TREE REMEMBER ME

Bibliography R. Siboni, M. Pastorino, I. Rosato, Laborastoria 3 (L'età contemporanea), Palumbo editore M. Sarfatti, La Shoah in Italia, Einaudi editore I. Gutman, B. Rivlin, L. Picciotto, I Giusti d'Italia, Mondadori - Le scie

Some Jews returned from the concentration camps and others were saved because they managed to hide in Christian families’s houses or by joining the Greek resistance organizations of EDES and ELAS. Only 10226&nbsp; survived, among them the 275 Jews of Zakynthos who were saved thanks to the Metropolitan of Zakynthos Chrysostomos and the mayor Louka Carrer who refused at the risk of their lives to give a list of the names of the Jews of their island. The Jewish population of the country &nbsp;,after the war , was reduced by 86%.

Loukas Carrer and Metropolitan Chrysostomos

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the early hours of March 24th to 25th, 1944, the Final Solution for the Jews of Ioannina was suddenly put into effect: from the Mavili Square the residents outside the Castle and from the Military Hospital the Kastrini, (residents inside the castle) &nbsp;the 1870 Romanian Jews were uprooted after twelve centuries from the Ioannina, on the snowy 25th of March 1944. They took with them what they could of their possessions in bags weighing up to 40 kg. They were transported in 97 covered trucks, through Trikala, to Larissa, and then by train, under miserable conditions, to Auschwitz. There and in several other death camps, 92% of the Romaniotic Jewry of Ioannina was exterminated. One hundred eighty Jews managed&nbsp; to survive from&nbsp; holocaust.

The liquidation of the ghettos, that is, the mass deportation of Jews to extermination centres, began on 16 March 1942, when a transport of 1,600 people was sent from the Lublin ghetto to the Belzec camp. Under the pretext of being sent to forced labour in the East, Jews were transported by trains to extermination centres located in the Polish territories incorporated into the Third Reich - Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof) and Oświęcim (Auschwitz-Birkenau), as well as to four centres in the General Government - Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek. In the GG, the killings were carried out under the code name "Aktion Reinhardt". As a result of the Holocaust, almost 6 million European Jews perished, almost half of whom were Polish Jews.

Extermination camps were funded for purposes of mass murderers. The largest concetration camp, for theese purporses was Jasenovac. The prisoners were forced to labor, tortured and murdered. A huge number of Serbs and Roma people were murdered in this concentration camp. Many  Jews were murdered in this camp, but authorities deported a huge number of Jewish to Nazi Germany. 

The entrence in concentration camp Jasenovac.

But when the PNF became openly anti-Semitic in 1938, it demonstrated a capacity for elaboration and action that must have existed before. In fact, by observing Mussolini's political conduct in the previous decade, one can perceive behaviors of attention towards the Jewish component.

PERIOD OF PERSECUTION OF RIGHTS (1938-1943) In 1938 Benito Mussolini decided to adopt an anti-Jewish policy in Italy too. This decision is due to the fact that anti-Jewish motivations had grown in the PNF and in Mussolini himself, as well as external reasons (such as the process of alignment with Nazi Germany and the racist line against Africans after the conquest of Ethiopia). Mussolini matured his anti-Jewish policy in 1936 when he anonymously published an article in the newspaper "Il popolo d'Italia", in which he defines anti-Semitism as an inevitable consequence of “too much Jewry”. In 1937 Mussolini organized propaganda for the new anti-Semitic politic and in 1938 he started the census of Italian Jews.

The symbol of Ustasha organisation; It include capital letter ''U'' and croatian coat of arms with first white field. 

The symbol of Ustasha organisation; It include capital letter ''U'' and croatian coat of arms with first white field 

A large number of croatian political dissenters emigrated from Yugoslavia after establishing king's dictatorship. Some of them began to pubicily inform the world about the situation in Yugoslavia. But some of them founded Ustasha - croatian revolutionar movement (Ustaša - Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret) in Italy in 1929. During 1930s they illigaly spread their ideas in Yugoslavia and try to destabilize king's regime with sabotages, armed attacts and assassinations. Members of this organisation belived that the only way to solve yugoslavian problems was to create an independant state of Croatia.

Despite the magnitude of the disaster, the story of the Greek Jews and their tragic fate remained for a very long time excluded from the national narrative. The first book about the events of the genocide was published in 1974 by Molcho and Nehama, &nbsp;two members of the Israeli community of Thessaloniki, with a title dedicated to the victims: In Memoriam. The first monuments were votive plaques in cemeteries.&nbsp; In 1987 was constructed the first &nbsp;Holocaust’s memorial in Larissa. Since the 1990’ s, the blockade of memory gradually fades out and begins the construction of monuments in many of the cities where Jewish population existed.

