliki” housed in the Gadi Foundation in Ioannina.

For centuries shepherds have taken their flocks up from the lowland plains of Thessaly to summer in the cooler pastures of Haliki in the Pindos mountains.

Natasha Drisou-Lemonos, who curated the exhibition, has interviewed shepherds over many years. She transcribed their words to accompany some beautiful black and white photographs mainly from the 1950s to the present day.

The shepherds use wooden crooks which they carve with intricate patterns. Some were displayed in the exhibition together with some beautiful crooks, boxes and other objects carved by the wood sculptor, Christos Gevrou.

Jews in Ioannina

The old synagogue is located within the walled Castro.

It is likely that the synagogue survived the German occupation as a result of the actions of the mayor of Ioannina, Dimitios Vlachides. It seems he convinced the Germans that the Greeks would use the building as a library and that the Torah scrolls and other sacred material should be placed in the municipal museum.

After the war the handful of Holocaust survivors returning to Ioannina sent these to other synagogues including Jerusalem. Many Israelis visit this area and there are three direct flights to Ioannina from Tel Aviv every day!

We have written more about the Jews in Ioannina in our 2019 trip.

http://judyandvalerieontheroad.com/index.php/category/trip/greece-2019/

Thessaloniki

After staying at the Sakiá campsite for about 10 days we went off to Thessaloniki, staying at the same park4nite parking lot by the sea where we had stayed in 2019 (N40°35’23” E22°56’41”).

We were able to get into town easily on the number 5 bus for 1€, although always very crowded! We love Thessaloniki – it has such a history and mixture of cultures. It had been conquered by the Ottomans in 1430, and only became part of Greece after the first Balkan War in 1912.

As well as spending quite a lot of time in cafes and the bazaar/market, we went to various museums, churches, Roman remains and to the area right at the top of the city to see the city walls and fortress. The city also has an extraordinary number of sculptures, both old and contemporary, which you just come across when wandering around.

Museums

We went again to the Archaeological Museum and to see the stunning collection of beautiful Macedonia gold items recovered from cemeteries dating from 4th- 2nd century BC. Here are some photos.

Jewish Museum

Before the Second World War 50% of the city’s population were Sephardic Jews, because when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many settled in Thessaloniki. Between 1941 and 1943 the Nazis deported all the Jews in Greece to Auschwitz and Treblinka where of course they were murdered.

The museum provides a grim chronicle of the destruction of Greece’s Jewish population by the Nazis, but also a fascinating insight into Jewish life in the city over nearly 500 years.

Churches

The city’s best loved church is Agios Demetrios, dedicated to the city’s patron saint. The church was almost entirely reconstructed after the huge fire in 1917, but the first church was constructed on the site in the 4th century AD. It has several beautiful mosaic panels dating back to the 8th century.

Arch of Galerius

The arch was built to commemorate the victory of Emperor Galerius over the Persians in 297AD. Its piers contain weathered reliefs of the battle scenes and it is quite an extraordinary sight on Egnatia Street.

The City Walls

The city was initially fortified right after its foundation in the late 4th century BC but the present walls are dated back to the early Byzantine period around 390 AD. Their defensive abilities are quite impressive! They were 7 kilometres long while at some points they were up to 10 meters high and almost 5 meters thick. A number of fortresses and defensive towers were added during different periods of history like the Tower Of Trigoniou.

The walls originally went right down from the top of the city to the sea and you can still see fragments of the wall now and then throughout the city.

Statues and Sculptures

The sculptures throughout the city are really impressive particularly the national resistance memorial which commemorates the courage and sacrifice of the Greek resistance during World War II and the Holocaust memorial. This made in 1997 and depicts the seven branched menorah and flames in a complex of human bodies. The memorial is situated in Eleftherias Square where the Nazis rounded up the Jews in 1942 to torture and humiliate them.

In the second sculpture below the ‘branches’ have lights hanging from them powered by solar panels and light up at night. The piece aims to raise awareness about renewable energy.

For more information on the sculptures see this link https://thessaloniki.travel/exploring-the-city/art-culture/sculptures-monuments/

HS Velos

Walking along the seafront we saw a strange site – a war ship – HS Velos. This ship belonged to the US Navy during the second world war but later became part of the Greek navy and played a vital role in bringing down the military dictatorship which had controlled the country since 1967. Below is the information in front of the ship.

