u/Historical-Photo9646

The Dinah Project is the leading organization dedicated to getting recognition and justice for victims of conflict related sexual violence on October 7th and afterwards.

If you are able to, please take a look at the book/report the Dinah Project has published. It’s heavy but an important read:

https://thedinahproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/The-Dinah-Project-full-report-A4-pages_web.pdf

“Based on extensive research and analysis, the report establishes that:

- Sexual violence was widespread and systematic during the October 7 attack, occurring across at least six different locations: the Nova music festival, Route 232, Nahal Oz military base, and Kibbutzim Re'im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza.

- Clear patterns emerged in how the sexual violence was perpetrated, including victims found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, often to structures like trees or poles; evidence of gang rapes followed by execution; genital mutilation; and public humiliation.

- Sexual violence continued in captivity, with multiple returnees reporting forced nudity, physical and verbal sexual harassment, sexual assaults, and threats of forced marriage.

- Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk—creating unique evidentiary challenges that require a tailored, context-sensitive evidentiary model adapted to the unique challenges
of CRSV.”

Background

A remarkable aspect of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust was the operation of Jewish parachutists from British Mandatory Palestine. More than 250 Jews volunteered in the British Army for a secret mission to parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe between 1943 and 1945 to facilitate resistance (USHMM, n.d.-b). The Jewish Agency and the Yishuv leadership initiated the operation.

“At the end of 1942, after the Jews of the Yishuv learned of the murder of the Jews of Europe, the Jewish Agency sought to infiltrate agents in Europe through the British army. The British recognized the unique motivation of the volunteers, their knowledge of the languages and the countries of destination, and agreed to activate them as agents and as guides for British liaison officers with the partisans.” (Yad Vashem, n.d.-b)

Of the 250 Jewish men and women who originally volunteered for the task, 110 underwent training. In total, 37 Jews, including three women, infiltrated into German-occupied territory. 32 entered Europe via parachute, while the remaining 5 entered through alternative routes (USHMM, n.d.-b). 

Map Showing How Many Parachutists Infiltrated Europe and Where: 

​“Three of the parachutists infiltrated Hungary, five participated in the Slovak national uprising in October 1944, and six operated in northern Italy. Ten parachutists served with British liaison missions to the Yugoslav partisans. Nine parachutists operated in Romania. Two others entered Bulgaria, and one each operated in France and Austria.” (USHMM, n.d.-b)

Tragically, the Nazis captured 12 of the parachutists, of whom 7 were executed (USHMM, n.d.-b)

Hannah Szenes: Poet, Parachutist, and Zionist

​Hannah Szenes (also spelled ‘Senesh’) was a Hungarian Jewish woman from Budapest who emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1939 (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). She was born in 1921 to a wealthy and assimilated Hungarian Jewish family. Her father, Bela, was a well-known journalist, playwright, and author (Anna Szenes House, n.d.). A writer throughout her life, Hannah began a diary at age 13 (Anna Szenes House, n.d.). After experiencing antisemitism during high school, Szenes discovered Zionism and joined a Zionist youth movement, where she learned Hebrew and prepared to leave for Mandatory Palestine. She studied at the Nahalal agricultural school for 2 years before joining Kibbutz Sdot Yam (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). Throughout this time, Hannah continued to keep journals in which she wrote poetry, a play about life on the kibbutz, and about her life. 

Hannah became a member of the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, and received training in Cairo, Egypt. In March of 1944, she parachuted into Yugoslavia with Abba Berdichev, Reuven Dafni, and Yona Rosen before entering Hungary to aid in resistance and rescue operations (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). At the time, Hungary was still home to one of the few large remaining Jewish communities of Europe. However, between May and July of 1944, an estimated 440,000 Hungarian Jews would be deported to and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau (USHMM, n.d.-a).