From April 1941 to July 1942, racist legislation was not implemented in Thessaloniki. Various confiscations that were made also concerned Christian citizens, so the measures were not considered anti-Jewish. However, when these started they mostly referred to the Jews. Ostensibly, the Germans treated the Jews indifferently because they needed them while they organized the looting of the community's property. The first anti-Semitic measure was the gathering of Jewish men in Eleftheria Square in Thessaloniki on July 11, 1942. Under the pretext of recording them, abuse and beatings and general phenomena were observed, such as αnnihilation, humiliation of the gathered.&nbsp; Thus, it opened the way for the annihilation of the Jews. Two thousand of them were sent to forced labor for the German army. In December 1942, the ancient cemetery of the Jewish community was destroyed. &nbsp;

With the proclamation of Independent State of Croatia the main goal of Ustasha movement (the establishment of an independent national state) was officially achieved. However, the Independent State of Croatia was created as a result of an agreement between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. 

Ante Pavelić with Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was Ante Pavelić's main ally. After the Italian occupation of the east coast of the Adriatic sea, Pavelić changed his policy towards Mussolini and turned to Hitler.

Μπουρούτης, Ανδρέας. Ολοκαύτωμα στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Αθήνα: Αλεξάνδρεια, 2020. (Bouroutis Andreas. Holocaust in Thessaloniki. Athens: Alexandreia, 2020) Τομαή, Φωτεινή. Έλληνες στο Άουσβιτς-Μπιρκενάου. Αθήνα: Παπαζήσης, 2009. (Tomai, Fotini. Greeks in Auschwitz-Birkenaou. Athens: Papazisis, 2009) <a href="https://www.jewishmuseum.gr/i-evrei-tis-elladas/">https://www.jewishmuseum.gr/i-evrei-tis-elladas/</a> <a href="https://www.occupation-memories.org/bildung/Die-Lehreinheiten/Holocaust/index.html">https://www.occupation-memories.org/bildung/Die-Lehreinheiten/Holocaust/index.html</a> <a href="http://ebooks.edu.gr/ebooks/v/html/8547/5204/Istoria_G-Gymnasiou_html-empl/">http://ebooks.edu.gr/ebooks/v/html/8547/5204/Istoria_G-Gymnasiou_html-empl/</a> <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/el/article/salonika">https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/el/article/salonika</a>

We can see a reproduction of the Auschwitz dormitories, a room with the names of the victims of the Holocaust, where a memorial of the flame was present.

We also can see photographs, documents, objects and screens, which displayed the reality about the before, during and after the tragedy. Undoubtedly, this visit was not indifferent to us and in fact, it brought us a new reality and dimension about the history of the Holocaust.

During 1930s Ustasha organisation established training camps for their members in Italy and Hungary. In addition, they wrote many texts, the most important of which are Ustasha principles (1933.) and Die kroatische Frage by Ante Pavelić (1936.).

Ante Pavelić, foudner of Ustasha organisation and later the leader of Independent State of Croatia. In his book Die kroatische Frage he spoke against Serbs, Jews, communists etc. He also points out Serbs as the main enemy of Croats and accuse Jews for cooperation with Serbs in trade, journalism, bank institutions etc.

The Independent State of Croatia was Nazi pupet state in which was established Quinsling regime with Ante Pavelić as leader. 

Same as the Hitler and Mussolini, Pavelić also gives himself a official title- Poglavnik (Leader). Also, just as the Nazis had a salute, the Ustashas also formed some kind of salute. The official greeting of all citizens was: Za dom i Poglavnika spremni! (transl.: For homeland and Leader (means Pavelić) ready! Later Ustashas shortened it into: Za dom spremni! (transl.: For homeland ready!)

Monument ''Flower'' in Jasenovac in honor of the victims.

It is impossible to determine the exact number of prisoners murdered in concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia. Today's historiography has no reliable documentation. Ustasha regime did not keep records in all concentration camps. On the other hand, a many places of mass murders have not been explored. Also, Ustasha regime tried to cover up crimes (very similar to Nazi policy) by burning bodies or throwing them the in Adriatic Sea or rivers.

According to documents, around  39 000 to 40 000 Jews lived there at the time of establishment od the Independent State of Croatia (1941). But only  9 000 Jews survived the Holocaust. Most of them were killed in Ustasha concentration camps or were deported to Nazi concentration camps. The largest number of Jews killed in the Independent State of Croatia werw killed in the Jasenovac Concentration camp (about 13 000). 

