Holocaust 2022

Pinewood Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27, 2022

VIDEO PRESENTATION

Production @2022 Pinewood Communications - Chrysi Theodoridou

Necropolis

Pinewood Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27, 2022

PROGRAM

Kelly Hu, Master of Ceremony

Lest We Forget
‘Necropolis’ by Kelly Hu, Class of 2022
Kelly Hu on the Destruction of the Jewish Cemetery

Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity
“Halakah” by Nicholas Karamichalis, Class of 2022
“Gravestones” by Christina Rallis, Class of 2023
“The Scars They Left Behind” by Josephine De Cataldo, Class of 2022

Let the Words Speak for Themselves
“Her Necropolis” by Kalypso Isaidou, Class of 2023
“Lament” by Katerina Papanikolaou, Class of 2023

Pictures Speaks A Thousand Words
“Shattered Marbles” by Eleni Karekla, Class of 2022
“Souls” by Alexandra Kouimtzi, Class of 2022
“Building Blocks” by Valeriya Reshetnikov, Class of 2022

Stories of Resistance
The Rescue of Bulgarian Jews by Iglika Zlateva, Class of 2022

Reflection
Moment of Silence

Music
‘Agustín Barrios Mangoré’s La Catedral’
Performed by Gigor Ylli, Class of 2022

HRD 2022 ‘Necropolis’

by Kelly Hu

For more than 2000 years, the Jewish

Necropolis or cemetery of Thessaloniki had been
one of the largest in Europe. It existed as the central
hub of Thessaloniki, and it connected the old city
wall with Turkish and Greek cemeteries. Everything
began to change with the Great Fire of 1917, which
destroyed much of the city and opened Thessaloniki
for modernisation and urbanisation. Similar to many
other European cities, old cemeteries were forged for
new uses, what historians Carla Hesse and Thomas
W. Laqueur describe as an “unhappy conjuncture of
European urban modernisation.” It is the very location
where the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki was
built a few years later.
According to Professor Anthony Molho, on
December 6, 1942 Max Merten, the Chief counselor
of the German occupation force in Thessaloniki,
ordered the entire destruction of the Jewish cemetery.
The German occupation forces as well as 500 workers
started to extract precious stones for building material,
one of which was the Wehrmacht swimming pool.
A Holocaust survivor observes, “Surviving has a
purpose, and that purpose is to remember”: To remember
the community that left the Jewish street names,
philanthropic institutions, villas, and Synagogues.
To remember the growth of the community since the
Hellenic Times. To remember the expropriation of the
Jewish cemetery, which brings us all here.

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‘Lest We Forget’

The foundation of the Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki is not the focus of this Remembrance
Day; rather, its purpose is to study and celebrate the
city’s past. The absence of an intact cemetery reflects
the broken knowledge we have inherited in our modern
society. The looting of Necropolis symbolically
removed the Jewish customs and traditions from their
birthplace, sadly making the present less tolerant and
diverse.
Equally important, the destruction of the
cemetery marks the painful correspondence between
the modern world and the past, a dialogue that
consolidates our need to invest in a future where
freedom and tolerance of the Other are the cornerstones
of a truly cosmopolitan city as Thessaloniki. It is
the least we can do to pay homage to the dead, a
metonymic wreath in memory of all those who are
forever gone.

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SHORT STORY ‘Halakah’

by Nikolas Karamichalis

Those mortal vessels of whom have crossed the

threshold of the soul into a new existence shalt not be
tarnished or disturbed, lest their solace be interrupted.

It seemed strange to me. A land of the dead,
overlooked by the living. Vast expanses of graves, a sea of
tombstones marking the final rest of hundreds of thousands
lost in a time prior. The valley of souls, stretching long and
far, reduced to dirt.

Bitter winds bit at my skin as I trudged through
the deep layer of snow blanketing the city. The morning
sun rose in the pale sky, lighting the Earth, but casting no
heat, and offering no comfort. The city lay still, frozen by
the harsh weather. I crossed the street and walked into the
shade of the building standing before me. It deprived me
of the little warmth I retained, and I began to shiver to
compensate for this absence. I continued walking briskly
down the bleak, abandoned street.

One word reverberated through my head as I neared
my march’s end. Questioning their promises, I could not
help but remain pessimistic in the face of all those that had
been shattered before. I was removed from my thoughts,
narrowly escaping a fall into the snow, as I slipped on a
patch of unseen ice. Regaining my balance, but feeling
shaken, I turned the corner and stepped out onto the city
border.