The Mission and Subsequent Capture:

In June of 1944, she was captured only hours after crossing into Hungary while possessing a transmitter. Despite being tortured, she refused to reveal the radio codes (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). Szenes was sent to Szombathely prison before being transferred to a jail in Budapest (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). Her mother, Katherine, who had remained in Hungary all these years and believed her daughter to be safe in a kibbutz, was imprisoned as well: 

 
“I was overjoyed that my children were safe, but fate summoned the suffering of war and my maternal concern... On the morning of 17 June 1944, a man in civilian garb knocked on the door. He was a police detective with a warrant for my arrest.  He did not tell me what I was charged with, but I wasn't unduly worried; I knew that they arrested Jews all the time, and I wasn't expecting anything untoward.  They interrogated me, initially asking for all my personal details. Afterwards, they asked about the children, especially about Hannah.  The investigator asked me where Hannah was, and smiling, I answered that she was in an agricultural settlement near Haifa.  He shook his head and said: 'She is here, in the next room.'  The door opened.  I was dumbstruck. Aniko [Hannah] was standing in the doorway, held by four men.  Her disheveled hair did not conceal the blue contusions above her eyes.  She escaped their grip and jumped on me, sobbing: 'Mother, forgive me!' (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a, Katherine on her daughter’s capture). 

Following being interrogated, Katherine was sent home, but was soon imprisoned once again for 3 months. She was sent to Kistarcsa concentration camp on September 11th. However, she was eventually released from the camp and made her way back to Budapest. Katherine tried to secure legal aid for her daughter without success. Records of Hannah’s trial, including her final statement, were recorded. During the trial, she reminded the Hungarians that the war was drawing to a close and that they would likely soon face punishment by the Allies (Baumel, 1996). She refused a pardon, which, had she accepted it, would have allowed her to live but also would have declared her guilty of being a spy (Baumel, 1996).

After being imprisoned and tortured for five months, Hannah was convicted of treason on November 7th, 1944 (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). She was executed by firing squad at the age of 23. She refused to wear a blindfold, saying she wanted to face her killers (Baumel, 1996). Following Hannah’s execution, her mother was sent on a death march by the Arrow Cross. Remarkably, Katherine survived and later immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1945, where she reunited with her son, Giora (Baumel, 2009).

Her last note to her mother, found hidden in the dress in which she was executed, reads, 

“Dear mother, I don’t know what to tell you. I will only say this: A thousand thanks and more, and forgive me, if you can. After all, you will understand, better than anyone else, that words are not necessary now. With great love, your daughter.” (Naor, 2020a) 

The Last Note written by Hannah Senesh:

​Hannah’s Legacy and Israeli Holocaust Memory:

Hannah and the other 36 parachutists are remembered as iconic national heroes in Israel today for their courage to go behind enemy lines in an attempt to aid the Jews of Europe (Friedman & Kurtzer, 2026). Katherine ensured that her daughter’s memory would not be forgotten, and worked to help get Hannah’s many diaries, poems, and plays in the public eye (Baumel, 2009). One of her most famous poems is “A Walk to Caesarea” (also known as “Eli Eli”), which has been set to music and is frequently sung in Israel during Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron (USHMM, n.d.-b; Weinberg, 2014). In 1950, Hannah was reinterred at Israel’s national military cemetery on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem (Baumel, 2009; National Library of Israel, n.d.). Due to her mother, her own writing, and the recollections of other people imprisoned with her in Budapest, we are fortunate to know a great deal about her life, including what transpired during her imprisonment.  

As for why Hannah in particular is the most famous of the parachutists, one scholar notes her young age, strong spirit, and the efforts of her mother to ensure her daughter would not be forgotten (Baumel, 1996). In addition,

“Paradoxically, despite the fact that the parachutists’ mission was depicted in the context of the Yishuv and not Holocaust heroism, by the early 1950s, ‘blessed be the match’ had become singularly identified with Holocaust commemoration ceremonies in the State of Israel. One conjecture is that during this period, the only facet of the Holocaust with which young Israelis could identify was that of the Yishuv’s efforts to save European Jewry. Thus, Szenes’ poetry, bridging the gap between ‘here’ (Eretz Yisrael) and ‘there’ (the Diaspora), could express poetic identification with the Holocaust and remain in the realm of ‘local’ heroism” (Baumel, 1996, p. 528).

Hannah’s remarkable story of bravery and resistance, and her subsequent construction as embodying Jewish and Zionist heroism, appealed to the nascent State of Israel (Friedman & Kurtzer, 2026), which initially struggled with how to view and remember the Holocaust. Before the Eichmann trial in 1961, which created a fundamental shift in Israeli Holocaust remembrance, survivors in Israel often did not speak of their experiences due to

“a reluctance and an absence of openness among many native-born Israelis.” (Yad Vashem, n.d.-c)

To learn more about Hannah Szenes, please check out the Hannah Szenes House (link here). 

