CHI Circle for Hellas & Israel 

In Europe’s once leading city in Jewish tradition, history cries for a lasting acknowledgement of brutal crimes against humanity. As anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial again rise in Europe, fears of similarities to the Nazi past haunt us and inspire us to act.

We seek to build Greece’s First Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Thessaloniki, near the site where the victims were transported to death. Thriving smaller Jewish communities existed also in many Greek cities before the Holocaust, some for 2400 years: Athens, Yiannena, Corfu, Volos, Larisa, Veria, Rhodes, Chania and Zakynthos. Almost 98% of Greece’s entire Jewish population, and history of three millennia were annihilated during the Holocaust.

HISTORY CHALLENGES OBLIVION

At times, during the 17^th through early 20^th centuries, Jewish inhabitants constituted up to three fourths of Thessaloniki’s population, a crossroads port city named after the sister of Alexander the Great. In 1911, David Ben Gurion visited this city sung as “Jerusalem of the Balkans,” and “Mother of Israel,” for its exemplary, organized Jewish community, a model in his dream for the modern State of Israel.

In Thessaloniki, more than 500,000 Jewish gravesites, some dating to Ancient Greece in Europe’s oldest Jewish cemetery, were destroyed during the Holocaust. More than 50,000 souls, synagogues, Yeshivas and literary and business societies were wiped out. Today, a few vandalized tombstones and proud old Jewish mansions and bazaars still guard against time and oblivion.

STEP ONE – UNIQUE HISTORIC SITE

The president of the Jewish community, David Saltiel, last week announced securing a strategically situated parcel of land for use in connection with the first Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

It is near the abandoned old railroad station where the Nazis herded their victims into asphyxiating boxcars for the final trip to Northern Europe’s death camps. Jews from other cities were also brought here. It was a 7-day trip to Auschwitz endured by families packed standing in the boxcars, near a barrel used as a toilet for 90 people. This Museum will be unique in its presence at the site where the Nazi mass crimes launched the final chapter locally.

STEP TWO

The Team of Chicago architect Roula Alakiotou-Borenstine will travel to Thessaloniki to scope the site, create a preliminary sketch/model and estimate construction costs as we prepare for presentation materials. Roula Associates provides this essential work as a donation to the project. However, economy travel and accommodation costs for the visit still need to be covered.

WE NEED YOUR HELP
Please send us your contributions to cover immediate costs for the visit and materials. All funds beyond immediate expenses will be assigned to project costs including document fees and assembling a team of structural, mechanical and civil engineers.

SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTION TODAY
Please today use any one of the three easy options through this link and respond no later than October 20, 2013.