 An important issue is also the looting of Jewish property by the Nazis, who in some cases found willing collaborators motivated by a combination of racial, anti-Semitic, nationalist, economic, and political motives. After the war, most countries enacted property restitution laws, but the process was not completed for a number of reasons: most of the owners had been murdered, the survivors often didn’t return to their&nbsp; homeland. Those who immigrated to Israel lost the right to claim, while the people who returned to the places from which they had been expelled had to face not only&nbsp; the collective and individual trauma of the destruction but also &nbsp;local reactions of those who had reaped their properties. 

Index p. 05 Holocaust in Italy p. 15 Holocaust in Croatia p. 35 Holocaust in Greece p. 65 Holocaust in Portugal p. 70 Holocaust in Poland

Initially, the policy of the German authorities towards the Jews was to isolate them from the Poles. The Jewish population was publicly humiliated, sent to forced labour, deprived of their property, marked by an order to wear patches or armbands with a Star of David on their clothes, and then resettled in ghettos. The Germans established the first ghetto in occupied Europe in Piotrków (today's Trybunalski) as early as October 1939. A further nearly 600 ghettoised districts were established in 1940, and of these the largest were in Warsaw (nearly 400,000 people) and Lodz (then known as Litzmannstadt; over 200,000 people).

Ustasha regime in Independent State of Croatia

Talking about numbers means dealing with something that has already happened. But talking about the reasons for suffering means thinking about the (imp)possibility of such things happening ever again. 

(Klasić, H. (2020). Židovi u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj - represija. U N. Budak, (Ur.),&nbsp;Antijudaizam, antisemitizam i Holokaust u Hrvatskoj&nbsp;(str. 58). Zagreb)

Borders of Independent State of Croatia in the context of World War II; around 1943. 

As a result of hostilities in September 1939, Polish territory came under two occupations - German and Soviet. For Polish citizens, both meant terror and repression, but they shaped the position of the Jewish population on different terms. On the territory incorporated into the Third Reich and within the borders of the General Government created by the German occupation authorities, the Germans pursued a policy aimed at the total extermination of the Jews. In the territories incorporated into the USSR, due to the nature of Soviet terror, stemming from class rather than racial motives, Jews were persecuted on an equal footing with other social groups.

The legal definition of nationality was promulgated at the end of April 1941 in the Legal provision on Race. In that provision it was said that a citizen of Indenpendent State of Croatia is one who of Arian origin; which was very similar to the laws of Nazi Germany. Furthermore, in the same laws the Arian origin is explained as the descendants of the origin of the European race. The most anti-Semitic law was promulgated on the same day as previus one, and it was called as Laws for the Protection of the Aryan Origin of Croats. This law was&nbsp; directed against Jews and Roma people. In this law was prohibited marriages with Jews or Roma people and they were declared as threat for Croats.&nbsp;

Photo of newspapper cover of proclamation Race Laws in Independent State of Croatia. 

Recognizing the importance of the active Jewish element, the sultans invited the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal who were called Sephardim (Sefarad = Spain). They settled in the Greek area, mainly during the 15th century, bringing their own manners and customs and their language (Hispanic Hebrew). This was followed by arrivals of smaller groups from Hungary and Southern Italy. During the period from the 16th to the 18th century, the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki was one of the largest in the world. Also important were the Communities in Rhodes and Crete. The latter was famous for the development of Rabbinic Philosophy there. With the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1832, Jews were granted equal political rights with other Greeks. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 10,000 Jews living in Greece, but after the annexations of territories during the Balkan Wars (1912-13), their number reached 100,000.

Thessaloniki is a City in northern Greece and was the largest Jewish community in Greece. They were Sephardim, direct descendants of the Jews of Spain who had been persecuted at the end of the 15th century and had settled in the then Ottoman Empire. The community had 35 synagogues, 16 clubs, eight schools, two orphanages and several libraries, while its property amounted to 56 million Marks. 50,000 Jewish people lived there during the German occupation. The Germans arrested the Jewish leadership and evicted hundreds of Jewish families and confiscated their apartments, and commandeered the Jewish hospital to house the German army. Valuable Jewish artifacts and works of art were also confiscated from Jewish academies and shipped to Germany.