The last Hebrew poem she ever wrote is titled “Blessed is the Match,” which she gave to her friend and fellow parachutist Reuven Dafni before crossing into Hungary (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). She instructed him to give the poem to her friends back at Kibbutz Sdot Yam if she did not return. 

“Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.”

Note. Translated by Marie Syrkin (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a)

Sources: 

Anna Szenes House. (n.d.). Anna Szenes. Anna Szenes House. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://hannahsenesh.org.il/en/anna-szenes-2/ 
Baumel, J. T. (1996). The Heroism of Hannah Senesz: An Exercise in Creating Collective National Memory in the State of Israel. Journal of Contemporary History, 31(3), 521–546. 
Baumel, J. T. (2009). Hannah Szenes (Senesh). Jewish Women’s Archive. Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/szenes-hannah 
Friedman, M., & Kurtzer, Y. (2026, March 17). The Zionist Paratroopers and the Meaning of Heroism. Shalom Hartman Institute. https://www.hartman.org.il/the-zionist-paratroopers-and-the-meaning-of-heroism/ 
Naor, A. (2020a, November 30). Hannah Senesh’s Last Note. The Librarians. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_hannah_senesh_note/ 
Naor, A. (2020b, November 30). The Emotional Reunion With Hannah Senesh’s Notebook. The Librarians. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_notebook_reunion/ 
National Library of Israel. (n.d.). Archival Collection of Hannah Senesh, Iconic Jewish War Hero and Poet, Comes to the National Library of Israel. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://www.nli.org.il/en/at-your-service/announcements/hannah-szenes-archive 
USHMM. (n.d.-a). Deportation of Hungarian Jews. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/deportation-of-hungarian-jews 
USHMM. (n.d.-b). Jewish Parachutists from Palestine. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-parachutists-from-palestine 
Weinberg, J. (2014). The Real Hannah Senesh. Union for Reform Judaism. https://urj.org/blog/real-hannah-senesh-0 
Yad Vashem. (n.d.-a). Hannah Szenes: Zionist, Paratrooper and Poet. Yad Vashem. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://www.yadvashem.org/from-our-collections/hannah-szenes 
Yad Vashem. (n.d.-b). October 1944, Paratroopers from Eretz Israel in Mandatory Palestine. Yad Vashem. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/october/1944 
Yad Vashem. (n.d.-c). The Eichmann Trial: Shaping an Awareness of the Holocaust in Israeli and World Public Opinion. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/eichmann/awareness-of-the-holocaust.asp 

Background: 

Thessaloniki, also known as Salonika, was once home to one of Europe’s oldest and largest Jewish communities. During the Ottoman period, particularly between 1492 and 1912, Salonika was called both the Jerusalem of the Balkans and the Madre de Israel (Mother of Israel) (Molho, 2013; Naar, 2014). Salonkian Jewry would face near complete annihilation during the Holocaust, with estimations of losses between 90 to 97% frequently cited (Jones, 2020; World Jewish Congress, 2014), and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimating that the city lost 94% of its Jews (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-b). 

Ancient History and the Ottoman Period: 

It is unknown when Jews first arrived in Salonika; however, it is assumed that Jews arrived from Alexandria, Egypt around 140 BCE  (Salonika, n.d.). This community came to be known as the Romaniote Jews. For centuries, Salonika was part of the Roman Empire, and later, the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire (Hagouel, 2013). Ashkenazi Jews first arrived in Salonika in 1376 from Hungary and Germany, and this wave of emigration would continue for several centuries. Jews from Provence, Sicily, and the mainland Italian peninsula would emigrate as well: 

>“Even though restrictive measures were instituted against the Jews by a succession of Byzantine emperors overall, Jews were allowed to live in relative freedom and according to the laws and traditions of their religion as they continued to develop and enrich their unique heritage. … This multitude of place origins was reflected in the names of their respective houses of worship that harked back to geographical origins beyond Salonika.” (Hagouel, 2013, p. 2)

In 1430, the Ottoman Empire conquered Salonika. During this period, Jews were dhimmis and, as such, second-class citizens. However, the Jewish community was largely allowed to self-organize within a system known as millet in return for paying the Jizya tax (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.-b; Naar, 2007; Pehrson, 2013). 