Empty. Not in the way that it used to be, the entire
vale blended into one synonymous, depressing hill of
overturned dirt, locked into place and stiff in the wake of

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‘Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity’

the frost. Discarded tombstones were scattered across
the Nekropolis, names forgotten and defaced as too their
bodies surely were. Tears welled up in my eyes, but did
not moisten my tired skin, and were once more wiped
away in the bitter winds.

Rationale

My short story, ‘Halakhah’, follows the morning
walk of a member of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community,
reflecting on the unfair treatment of the Jews during
WWII. The story is inspired by the history of the
destruction of the Jewish Cemetery of Salonica in
December 1942. The title refers to the name of the Jewish
Law derived from the Torah (also known as Halacha,
Halacho, or Halakha). I continued this theme by starting
the story with a paraphrased version of one of the rules of
this Law, which states that once buried, the body’s final
resting point should stay in the same place. I continued
with a brief introduction addressing the destruction of the
cemetery, followed by a paragraph describing the setting.
During this paragraph, I added some symbolism, using
the lack of warmth from the sun to represent the fact that
the Jewish community received no compensation for the
cemetery’s destruction. The fourth paragraph attempts to
show the hopelessness of the Jewish community, with the
main character’s pessimism being tied to a feeling of being
trapped. I made the main character almost slip and fall to
show the precarious position of the Jewish community at
the time, and how they must have struggled to do even
everyday tasks - such as taking a walk - in the face of the
many hardships placed before them. The end of the story
tries to combine all of these feelings and convey the great
loss that occurred when the cemetery was destroyed.

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SHORT STORY ‘Gravestones’

by Christina Rallis

They were determined to wipe out anything related

to people like me. They removed more lives than one can
possibly recall. I sat on the dry soil next to a beautiful
willow tree, whose leaves resemble the tears that were
about to run down my cheeks when I remembered that
my grandma’s grave used to lie there. As gravestones
were being broken, history was being erased.

Each and every inscription carried a glorious tale of
a lifetime, desperately awaiting to be narrated. My family
that once sat around the dinner table after an exhausting
day, the childlike laughs of my younger siblings echoing
through the alleys of our neighborhood, our house ready to
be abandoned yet once more- all ruined in the blink of an
eye. Everything was shuttered without a second thought,
without a trace of compassion, without any reluctance by
the hammers of those who denounced diversity. Those
who refused to accept anyone but themselves because,
in their own wicked minds, they were superior. All we
ever requested was a peaceful life, one where we are not
required to hide no more. But our fate was decided for
us: no freedom, no life at all.

The gravestones attempted to resist but the enemy
proved to be unstoppable. Humanity, love, common
sense had no hope in the face of evil. Gravestones were
uprooted from the ground and then smashed into a
million pieces until it was impossible to tell them apart.
Mothers, grandmothers, children, helpless at the mercy
of the enemy. My grandmother died a second time- only
this time she perished forever.

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‘Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity’

And I, who lived to witness these monstrosities,
I was the most hapless. For my heart was crushed just
like those gravestones, hopelessly wishing that all
this was just an evil creation of my shattered mind.
Only that monsters still creep into my mind at night,
reminding me what shall never be forgotten- never.

Rationale

My story talks about the Jewish cemetery that was
placed where the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
is found today. The narration comes from the point of
view of a Jewish child, who survived the Holocaust.
Years after he was released, he goes back to where his
grandma’s grave used to lie, only to find an otherwise
beautiful willow tree. The boy cannot help but dive
into his thoughts about how everyday life used to be
before his grandma’s death and, of course, before the
outbreak of antisemitism. He soon reveals his anger
towards the Nazis who took away everything he loved
and valued: his home, his family, and his freedom.
However, he is unable to capture and express his
overwhelming emotions because no matter how much
he tries to contemplate the horror that occurred, he can
never come to terms with it. After all, the character
concludes, those who survived were ironically the
ones to meet an even worse fate, forever carrying the
memories of an era long gone by.