- For Italian Jews no expulsion measures were adopted but other types of measures to solicit their exodus: -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;they were removed from public office; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;they were forbidden to have Aryan waiters; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;they were excluded from the PNF; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;they were ousted from the military; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;all those who worked in companies converted to the production of war material were fired; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Jewish businesses were forbidden to advertise in newspapers; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;they were forbidden to be itinerant merchants, hoteliers, private teachers, carrier pigeon breeders, acrobats, photographers, stationers, sellers of sacred objects; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;concessions for new shops were blocked;

By eTwinning project "Tree remember me" 2023

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the Nazis turned to the Jews of Athens who until then had escaped deportation to concentration camps due to Italy's refusal to cooperate with Nazi Germany in the "Final Solution" plan,&nbsp; and also because of the humanitarian dispositions of Italian diplomats and the efforts of Archbishop Damascinos and the Greek Police led by Aggelos Evert who helped the Jews by issuing fake identity cards with Christian names.

Thus, on March 24, 1944, the eve of the national anniversary and the Jewish Pesach, a rumor spread that at the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Thisio, Matzah, that is, unleavened bread, would be distributed.

350 Jews went to the synagogue as a result of which they were arrested and transferred to the Haidari camp. In 1944 a train started from Rufs railway station in Athens to transport Jews to Auschwitz. In addition to the Jews of Athens, there were also Jews from Patras, Agrinio, Chalkida, Volos, Larissa, Trikala, Arta, Preveza, Ioannina, Thessaloniki and Kastoria.

HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IN OPORTO In this Jewish museum, located in the city of Oporto, in the north of Portugal, it is portrayed the life of this community before the Holocaust, Nazism, Nazi expansion in Europe, the Ghettos, refugees, concentration, labor and extermination camps, as well as the final solution, the marches of death, the liberation of Jews and their life in the post-war period.

SHOAH IN GREECE

The kingdom was multireligius and multinations and during 1920s and there was a problem with grownth of nationalism. A large number of Croats was against Karađorđević regime because the king give a support to serbian radical party whose policy was against Croatian people and was directed into making Great Serbia.

The main features of Karađorđević regime were: - establisihg king dictadorship in 1929 - censorhip - murders of political disidents - banning the work of any political party - the parliamnet was dissolved - the kingdom was separated in new teritory units (wich are not follow historical borders) - banning of emphasis national symbols (such as flags, anthems etc.). Those features of dictadorship were in obligacy with creating yugoslavian unitarism and great serbian hegemony.

Prominent persons

Alojzije Stepinac was the bishop of Zagreb during the Independent State of Croatia. After its establishment, he welcomed its establishment and participated in meetings with Ustasha officials. In his church sermons and letters, he often referred to the situation in the country and criticized the Ustasha government. However, he did not publicly oppose the Ustasha government, i.e. he did not try to stop the genocide and terror of the Ustasha regime. According to some sources, towards the end of the war, he became involved in rescuing Jews. The question of his actions is a controversial topic today. He is criticized for cooperating with Ustasha officials and for insufficient opposition to the Ustasha regime.

Diana Budisavljević (Obexer) was a humanitarian from Zagreb. During the World War II., she organized a movement to save children from Ustasha camps. In the fall of 1941 she he began the campaign by sending food, clothes, medicine and money to the Ustasha camps. After she found out that there were a large number of children in Ustasha camps, whose parents had been transported to Germany, with the help of German officers she began an operation to save the children. During her work, she saved at least 7,000 children. She kept detailed records of rescued children. But after World War II. the records have been confiscated by communist policy. In 2019 a movie was made about her work: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10814700/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_8_q_diana%2520budis">https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10814700/ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_8_q_diana%2520budis</a>

Jewish' humiliation in Eleftherias (Freedom) Square

View of the destroyed Jewish cemetery in German-occupied Thessaloniki. The tombstones will be used as building materials. Thessaloniki, after December 6, 1942.

With the successive fascist laws (1925-1926) Italy became a de facto dictatorship while remaining a constitutional monarchy: all parties were abolished except the fascist one, elections were replaced by plebiscites, newspaper censorship began, trade unions were abolished. Furthermore, the fascist government undertook a series of actions to control the Italian people through propaganda and terror from the cradle to old age (control of the school, control of family and maternity, control of after work and free time, control of culture and media…). The blackest page of fascist totalitarianism was, however, in 1938, the promulgation of the racial laws against the Jews. Today Italy is a Republic and the article n.3 of our Constitution says:

The history of the Holocaust through Europe

THE UPRISING OF THE GREEK JEWS IN AUSCHWITZ

On October 7, 1944 a great uprising in Auschwitz took place by a group of Greek Jews prisoners –sondercommandos who were charged with the tragic task of leading the soon-to-be-dead to the gas chambers. They attacked the German guards and barricaded themselves in crematorium IV. The signal was given by Josef Varuh from Corfu. Marcel Natzari, one of the Greek-Jewish sonderkommandos who participated in the operation, took notes and buried the manuscripts in Auschwitz. According to Nazari days before the uprising Greek women communicated with each other planning the uprising by singing variations of songs by Markos Vamvakaris. The women managed to find quantities of dynamite from four prisoners who worked for the Union factory inside the camp. Crematorium IV was blown by the insurgents, three SS soldiers were killed, while more than 400 participants were executed, many singing the Greek national anthem.