The Sephardic Wave and Struggles in Characterizing Salonikan Jewry: 

With the passing of the Alhambra Decree in 1492 in what is now modern-day Spain, an estimated 200,000 Jews fled from the Iberian Peninsula during the Spanish Inquisition (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.-a). These Sephardic Jews would go on to forge new lives in places such as Italy, North Africa, Turkey, and Greece, including in Salonika (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.-a), where approximately 20,000 Sephardic Jews settled (Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, n.d.). This large influx of Sephardic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) speaking Jews shaped the character of Salonika’s Jewish population. However, 

>“Although employed as shorthand by scholars and memoirists, ‘the Jews of Salonica’ must not be reduced to a compact Sephardi Jewish collectivity transplanted to the city from Spain in 1492. The expulsion of 1492 formed part of a protracted process of migration, some of which began centuries earlier and much of which continued through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and beyond—often via Italy— bringing Jews to Salonica and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire and from western to eastern Europe more generally.” (Naar, 2016, p. 83)

Salonika’s Jewish population was a mix of Romaniote, Sephardic, and Ashkenazi  (Naar, 2016). In the 16th century, Jews from Provence, Poland, Italy, Hungary, and Northern Africa would continue to establish themselves in the city  (Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, n.d.). Additionally, the Sephardic label is also not a stable, fixed category, and sometimes includes Jews of Ashkenazi origin who moved to Salonika, adopted Ladino, but also maintained uniquely Ashkenazi customs. One example of this is the Saadi a-Levi Ashkenazi family:

>“The family arrived in Salonica from Amsterdam in the eighteenth century, and despite their Ashkenazi origins, they became fully entrenched in Judeo-Spanish culture. Saadi established Salonica’s first Judeo-Spanish newspaper, La epoka, in 1875. His son, Sam Lévy, became an ardent defender of Judeo-Spanish and promoted an image of Salonica as the citadel of Sephardism. Yet until at least the end of the nineteenth century, the family clung to Ashkenazi customs like not naming children after the living.” (Naar, 2016, p. 83)

When remarking on the difficulty in characterizing Salonikan Jewry and how to situate it in other broader histories (e.g., Greek, Ottoman, and Jewish history), one scholar remarks that

>“‘Salonica's Jews,’ in the end, are perhaps truly that, and that only: Salonica's Jews, the very specific population of a very specific city, with a very specific and wholly unique history…” (Fleming, 2014, p. 454)

Build up to the Holocaust in Salonika: 

On October 28th, 1940, Italy, which was led by Mussolini, declared war on Greece. Later, in April of 1941, Hitler came to the aid of Mussolini and invaded and occupied all of Greece (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a), and Salonikan Jewry faced almost complete annihilation: 

>“At a later date, with minimal variations, the extermination procedures for the Jews of Salonika provided a template for the annihilation of all other Jewish Communities in the rest of Greece. What makes Salonika stand apart is the fact of its sheer numerical strength and that it was the first Jewish community in Greece to experience the consequences of the implementation of the Endlösung (Final Solution) by the Germans (the Bulgarians deported Jewish Greeks first)” (Hagouel, 2013, p. 6).

Black Saturday and the Terrorizing of Salonika’s Jews: 

On July 11th, 1942, the Nazis forced around 9,000 Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 45 to assemble at Liberty Square (Plateia Eleftheria), where they were beaten and publicly humiliated throughout the entire day (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a). One survivor, Itzhak Nehama, who would later testify at the Eichmann trial in Israel in 1961, recounted that day: 

>“They ordered us to exercise for hours. Whoever did not perform as the SS wanted was beaten up until he fainted” (Matsas, 1997, as cited in Droumpouki, 2016, p. 201). 

This event became known as Black Saturday. Following this abuse, the Nazis assigned 2,000 Jews to forced labor projects and demanded a ransom from the Jewish community for their release. In response, the community sold its 450-year-old Jewish cemetery, which contained almost half a million graves, to help raise money for the ransom (Droumpouki, 2016; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a).

To add insult to injury, the city administration of Salonika purchased the cemetery. It proceeded to destroy the headstones to repurpose them as construction materials, which were later used when building Aristotle University directly on top sections of the cemetery, by the Red Cross, for various churches, by the municipality, and even for hospitals (Antoniou & Moses, 2018). The municipality had been working to expropriate the cemetery from the Jewish community as early as 1925 and decreed in 1930 that the land would be used for Aristotle University: 

>“The plan never came into effect, but fear of demolishment motivated the Jewish community to give the university a section of unused cemetery ground” (Malul, 2017).

