Some time ago I was speaking to an elderly gentleman in my neighborhood. He shared a memory of some older boys he had grown up with. They told him about the day the Jews were rounded up. It was so sudden that they didn't even lock up their houses. The boys wandered in. Of all the shocking things, what struck them most was that the food still warm on the table, and there was no one to eat it.
Sunday was a march of remembrance. We met at Eleftherias square, where the Jewish community of Thessaloniki was gathered before they were marched to the freight cars that took them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Thessaloniki had been home to the most vibrant Jewish community in southern Europe. At 96%, the loss was the most devastating of all European cities, including even Berlin.
Of the 4% who survived, some emigrated, some stayed. We are left with a few glorious villas, our central market and ferry terminal (by Eli Modiano), the Stein building with its globe on top, looking over the very square the Jews were deported from. We also have a museum, and a lovely Synagogue, but we no longer have any vivid sense of the presence of a Jewish community among us. That is a deeply painful loss to us all.
I thought about that story of the boys finding the food still warm on their neighbors' tables on Sunday morning, as I rubbed a chicken with lemon halves and put it in the oven on low heat with some potatoes. I thought about it because I realized what it meant- that I could leave lunch in the oven, and go on the march of remembrance to the train station, knowing I would be able to come home again, take the chicken out of the oven and have it with my family.
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