Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki used to be called La Madre de Israel because they had such a large Jewish population. For hundreds of years before the great fire in 1917 half the population of Salonika was Jewish.
In 1940 there were 56,500 Jews living in Thessaloniki. In 1943 46,091 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Less than 2000 survived. During the Holocaust Thessaloniki lost ninety four percent of its Jewish population.
Today there are 1200 Jews living in Thessaloniki.
Photos by Emmanuel Santos
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