By Panayiotis Diamadis
80 years after the final phase of the Holocaust in Greece, the Jewish and Hellenic communities gathered at the Sydney Jewish Museum on Tuesday, July 23 to remember those so unjustly lost. The sombre and deeply moving commemoration was a partnership between the Sydney Jewish Museum, Youth HEAR, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Consulate General of Greece in Sydney.
Keynote speaker Vic Alhadeff OAM presented the near extinction during the Holocaust of one of the oldest Jewish communities in Europe: the Romaniote and Sephardic Jews of Greece. Alhadeff eloquently told the harrowing story, weaving it through his family’s story, part of Rhodes for five centuries.
On 23 July 1944, the entire Jewish population of the Aegean islands of Rhodes, Leros and Kos – almost 1,800 men, women and children – were shipped to Piraeus. On 3 August, they were deported by train to Auschwitz, arriving ten days later. 1,604 were murdered in that death camp; 151 survived.
Amongst the deportees were many Alhadeffs, including Vic’s grandparents and teenage aunts. His grandparents Chaim and Fortunee were murdered at Auschwitz. His aunts survived the torment of that and other camps.
Julia Sussman, CEO of the Youth HEAR organisation, recently visited Rhodes, the island one branch of her family called home for centuries. During an emotional and deeply personal address, Sussman reflected on her journey of discovery. With tears in her eyes, she described what it felt like to walk past the family home in Rhodes’ Old Town – dilapidated and abandoned. What it felt like to walk in her ancestors’ footsteps for the first time, re-discovering her duty to them and to herself.
Julia, Vic and the other descendants of Jewish Hellene families in the auditorium reminded the Orthodox Christian Hellenes present of the diverse fabric of Hellenism, of its deep connections with the Jewish people.
Sussman underscored this with a special thank you to the Macquarie University Greek Association for the OXI Day Commemoration last October, held in cooperation with Youth HEAR. The solidarity expressed that evening remains with those present to this day.
Delivering the Vote of Thanks, the Chair of the Holocaust Commemoration Committee of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Dane Stern, extended special thanks to Consul General of Greece in Sydney, Yannis Mallikourtis for his support of the event and of the community as a whole since his arrival in Sydney.
The musical segments of the commemoration were similarly emotive. Listening to The Ballad of Mauthausen (a poem by Iakovos Kambanellis with music by Mikis Theodorakis) being sung in Hellenic by a Jewish singer was a most poignant way to open the commemoration.
As tradition, the event included the National Anthems. Singing the Ode to Freedom (the Hellenic National Anthem) in the Sydney Jewish Museum was indeed a very special moment.
It was in July 2014 that the first such commemoration was co-hosted by AHEPA NSW Inc.
As mentioned by Alhadeff, the next Jewish-Hellenic event will be on Sunday, September 15, another joint project with the Consulate-General of Greece in Sydney. Save the date!
Zachor is the Hebrew word for ‘remember’. In Hellenic tradition, the phrase ‘Eternal be their memory’ is often spoken. Such events are reminders that the only way to keep memories alive is to actively remember. To remember those lost and to learn from that loss to create a better future.
