Thessaloniki’s long-overdue Holocaust memorial park gets green light

The memorial prayer (Askava) and the laying of wreaths at the annual event commemorating the National Day of Remembrance of the Greek Jewish Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust on January 28 was among the last to be held on the pavement of Nikis Avenue, in central Thessaloniki. Eleftherias Square will soon be freed from the parked cars and the Holocaust Memorial will take its rightful place in a place of martyrdom.

Eleftherias Square, although it owes its name to the Young Turk Revolution which began in the square in 1908, has been identified with the "Black Shabbat" (Black Saturday) of July 11, 1942, when all Jewish men aged 18 to 45 were ordered to present themselves at the square to be put to forced labor. Guarded by German soldiers, they were publicly tortured and humiliated before being registered. That Black Saturday was the beginning of the end for the Jewish...