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SHORT STORY ‘The Scars They Left Behind’

by Josephine De Cataldo

T here are many things that I remember about

life. Moments more than memories. The yellow tablecloth
mama would only use in summer. My sister’s purple bed
right next to my pink one. They say that once everything
ends it all becomes so easy. The eternal land waits for all
those who were.
How wrong and correct they were.
When I look now, and see the new that covers what
once was, it almost becomes worth it, almost. I remember
the smell of onions from my grandma’s kitchen. Or the
bitter coffees in front of the summer beach. It’s all so
clear, what used to be once blurry. I never got to make it
to the eternal heaven as theorized. I never got a chance to
do many things. The winter took me before I ever had my
first kiss.
As I listen to the lucky ones speak; I realize that
luck, too, was on my side. No one ever warns you about
what happens to time after the final clock ticks it’s hand.
Everything slows, some say even stops. And I watched as
the world crumbled. I was the one that got away.
I wonder if they know what happened here. That
there was a time when even death closed eyes to the
horrors.
What a funny idea it was; the belief of heaven and
hell; when a whole nation stood and watched as we were
ripped.
Ripped from our families.
Ripped from our homes.
Ripped from our lives.
But they would never be able to get rid of us. We

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‘Narratives of Sorrow and Dignity’

still remain. And cover the sky like dots.
Dot. Dot. Dot
If there is anything that I can take away from
seeing the smiling faces today, is that there is beauty after
destruction. And love after loss.
And maybe just like the wound that was ripped
open in 1942, I will be able to heal one day. But until then,
I will look down, and remember a time, when this used to
belong to me.

Rationale

I wrote this short story because there is a tragedy
that happened between the years of 1939-1945. Many
people died, and a whole culture was attacked. There are
no words or excuses to condone the terror that families had
to go through simply to be alive. A university was built on
the ground of a graveyard. Bodies were ripped out of their
resting places. What destiny is that? The resting place of a
person is not only theirs, but of all the people they knew.
Families and friends go there to connect and celebrate life
and memories. Individuals leading different lives would
come and connect to something personal. Something that
made them human. The irony that a university is what
it was replaced with does not go unnoticed. Schools of
thought that should be accessible to everyone. What a tragic
juxtaposition. A horrendous act occurred in the year 1942.
As people we have the power to choose what is right and
what is wrong. We have seen humanity at its worst, so that
we can make it beautiful today. But in order to do that, we
must first allow ourselves to mourn. Mourn for the dead,
the families that had to go through the fear of all the what
ifs, and mourn for the people who at a time were governed
under the rule of hate. We must acknowledge these horrors
in order to heal, but never forget.

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POEM ‘Her Necropolis’

by Kalypso Isaidou

Mourning with shallow, sunken eyes,

her face as numb as her feet once were.
Desperately watching as she realized,
the graveyard was no longer before her.
Marble thickening the air, sinking to the ground,
where at once he lay, where they had all lay.
But now where were their lives bound?
It seemed to her she could no longer say.

There were no more graves to tidy,
his engraved name was gone.
No longer destined to the deity,

his ashes exploring the edges of dawn.
A second death, but no second life,
that’s all she ever knew of his.

They say however the soul never dies,
And so there they stay, in Necropolis.

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Let the Words Speak for Themselves

Rationale
Necropolis meant so much to so many people. That is a
fact. And so, I based my poem on one of those people, on ‘her,’
whoever you want ‘her’ to be. I left this persona open so that
people can view this woman through their eyes and connect to
it whichever way they want. I avoided doing the poem from a
first-person perspective because it is one of the many things
that I will never be able to imagine: exactly what people in
this position have felt. However, I did want to understand it,
and reading into Necropolis I found that what I wanted to say
seemed to come naturally after that. Throughout the poem I
do rhyme because poems are meant to be read aloud and so
the words flow much easier as you speak. But I also wanted to
emphasize the last word Necropolis, and when I rhyme, there
is a certain echo of these words that seem to stay together.
All said and done, even though the actual graves were lost,
the cemetery is more than just the graves, and Necropolis is
always going to be more than that.

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POEM ‘Lament’

by Katerina Papanikolaou

Maybe if I was to be heard,

your spirit would be retrieved.
Maybe if our indistinguishable existence was to be

understood,
I wouldn’t have to bear without you.
Maybe if the priority of power was surrogated by the

power of love,
Faith would not have ripped us apart.
Maybe if the world knew tolerance,
you wouldn’t be forced out of my arms.

For what is a mother without her child,
in a world so cold?

For what is a woman without children,
in a world so superficial?

And if the world were to listen to the stories of those they
failed to reverence,

would they then know remorse?
Because your absence cost me plenty,

but cost the world a lot more.

To whoever their disputes claim the man who created this
world is,
I ask why?

Why with such arrogance,
a man sets such discriminate walls?

With what purpose in heart,
does a man choose to divide an already segregated world?
To the men who declared our deaths, and sat as observants,

I ask how?

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Let the Words Speak for Themselves

How is it they sleep at night knowing their people died for
a regime,

set with prejudicial purposes?

