What Happened on Rhodes in the Summer of 1944
Rhodes lies closer to the Turkish coast than to Athens, and that explains a large part of its history. Jewish life on the island is documented since antiquity, at the latest since Hellenistic times. After the Ottoman conquest in 1522 the community grew strongly, because Sephardic families from Spain and Portugal sought refuge and settled here. They spoke Ladino, traded with every port of the Levant and built a quarter that is still called La Juderia. The Kahal Shalom synagogue dates from 1577 and is the oldest surviving synagogue in Greece. Anyone walking through the narrow lanes of the old town treads on pebble mosaics that have lain there for centuries.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, about four thousand Jews lived on Rhodes. Then Italian rule arrived in 1912, at first with relatively liberal rules, and from 1938 with the fascist race laws. Many families left the island for Tangier, the Congo, Rhodesia or South America, and that emigration later saved their lives. About 1,700 to 1,900 people stayed behind, mostly the poorer and older ones, those who had no relatives abroad and no money for the crossing. When Italy capitulated in September 1943, the Wehrmacht took control of the Dodecanese. From that moment, responsibility for all measures lay with German offices.
The Sequence, Day by Day
The deportation began with an administrative act, as it almost always did. On July 18, 1944, all Jewish men aged sixteen and over had to report to the command post, supposedly to register for labor assignments. They were detained, and the following day their wives and children were told to bring papers and valuables if they wanted to see their relatives again. It worked because nobody could imagine what was actually planned. A few days later the people were brought to the harbor and loaded onto three small freight barges. The trip via Kos to Piraeus took more than a week in great heat, without enough water, and people died even on this stage.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1522 | Ottoman conquest of the island, arrival of Sephardic families after the expulsion from Spain |
| 1577 | Construction of the Kahal Shalom synagogue, still the oldest surviving synagogue in Greece |
| 1912 | Italy takes over the Dodecanese, the community counts around four thousand members |
| 1938 | Fascist race laws, a large wave of emigration to Africa and America |
| September 1943 | After the Italian capitulation, the Wehrmacht occupies the island |
| July 18 and 19, 1944 | Order to report for men, then for women and children |
| July 23, 1944 | Shipment of the community toward Piraeus, stopover on Kos |
| Early August 1944 | Arrival in Piraeus, internment in the Chaidari camp near Athens |
| August 16, 1944 | Arrival of the transport at Auschwitz-Birkenau, immediate selection |
| 1989 and 1990 | Yad Vashem honors Selahattin Ülkümen as Righteous Among the Nations |
| Since 1997 | Jewish museum next to the synagogue, memorial at the Square of the Jewish Martyrs |
In Piraeus, the survivors of the sea journey were taken to the Chaidari camp, together with almost a hundred deportees from the island of Kos. From there they went in freight cars across the Balkans to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where, according to the current state of research, the transport arrived on August 16, 1944. It was one of the longest transport routes of the entire Shoah, around three thousand kilometers by sea and rail. Of the roughly 1,700 deportees, about 150 people survived. A community two thousand years old had been extinguished, one whose gravestones, prayer books and account books now lie in museums.
The Exception at the Consulate
In exactly those days, Turkish consul general Selahattin Ülkümen acted. He invoked his country's neutrality and Turkish citizenship law, which includes spouses of citizens, and obtained the release of around forty to fifty people. Only a fraction of them held truly valid Turkish papers. That number looks small next to 1,700, and we still do not play it down. For each of those families it was the difference between life and death, and there was nobody else on this island who even tried. Historically, it is also remarkable that there was any room to negotiate at all, because the German Reich wanted to avoid an open conflict with Ankara.
Why This Story Is Missing in Germany
Ask any school class about deportations, and you hear names like Warsaw, Amsterdam or Salonica. The Aegean islands almost never come up. There are several reasons. The victims spoke Ladino and Italian, their descendants live today in Israel, the United States or South Africa, and in Germany for a long time nobody was there to tell their story. Moreover, Rhodes does not fit the familiar narrative, because in the summer of 1944 Germans destroyed a community that was culturally closer to Istanbul than to Berlin. That is exactly why this subject belongs to our work. If you are looking for material for teaching or planning an event, you will find our offerings under Dialogue and Education.
What Remains Today
In the old town of Rhodes, the Square of the Jewish Martyrs commemorates the deportees, named after the people who were taken away from here. A memorial with multilingual inscriptions stands on the paving, and a few yards farther on the Jewish museum operates next to the Kahal Shalom synagogue. The community itself consists of only a handful of people, and in summer descendants visit from abroad. Standing there, you quickly notice that remembrance is no abstract matter but remains tied to streets, houses and names. We occasionally organize trips there and advise groups who want to travel on their own. For the longer prehistory of this community, meaning its origins in the Ottoman Empire, read Yitzhak Sarfati.