Arrived in Thessaloniki

OCTOBER 26, 2022 : Today we arrived in Thessaloniki – also known as Salonica, Saloniki or Thessalonica.

Part of the fun and the challenge of traveling is encountering the unexpected – experiencing the surprises that were not planned for. We had a few of those today.

The trip started with an early morning direct flight to Thessaloniki. Despite the crowds at the airport, all went smoothly. The flight from Tel Aviv, takes only a little over two hours. As we approached the city, the sun was just rising.

It was then that the pilot announced we could not land due to thick fog. For the next 45 minutes, we circled above the area. The fog was far below, and covered patches of the landscape – the airport was under one of those patches. Round and round we went, mostly over agricultural land and scattered villages. Finally, the pilot announced that we were going to land despite the fog. It was a tense moment coming in blind until the wheels hit the pavement.

Once on the ground, all went quickly – passport control, baggage claim, customs, purchasing a local sim and getting a taxi. As we drove through Thessaloniki, our taxi driver pointed out how everything was closed. It was a city holiday. WHAT? Turns out that October 26th is the day that Thessaloniki celebrates the holiday of the city’s patron saint St. Demetrius, who is believed as having intervened to save the city over the years from invading foreigners.

We reached the apartment and a few minutes later, we heard a very loud noise – so loud that it set off some of the car alarms on the street. Our apartment has a small balcony, and we went out and saw fighter planes flying low overhead. Over and over again for many minutes. This was all part of the holiday celebrations we assume. We also got our first glance from the apartment balcony – a front row view of the Roman Forum.

We left the apartment to start our adventures. Having hardly slept at night, we were not sure how much we will be able to see. (Reminder to self – no more early morning flights!). The plan was to first go grocery shopping (huge organic grocery store near the apartment) but the store, and all the other grocery stores were closed. We continued on to the Tourist Information office (always a first stop), but it too was closed. Only restaurants, and there were many, many of them, were open.

The Tourist Information Office is in Aristotelous Square, the main square of the city located on the waterfront. Leading to the square, is a wide pedestrian boulevard lined with stores and restaurants. Aristotelous is the Greek name for Aristotle. The square was full of people – so full that we could not even see the statue of Aristotle that was covered with people sitting on it. It seems the crowd was waiting for a performance of a marching band. There was no place to sit, and we were falling off our feet from being tired, so we decided not to wait for the band and to continued onward to try to find a few Jewish Heritage sites nearby.

For many years, Thessaloniki was the largest Jewish city in the world. Its Jewish history goes back almost 2000 years. The Jews that lived there were Romaniotes, not Ashkenazi nor Sephardic Jews, but rather a distinct Jewish community that spoke Greek. Over the years, they were joined by Jews from all over the world – from Spain after the expulsion, from Portugal, Hungary, Italy, and North Africa. In short, the Jewish community thrived until World War II, during which 97% of the Thessaloniki Jews were exterminated. (More details about the history in blogs to come.)

Our first stop was Freedom Square. When you learn about Thessaloniki and the Holocaust, you often will see photos from July 1942, when the Nazis had the Jewish men of Thessaloniki stand for hours in the summer heat in the square.

Today that square is a parking lot, but in 1997 the people of Thessaloniki built a memorial to commemorate their former Jewish residents. There are two dedication plaques on the monument. The first reads Dedicated by the Greek people to the memory of the 50,000 Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki deported from their mother city by the Nazi occupation forces in the spring of 1943 and exterminated in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz Birkenau death camps. November, 1997. The second dedication is from 2006, in honor of the occasion of the first time a president of Israel (Moshe Katzav) visited Greece.

The memorial looks like a menorah made from the flames of burning bodies. Very powerful.

From there we went to the nearby site of the Molho Bookstore. There is an organization called Centropa, that like Spielberg, collects testimonials about the Holocaust. They also make documentaries of personal stories. The story of the Molho bookstore, tells the story of the Jews of Thessaloniki in World War II from the personal perspective of the Molho family. Highly recommended.

We knew that the bookstore no longer exists, but went to see if there are any remnants of it in its former location. We found the address and were happy to discover that the city has placed an information plaque to commemorate the bookstore.

Not far from there is the Jewish Museum. It too was closed.

Our next stop was the Yad Lezikaron Synagogue. We had the wrong house number, so it took a bit of wandering until we found it, especially since the entrance is not visible from the street. It too was closed, but the guard told us that it will be open for evening prayers later in the day. We noticed that every Jewish institution we had seen so far (the museum, the synagogue) has a guard station booth at the entrance. (No photographs allowed).

The synagogue is located across the street from the Modiano Market, an enclosed marketplace built in the 1920’s on the site of the former Talmud Torah synagogue. It took its name from the architect Eli Modiano, a member of the well known Jewish Modiano family of Thessalaniki, who owned the land in the area. The architectural office of Modiano was also inside the building. The market was also closed, not because of the holiday, but because it is undergoing a renovation and is expected to reopen by the end of the year.

Feeling very tired, we decided to sit and have a a late lunch at a vegan restaurant nearby. Delicious. It was the only time we heard Hebrew – there was another Israeli family at a table nearby.

We returned to nap at the apartment. Later, Mark went back to the synagogue for evening prayers. When he returned, he showed me photos of the synagogue interior. Inside it has six large marble columns – each column has the names of several synagogues in Thessaloniki that no longer exist. Seeing the many, many names gives you a feeling of how large and thriving the community once was.

Quick first impressions of Thessaloniki – similar to Lisbon, but not as elegant, not as sophisticated and not as clean. Feels a bit like walking down Dizengoff in Tel Aviv – a bit run down but interesting. The city has a very strong foodie culture – dozens of restaurants, all with outdoor seating, serving Instagram-worthy dishes.

When we were at the Jewish Museum there was a notice on the entrance door saying that the Museum will be closed today, Wednesday, October 26 and Friday October 28. We learned that today was a holiday but also Friday? Turns out that Friday is a national holiday – the day the Greeks thwarted the Italian invasion in 1940.

So out of the three days we have in Thessaloniki to visit museums, synagogues and cemeteries, only tomorrow will things be open and we will need to squeeze in as many sites as possible. Stay tuned.