The &nbsp;Jewish community of Ioannina

The historical jewish community of Ioannina was overcrowded, strong and it had&nbsp; greek-jewish character. It flourished and decayed&nbsp;&nbsp; and until&nbsp;today, although few members, it remains active.It may be one of the oldest Jewish communities in Greece with history a lot of&nbsp; years. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When Italy occupied Greece, the Jewish community of Ioannina&nbsp; numbered around 1950 members. The Italian administration was particularly lenient and didn't take restrictive measures against them. Thus, the Jews of the city continued their lives as normal. &nbsp;&nbsp; On the contrary, on 20 April&nbsp; 1943, &nbsp;when &nbsp;German troops entered the city from the first moment they put pressure on &nbsp;the community.

July 1938 -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Central Demographic Office of the Ministry of the Interior is transformed into the General Directorate for Demography and Race. -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Race Problem Studies Office is established in the Cabinet of the Ministry of Popular Culture. -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The document Fascism and the problems of race was published. It stated that the concept of race was biological and, therefore, anticipated how the future legislation was based on an analysis of the blood of Italians. 1-2 September 1938 and following weeks. The Council of Ministers approved the first racial laws, followed by further increasingly precise measures between November and December. - Expulsion of foreign Jews: -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;prohibition of new entries for residence (November 1938), -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;expulsion from the Kingdom of Italy of those who had not resided there for at least twenty years (March 1939), -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;prohibition of new entries for stay (August 1939), -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;prohibition of new entries for transit (May 1940). After the start of the war, as travel was impossible, the government began to intern in concentration camps waiting to provide for immediate expulsion at the end of the conflict.

THE JEWS IN ITALY BEFORE THE PERSECUTION In 1938, the year of the promulgation of the racial laws in Italy, there were 46,656 Jews in Italy. With the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (1861), the Jews had obtained full legal emancipation.

THE FASCISM AND ITS ANTI-SEMITISM The Jews were also quite active from a political point of view, resulting in members of various parties, including the fascist one, even if they never made a career in it (except for Guido Jung who was finance minister between 1931 and 1935). Until 1938, the year of promulgation of the racial laws, the PNF (National Fascist Party) had not openly given anti-Semitic indications and membership was also open to Jews.

The treatment of Jews residing in these areas was initially the responsibility of the Gestapo and the Security Police. The Jews immediately became subject to “expulsion to the east”, that meant deportation. The arrests began in October 1943: in Trieste on the 9th and in Rome on the 16th. The roundup of 16th October 1943 in Rome was the most serious ever in the history of the Italian Shoah: they were arrested in 1259 and deported to Auschwitz in 1023 people. From November 1943, however, the arrests returned to being managed by the Italian Social Republic of Mussolini. Although there is no official document to certify it, it was clear that there was a very close agreement between the Italian fascist and German Nazi hierarchs. In fact, the mechanism of events was structured in a precise way: the Italians arrested and transferred to the concentration camp and then the Germans took them over and deported them, emptying the camp to the Italians who resumed with the arrests and so on. All those arrested were taken to the only Italian concentration camp, that of Fossoli di Carpi in the province of Modena (later replaced by that of Bolzano-Gries). Jews arrested in Italy were mainly deported to Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen and Ravensbruck. The victims of the Italian Holocaust are around 8000-8100 people, around 18% of the 46,000 people classified in 1938 as being of the "Jewish race".

The first evidence of Jewish presence in Greece is an inscription from 300-250 BC, from Attica. On the holy island of Delos, there is the oldest synagogue in the diaspora, dating back to the early 1st century.

The Greek Jews numbered 77,377 and formed 25 compact religious communities: Didymoticho, Nea Orestiada, Soufli, Alexandroupolis, Komotini, Xanthi, Kavala, Drama, Serres, Thessaloniki -which was also the largest-, Veria, Kastoria, Florina, Ioannina, Preveza , Arta, Trikala , Karditsa, Larissa, Volos, Chalkida, Athens, Patras, Agrinio, Corfu, Zakynthos, Crete and Kos. &nbsp;&nbsp; The first Greek Jews who were taken to the Treblinka’s crematoriums and immediately exterminated were from the Bulgarian occupation zone of Macedonia and Thrace. They were transported in a suffocated animals transportation train, and they were travelling for five days and nights without being able to sit down and they were using buckets for their basic sanitary needs.