Rotunda

The Rotonda is a huge, circular building which was constructed by the Romans, then consecrated as a church in the 4th century AD, became a mosque in 1590 and was once again consecrated as a church in 1912, when the Greeks captured the city during the Balkan war. Inside there are no seats and no altar. It is a big, bare, very peaceful circular space with lovely mosaics on the walls and ceiling.

Jewish Community of Ioannina

Ioannina’s Jewish community numbers just some 50 people today, but was once the centre of the unique 2,300 year-old Romaniote Jewish tradition.

The Romaniote Jews, neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardic, emerged from the first Jewish communities of Europe. Records indicate the first Jewish presence in Greece dating back to 300 BCE.

These Jews became known as the Romaniotes, speaking their own language, Yevanic, or Judeo-Greek, a version of Greek infused with Hebrew and written with the Hebrew script.

By the start of the 20th century, some 4,000 Romaniote Jews lived in Ioannina. But amid the economic hardship and the turmoil that accompanied the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, many joined their Greek compatriots and emigrated.

Most went to the United States and Palestine, setting up Romaniote synagogues in New York City and Jerusalem. Later, a third was established in Tel Aviv. At the start of World War II, about 2,000 Jews remained in Ioannina.

On March 25, 1944, the German Nazi occupiers rounded up the Jews of Ioannina and sent them to Auschwitz.

Only 112 Ioannina Jews survived the death camps. Another 69 escaped the roundup, hiding with Christian families or fleeing into the mountains, where some fought with the Greek resistance.

The old Jewish area below the citadel is a warren of narrow lanes and alleys, arcades (called stoas) in Anexartisias Street, many now turned into buzzy restaurants and bars.

Jews in Thessaloniki

In memory of the Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki

There has been a Jewish community in Thessaloniki for over 2,000 years. But after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella many more Sephardic Jews settled in Thessaloniki (Salonica) significantly increasing the Jewish population. Other Jews emigrated from elsewhere in southern Europe and by the 16 century over 50% of the city’s population were Jewish.

At the beginning of WWII the Jewish population of the city numbered 50,000 (just over one fifth of the population). In 1942 the Nazis destroyed the Jewish cemetery with more than 500,000 tombs. In the spring of 1943 the Jewish population were rounded up and on March 15th the first convoy of Jewish Greeks left Thessaloniki bound for Poland. In 1945 only 1,950 retuned. 96% were murdered in the concentration camps.

The plaque on the powerful statue reads:

“Dedicated by the Greek people to the memory of the 50,000 Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki, deported from their mother city by the Nazi occupation forces in the spring of 1943 and exterminated in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz/ Birkenau death camps”

Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki was founded to honour the rich and creative Sephardic heritage as it evolved in the city after the 15th century. It is housed in one of the rare Jewish buildings that survived the fire of 1917. It is great that the city has this museum and the exhibitions provide detail of the Sephardic way of life which existed.

Toledo

Toledo is a fascinating place to visit. A completely walled hill top city with windy narrow streets, beautiful stone houses and architecture from various influences. Before the expulsion of 1492 there was a large Jewish population here with ten synagogues. After the Jews departed these were taken over and made into churches. Two have been restored. One is now a museum for Sephardic Jewry and the other is an exquisitely beautiful building with rows of arches. Apart from just wandering around the streets we visited the two old synagogues, the El Greco museum, a tapestry museum and the cathedral. Here are some photos (click on a photo for an enlarged image)

Synagogue

Museum of Sephardic Jewry

El Greco museum

The museum was thought to have been El Greco’s house and some of the rooms have been furnished with furniture from that period in addition there is a large collection of El Greco’s paintings

Tapestry museum

This museum is connected to the cathedral and contains wall coverings and also garments worn by the priests.

Toledo Cathedral

Segovia

Stayed a couple a nights in Segovia which I definitely recommend for a visit. It has a Roman aquaduct 900m in length built in 50AD. It also has an Alcuzar which looks like a fairy castle (it was rebuilt after a fire) and evidently Walt Disney used as the basis for his castle in Sleeping Beauty.

But apart from all that it’s a lovely place to walk around. Small enough to manage and at this time of the year not crowded with loads of tourists (only a select few).

We wandered around the old Jewish quarter (the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella) Where they have a permanent exhibition in a Jewish centre.

Stayed overnight on an Aire at the bullring- very pleasant and just a 10 minute walk to the centre