Heinz Kounio, one of the last surviving Holocaust witnesses from Thessaloniki, has died aged 98, Greece’s Central Board of Jewish Communities (KIS) confirmed.
Described as an “emblematic figure,” Kounio was among the first Greek Jews to document the horrors of Nazi extermination camps.
Born in 1927, he was deported to Auschwitz at just 15 with the first group of Thessaloniki Jews in 1943, where he was assigned the number 109565.
He and three family members avoided immediate execution, which he credited to their ability to speak German.
“If we didn’t speak German and if we hadn’t arrived first, we would not have survived,” he said in 2017.
Out of 46,091 Jews deported from Thessaloniki during the war, only 1,950 survived.
Kounio later published his account in the 1981 book I Lived Through Death and spent decades preserving Holocaust memory. He met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2016 during a visit to Thessaloniki.
Mayor Stelios Angeloudis said Kounio was “part of Thessaloniki’s history … who conveyed to younger generations the horrific truth of the Holocaust,” adding, “He made it his life’s purpose to keep nothing of this abominable crime secret.”
His funeral was held Friday at Thessaloniki’s Jewish cemetery, attended by government representatives and Jewish community leaders.
Source: Ekathimerini.