The establishment of concencration camps began in April 1941. During Ustasha regime, there were around 30 concentration camps under Ustasha, Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy supervision. The concentration camps were differed in purpose. 

They were divided in three categories: - the separated camps - extermination camps - camps for work (known as labor camps).

The systematic persecution of Jews began in June 1941 when a new provision was announced. Acording to that legal provision, Jews were prohibited from any public work (e.g. literary, sports, art, music, theatar or film work, etc.). Also every Jew, over the age of 14, was obligated to wear special yellow mark with black letter Ž on the left side of chest (in Croatian language Jews means Židov). Also, every Jewish company was marked.

Jews died in the ghettos from starvation and disease, and were often killed by the Germans for no good reason, in random circumstances. Organised mass executions by special Einsatzgruppen (Operational Groups) in the East began in mid-1941 and the first murders using gas chambers in late 1941. On 20 January 1942, at a conference in a villa in Wannsee, near Berlin, attended among others by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office, Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo, and deportation expert Adolf Eichmann, the plan for the "final solution of the Jewish question" in Europe, i.e. the murder of all Jews, was clarified.

After the April war (the Nazi Germany attack) the Kingdom Yugoslavia officially collapsed. The royal family and government move to London and the Independent State of Croatia established. 

Photo of the newspapper proclamation of Independent State of Croatia. Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed by Slavko Kvaternik on April 10th 1941 via radio. A large number of citizens considered this event as libertation and the final creation of an independent state, therefore they welcomed the entry of the Germany army.

During World War II, when the Italians (1940) and the Germans (1941) attacked Greece, many Jews fought in the ranks of the Greek Army. During the Occupation, the Israeli Communities of Greece were decimated, as the majority of their members were murdered in the death camps. The losses reached 87% of the pre-war Jewish population of Greece, one of the highest percentages in Europe. Many of the Jews who were saved owed it to the help of their Christian compatriots; several joined the resistance or the Hellenic Corps of the Middle East. The Jewish population declined further in the post-war years due to immigration to the USA. and Israel. Today in Greece live approximately 5,000 Jews, organized into 9 Communities.

Ghettos differed in the degree of isolation from the so-called "Aryan side", the districts inhabited by Poles, by surrounding them with a high wall, a fence, barbed wire entanglements, or in other cases just designating an area that Jews were not allowed to cross. From the autumn of 1941, harsh penalties, even death, were imposed for leaving the ghetto, hiding on the so-called Aryan side, and providing aid to Jews - shelter or even temporary support.

Ustasha policy used to copy Nazi policy against Jews. Same as in Nazi Germany, Ustasha policy organized propaganda exhibitions about Jewish history in teritory of Indenpendent State of Croatia. Beside, Ustasha regime demolished synagougges and Jewish cemeteries. Besides the Jewish religius buildings, Ustasha also demolished Serbian Orthodox churches.

Photo of demolishing synagouge in Zagreb. 

Antisemit propaganda poster from an exibiton 1942. In this poster snake symbolizes a Jews. 

Other discriminatory laws against Jews were associated with to the ban of: - housing in certain parts of the city - walking around city center - visting restaurants, hotels, cinemas or theatars In addition to the above, they were obligated to hand over their personal belongings such as radios and cameras.

After the promulgation of these laws, the Ustasha leadership, led by Ante Pavelić, legalized mass murders and exterminations. The Ustasha regime established many courts for these murders. In one provision, Ante Pavelić states that every citizen who talks about the persecution of other citizens will be brought to the court. Also, with the same provision, Jews are declared collectively responsible for spreading fake news.

Photo of provision on confiscation of Jewish property.

The EAM resistance movement, which was located in Athens, made the first protest against the persecution of the Jews of Thessaloniki in 1943. The Jews from Thessaloniki decided to flee to Athens. But not everyone had the appropriate financial means. Initially for their movement and then to offer them a hiding place. Nevertheless, 3,000 managed to be transferred. The Jews of Athens for the most part ignored General Stroup's order to declare themselves as they knew the fate of their co-religionists. 