Humanity is no other
than a hallucination of the hopeful.

And hopeful as I was,
your life was not valued nor treated with decency.
Your soul was not praised but only given a name,

and written on stone as a remembrance.
A memorial exemplifying one of the many times

delusional superiority overcame
the value of human life,

Because your life was worthy of being lived,
but yet purposely disheartened by authoritarian egotism.

And for every day I bear without the blessing of your
existence,

patriotism is a sin.
A sin that fooled potential fathers, doctors, and

intellectuals
into becoming killers.
And for every day I bear without the blessing of your

love,
faith is a crime.
A crime where men labeled as superior
hold every person’s life in their hand.
And for every day I bear without the blessing of my child,
The world for me is a flower
bloomed with loathe.

Let your soul come again at a time less cruel.

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POEM

Rationale

My poem offers the perspective of a German Jewish
mother who has lost her precious child, unable to perceive the
unspeakable cruelty behind the rejection of the Other.Although
I have always been aware of Jewish struggles as a student
in a multi-religious school and as a citizen of Thessaloniki, a
city enriched by Jewish history, our school’s preparation for
this Remembrance Day allowed me to learn about the past of
the ground in which the Aristotle university was built. Once
I became aware of the dehumanization, the degradation, and
the horrific behavior that once took place on the grounds that
are now intellectually raising my city’s university students, I
was more inspired than ever to write a poem that would give
a glance to the world of the harm it committed against the
Jewish community. Hence, to emit a greater degree of pathos,
I discussed motherhood, loss, grief, betrayal, patriotism, and
separation from the perspective of just one of the millions of
victims.

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ARTWORK ‘Shattered Marbles’

by Eleni Karekla

My artwork for this year’s
Holocaust Remembrance Day

consists of 16 images, photographs

of various ruins of Jewish

graves found in and close to my

neighborhood. They include

broken pieces of marble, plaques

and two actual graves, even if

their current condition does not

reveal what they are anymore.

The locations these pictures were single grave? I asked my father if
taken in are the surrounding area he remembered seeing or hearing
of the Teloglion gallery in Saranta anything about any remains of the
Ekklisies, Ano Poli and close to the Jewish cemetery, as he lived in the
Panepistimia area. neighborhood as a kid. He said

The idea for this artwork came about there used to be full grave plaques,
from sharing the theme for this with inscriptions and even with
year’s Holocaust Remembrance the star of David on them, around
Day with my family. I saw a the neighborhood. He said how
memorial plaque, commemorating people did not pay much attention
the destruction of the Jewish to them at the time, and kids sat
cemetery, with its inscription saying on them, played football around
that it ended in my neighborhood, them. Again, I was amazed. We
Saranta Ekklisies. I was amazed. I had never talked about this before,
never knew about this. How come and I had no idea the Jewish
I never noticed anything, saw a cemetery used to be so close to

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Let the Words Speak for Themselves

my home. After this revelation, many times before, but this time,
the destruction of the cemetery focusing on finding these invisible
seemed much more recent to me traces of a cemetery that used to
somehow. I knew that my project cover so much of my city.
for this year’s commemoration of
the Holocaust had to remedy all The excursion did not go as planned
these years of ignorance. I wanted in the beginning. Many remains
to go to the places he mentioned of marble were found, even a
there were fragments of graves collapsed grave, but the only thing
to see for myself where they had left to indicate that this had all been
been all these years before, hiding part of the cemetery, that these
in plain sight, and I wanted to scraps of marble had once been
photograph them. This way, I could used to honour someone’s death,
walk around places I’ve been to was a faded Hebrew inscription on
a single piece of marble. Everything
was rendered to corroded pieces of
stone. I was not very disappointed
though. I had finally been able to
see what I missed all this time. The
Jewish cemetery felt real and alive
under my feet after the discovery
of its ruins, never noticed before.
They suddenly became so
obvious. Wanting to find more
of this destroyed burial ground
we looked near Panepistimia,
where larger stones were found

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and a full grave covered with
graffiti, ironically, close to the
monument commemorating the
Jewish students who died during
the Holocaust. Another faded
inscription was on one of them,
this time in Greek. In Ano Poli, we
found a gravestone, and fragments
of others, used to build stairs. The
inscription on one was clear, but its
current use made it easy to ignore.
Finally, next to the fire station
in Kassandrou street, two more
plaques were found with their
inscriptions almost untouched,
close to piles of crushed marble.

