Identifer: CJF R 0020

Medium
Bronze;Silver

Topics
Destroyed Communities

Collections
Holocaust Medals, Plaques, Tokens & Pins, Cincinnati Judaica Fund Research Collection

Description
This medal was commissioned by Beit Lohamei Haghetto’at, the Ghetto Fighter’s House in Israel at Kibbutz Yad Mordecai.  The medal was issued in silver and Bronze.  The silver medals are stamped with “SHEKEL”.  Each medal is individually numbered on the edge.

The Jewish community of Saloniki was almost completely destroyed in the Holocaust.  The Jews of Saloniki were part of a major deportation to Auschwitz. Saloniki was the largest Jewish community in Greece.  More than 40,000 of its Jewish residents were deported to Auschwitz – Birkenau between March & August 1943.  Most were gassed on arrival.  The Jewish community consisted of approximately 50,000.  In mid July 1942, 9,000 Jewish men were registered for forced labor assignment.  Some were ransomed by the Jewish community, which sold the Jewish Cemetery in Saloniki to the city administration which broke up the headstones for construction material and built a university at the site.  Only about 1,000 Jews returned to Saloniki after the war.