PERIOD OF THE PERSECUTION OF LIVES (1943-1945) On 25th July 1943 the fascist government fell. In Italy there was hope for change, soon followed by the shock that all racial laws remained in effect. On 8th September 1943 the news was spread that the Kingdom of Italy had stipulated the armistice with Allies. Italy was divided into two parts: in the south of the front line (southern Italy and the islands) there were the Anglo-Americans and the Kingdom of Italy; in the north the German occupier and the new fascist state called “Italian Social Republic” based in Salò, on Lake of Garda. In this area, the period of persecution of the lives of Jews began immediately in the autumn of 1943 and lasted until the summer of 1944 in the regions of central Italy and until April 1945 in the regions of northern Italy.

Having completed their work in continental Greece, the German conqueror had turned their attention at the island’ s population, with Corfu first in line. In 9 of June the German charged at Corfu, arresting 1795 Jews of the island and transporting them with consecutive missions to Haidari camp in Athens. The same day Mayor Kollas, prefect Komianos and Police Director Dedopoulos welcomed&nbsp; the arrest of the Corfu Jews with open arms, due to the financial advantages that would occur to the island because of the arrest, and their mission in labor. In Zakynthos, all 275 Jews of the island were lucky to be saved, fleeing to the mountains thanks to the efforts of bishop Chrysostomos and mayor Lukas Karrer. When the Germans asked for a list of all the Jews of the island. However they refused and only gave them two names. Their own.

Shortly before the end of World War I., in October 1918., croatian territory join the State of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. But two months later the State has been united with Kingdom Serbia in Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (after 1929 known as Kingdom Yugoslavia). The Kingdom was ruled by the Serbian royal family Karađorđević.

HOW MANY JEWS SURVIVED THE WAR IN HIDING? It is estimated that around 40-50,000 Jews survived on Polish soil. The results of research to date do not make it possible to say precisely what percentage of this number is made up of those who survived in hiding or under false identity on the so-called Aryan side. Some of them survived thanks to the selfless help of Poles. Sometimes, Jews saved themselves and survived solely due to their own resourcefulness, or - which was much more common - they received support in exchange for lavish remuneration. Bibliography: https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/o-sprawiedliwych/zydzi-ukrywajacy-sie/zydzi-w-ukryciu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Poland https://ipla.pluscdn.pl/dituel/cp/fp/fpfzwd22d2o5i4nzmvz9gab1yuwjfow7.jpg https://dzieje.pl/content/wprowadzenie-8

Let this place be for centuries a cry of liberation and a warning to humanity. Here the Nazis killed approximately one and a half million men, women and children, mainly Jews from various European countries. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945

March 1944 - &nbsp;the Germans rounded up the city's Jews and transported them to Larissa and from there to Auschwitz.

On October 28, Italy demanded that troops be allowed to enter Greece. Metaxas expressed NO to the will of the people and the Italian invasion began. The Greeks are fighting the Italians while Greece is also under German attack from Yugoslav and Bulgarian territories. The Germans broke the brave Greek resistance and Lieutenant General Tsolakoglou signed a capitulation on his own initiative. The official Greek government moves to Cairo and the country is divided into three zones of occupation, German, Bulgarian and Italian. Repressive measures are imposed, financial resources are frozen and mass executions are carried out. The first important resistance movement was the lowering of the Nazi flag from the Acropolis on May 30, 1941 by two students, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santa, an action that damaged the prestige of the conquerors.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; However, on 23 March 1944, a number of Jews were arrested and taken to the Haidari camp with Jews from other areas (1200 from Preveza, 2400 from Volos, Trikala and Ioannina). In these areas the Jews were more suspicious out of fear of what had happened to others Jews &nbsp;before, they lived mixed with the Greeks, they spoke very well the Greek language and did not stand out. That’s how, they were able to hide or take refuge in the mountain and many of them managed not to be arrested from the Germans. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The last mission was in August 1944 with the Jews of Rhodes. Some of them were sent directly to the gas chambers and crematoriums and the rest were sent to labor camps before they too were exterminated. Many died of exhaustion, hardship and disease. Only 120 women, mostly victims of sterilization, and 30 men were saved.

At the same time, resistance organizations are formed that act against the conquerors but also with the aim of ensuring the ability of the Greeks to choose for themselves the form of government of their country after the liberation. On October 12, 1944, the Nazi troops left Athens and the country was liberated.

Demonstration in Athens a few hours after the start of the war

-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;singers, directors, actors were expelled from public exhibitions and painters and sculptors could no longer hold exhibitions; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;pilot's license was prohibited; -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;enrollment in sports clubs and those for the protection of animals was prohibited. -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Expulsions of Jews from public schools (including teachers, janitors, school names, textbooks, maps…) -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Establishment of state offices dedicated to the persecution of Italian Jews -&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Jewish names of many streets and places were replaced. &nbsp; Since the war limited the possibility of emigration, the Italian Jews considered dangerous began to be interned in concentration camps from May 1940. Membership of the Jewish race was mentioned in the birth certificates and work booklets, not on the passport. Fascism never introduced the obligation to wear the yellow star or other distinctive sign.