Every scrap of marble we found
was photographed, and from
these pictures I picked 16 to
represent the old Jewish cemetery
of Thessaloniki. Through
photographing and presenting
the remains of this historic burial
ground, I wanted to show my
audience the ruins of this grand
religious area for the Sephardic
Jews of Thessaloniki, and confront
them with the pictures, make them
notice these scattered stones and
their hidden history. I wanted
to remind the audience, much
like myself, of the recency of the
destruction of the Jewish cemetery,
how it survives today and how

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we honour it, so that maybe this
shattered marble, present in our
everyday lives, will not go so
unnoticed anymore.

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ARTWORK ‘Souls’

by Alexandra Kouimtzi

Reflection

This artwork was made on the occasion of the Holocaust

Remembrance Day focusing on the destruction of the Jewish cemetery
80 years ago. I used Indian ink and no color in order to capture the
immense frustration of these people who saw their ancestral resting
place in scattered pieces. In an abstract way, it depicts the university
campus surrounded by dead trees and in dark shades on top of the
cemetery to symbolize the desecration of the place. One of the main
focuses of the work is the two women sitting on their knees, touching
their ancestors’ soil and the resting place of their beloved ones to
capture the perseverance of memories in a city struggling to remember
its past. Perhaps more important, the graves are adorned with glittery
details to show that no matter what these people may have been
through, their heritage will always be signing across centuries.

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Pictures Speak a Thousand Words

by A. Kouimtzi

25

ARTWORK ‘Building Blocks’

by Valeriya Reshetnikova
Reflection

When looking at an abstract shape, a space in the dark, or a

pattern, the human mind will immediately look for a face and identify
it. The face is what is unique to every person, so I decided to imagine
faces and visualize them in the context of the desecrated cemetery.
I wanted someone to look at the building blocks and see the people
who are forever missing to recognize and acknowledge the existence
of people behind every single piece that was taken from the cemetery.
I envisioned portraits of people, people together, united in history for
the centuries to come. The canvas represents the building blocks the
audience stands in front of, able to make eye contact with the work,
but never communicate with it beyond that point.

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Pictures Speak a Thousand Words

by V. Reshetnikova

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RESEARCH ‘The Rescue of Bulgarian Jews’
by Iglika Zlateva

When facing adversity and the Allies and the Axis powers in
the Balkans. Even though it was
threats, nations may lose their forced to join the Axis powers,
coherence, and the social bonds Bulgaria managed to escape from
among people may break down. the obligation for deporting its
We have seen this picture on many Jewish citizens. The factors that
occasions in the history of Europe. led to this victory over the Nazi
Fortunately, there are examples of regime were several: the close
the opposite. The saving of 50,000 relations of the royal family with
Bulgarian Jews from the Holocaust Jewish families, the brave reaction
in 1943 is one of these examples. It of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church,
proves that community solidarity and last but most important: the
can be stronger than one of the resistance of the ordinary people.
cruelest regimes that human
history knows. Surviving through adversity
was not new for the Bulgarians.
InWWII, Bulgaria was playing “Raised together with Greeks,
the role of a “buffer zone” between Armenians, Turks, and Roma”,
as historian Michael Bar-Zohar
argues in the book “Beyond
Hitler’s Grasp” (1998), Bulgarian
people could not possibly agree to
persecute the Jews.

Survivors from Jewish
families who were forced to leave

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Stories of Resistance

Sofia and move to the countryside After all, community
have shared that when they returned solidarity was the decisive factor
years after the end of WWII, their that prevented the deportation
former neighbors returned every of the Bulgarian Jews. It is a
piece of property that was unfairly historical fact demonstrating that
confiscated from them. even a small nation can prevent
the tragic death of innocent people
When we look back to 1943, when there is a feeling of solidarity
we find many ordinary heroes who and social bonds are strong, when
prevented the deportation of the diversity is accepted as normal and
Bulgarian Jews. One such was an not as a threat. It is a lesson that we
Orthodox priest from Plovdiv, who need to remember in every critical
disregarded the Nazi guards and situation we face today.
entered into a schoolyard in which
Jewish families were prepared for
deportation. He said that if they
were forced to go, then he would
go with them. Many survivors
from the Nazi regime reported that
“there was no difference if one is a
Jew or a Bulgarian.”.

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Holocaust Memorial Monument of Thessaloniki

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Special Thanks

A large number of students worked tirelessly
for this event to take place.
Thank you to each and every one of our IB
English and History students for their time, energy,
& creativity dedicated to the project.
Special thanks to Kelly Hu, National Honor
Society Member, for serving as Master of Ceremony.

~ Dr. Apostolos Rofaelas

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