In May 1944 the Germans turned to the Jews of Crete. They arrested many and sold their property. Those arrested were loaded along with 48 Christian resistance fighters and 112 Italian prisoners of war on the steamer Tanais. The ship was eventually sunk by a British torpedo.

There were also many Jews who were arrested and deported to Auschwitz from &nbsp;the islands of Rhodes and Kos. Few of them survived and after the war they scattered to different parts of the earth.

The Jewish population in Greece increased during the Roman years and formed the basis of Jewish settlements during the Byzantine era. Their main occupations were weaving, fabric dyeing and silk making. These Jews, later called Romaniotes, were Greek-speaking and significantly integrated into Greek culture. It is characteristic that they wrote in Greek, but using the Hebrew alphabet. The Ottoman authorities granted the Jews the same rights as any non-Muslim religious group in the empire: they could practice their religion freely and had relative autonomy and judicial powers in intra-communal matters.

In labore camps were prisoners who has had labore obligatory. In these camps large number of prisoners died under difficult working conditions. On the other hand, a lot of prisoners were murdered from guards.

Photo of prisoners working in concetration camp Jasenovac.  Jasenowas was the largest concentration camp organized as labor camp and camp for mass murderers. 

Separated camps were the first founded camps in Indenpendent State of Croatia. In these camps Ustasha policy gathered citizens for further deportation to Nazi Germany.

Photo of first founded camp in 15 April 1941. in Independent State of Croatia - The camp Danica (in the place of factory Danica near Koprivnica). In this camp prisoners have been physically and psychically tortured. Acording to historiography documents there were not mass murders.

The dictator Benito Mussolini, founder of the Fascism

An example of "electoral vote" during the Fascism.

BEFORE THE TRAGEDY THE ITALIAN KINGDOM DURING THE FASCISM From 30th October 1922 the Kingdom of Italy was governed by Benito Mussolini, a former socialist and later founder of the National Fascist Party (PNF). Mussolini took power in Italy thanks to a coup d'état called the "march on Rome": on 28th October 1922, in fact, the main supporters of the party (a few thousand people) occupied the main streets of Rome. The king, Vittorio Emanuele III, instead of asking for the army to disperse the demonstrators, called Mussolini (who was in Milan, ready to flee in case of failure) to Rome and entrust him with the government of the Kingdom. From 1922 to 1924 Mussolini governed with a Parliament in which there were only thirty Fascists. Despite this, he managed to get some laws approved in Parliament that would have sanctioned the beginning of totalitarianism from the 1924 elections.

POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN GREECE BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The political condition in Greece&nbsp; in 1935-1936 was intense. King George II appointed &nbsp;&nbsp;as prime minister Ioannis Metaxas , known for his anti-democratic ideas. His appointment as prime minister and the worsening of the economy caused strong reactions, culminating in the bloody demonstrations in Thessaloniki in May 1936. Under the pretext of these events and citing "communist danger", George II and Metaxas declared a dictatorship on 4th&nbsp; &nbsp;August 1936, on the eve of a twenty-four-hour general strike. The dream of I. Metaxas was the creation in Greece of a regime according to the standards of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. However, there was no mass fascist party in Greece. The dictator tried to fill the void by creating the National Youth Organization (EON), but World War II interrupted his attempt.

The deportation and extermination of Greek Jews was part of the National Socialist "Final Solution" that began in March 1943 and was completed in August 1944. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1943, Otto Adolf&nbsp;Eichmann came to Thessaloniki and the plan to deport the Jews of Thessaloniki was implemented. People on trains were transported crammed and many died on the way. A total of 19 rail shipments took place and 56,000 Jews were found in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

&nbsp; At the same time, he tried to affiliate the farmers and workers &nbsp;&nbsp;with systematic propaganda and with the adoption of certain social measures (regulation of agricultural debts, operation of the Social Insurance Foundation). The August 4th &nbsp;regime, however, never gained strong social support. In this &nbsp;sense it differed from fascism and Nazism. Metaxas limited himself to organizing an authoritarian state that persecuted his opponents, especially the communists.&nbsp; Finally, with regard to Greece's international position, Metaxas, under the decisive influence of King George II, oriented himself from the beginning towards Great Britain, considering that in the event of war, Britain would be the winner.