With the Nazi occupation in 1941, the desecration of the cemetery began: 

Note. Image from USHMM showing the destroyed Jewish cemetery (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a).

Note. Image shows a pool built by the Nazis during their occupation of Greece for Wehrmacht soldiers (Malul, 2017).

Ghettoization and Extermination: 

In February 1943, the Nazis forced Salonika’s Jews into two main Ghettos: The Baron Hirsch Ghetto, which was near the train station, and one in the eastern section of the city (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a).

Between March and August of 1943, 45,000 Jews from Salonika were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most were gassed upon arrival (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a). The destruction of Salonikan Jewry was among the most devastating in all of Europe, with only around 2,000 Jews surviving the Holocaust (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a; Yad Vashem, n.d.-a).

An estimated 50,000 Jews once lived in Salonika (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.-a), composing around two-thirds of the city’s entire population before the Holocaust decimated Greek Jewry (Yad Vashem, n.d.-b). Salonikan Jewry also made up the majority of Greek Jewry, which totaled 77,000 (Yad Vashem, n.d.-a).

Aftermath and Holocaust Memory in Greece:

Faced with the near complete annihilation of Salonikan Jewry, some scholars have challenged the popular post-war narratives that typically ignore instances of Greek complicity and profiteering in the Holocaust (Antoniou & Moses, 2018). For instance, 

>“Although it proved ultimately to be of little significance, some local governments and officials did attempt to apply diplomatic pressure to save Jewish citizens from deportations – at least where the tradeoff between Nazi needs and local administration leverage favored the locals. By contrast, Thessaloniki Jews were deported with virtually no local resistance due to the prioritizing, as far as the Christian authorities were concerned, of Bulgarian territorial threats or, even worse, the local administration’s free-riding on the opportunity to profiteer from valuable Jewish assets. The destruction of the Jewish cemetery is a typical example of how the local authorities capitalized on the prospect of the Jewish catastrophe early in the occupation.” (Antoniou & Moses, 2018, p. 5)  

Holocaust memory, as is the case in many European countries, has been contentious in Greece. Directly after the Holocaust, post-war reconstruction in Greece did not include any plans to provide relief or accommodation for the few remaining Jews who resettled in the country, and in fact, 

>“the Greek state was willing to facilitate the exodus of the survivors and satisfy the pressure groups and personal interests of wartime profiteers, now valuable allies in the anti-communist struggle.” (Antoniou & Moses, 2018, pp. 6–7)

There have been several instances where the concerns and wishes of the Jewish community of Salonika have not been respected regarding the placement of Holocaust memorials within the city. In the 1950s, Salonika established a Holocaust memorial at the new Jewish cemetery of Stavroupoli. The Jewish community contested this decision and argued that it should instead be placed at Eleftherias Square, the site of Black Saturday: 

>“This demand of the community to build the monument on Eleftherias Square because of its symbolic meaning was ignored by the state, with the pretext that Eleftherias Square was unsuitable because it was a car park (Jewish Community Archives Thessaloniki [JCAT], 01284/933)” (Droumpouki, 2016, p. 204).  

In 1996, another memorial for the Holocaust, this time a bronze sculpture called “Menorah in Flames” made by Nandor Glid and his son was commissioned: 

Note. Image from (Tomky, 2025)

Again, the Salonika Jewish community pushed for the memorial to be placed at Eleftherias Square. Instead, the municipality situated the sculpture in the prewar Jewish industrial quarter, which was at the edges of the city (Droumpouki, 2016). Finally, in 2006, the municipality moved the memorial to Eleftherias Square, but the site has continued to be the center of controversy. In a 2014 article by the Times of Israel, 

>“... the Salonika municipality recently announced a town renovation plan which would, according to the few remaining members of the Jewish community, effectively remove the Holocaust memorial, which is currently located next to a parking lot in the decrepit square. Say [sic] community leaders, the plan proposes to create one universal monument which would highlight important historic dates throughout the year, such as the massive 1917 fire that razed half the city, as well as the Holocaust.

>… 

>Salonika Jews wonder why, when there are three monuments to Greek Orthodox Christians in the city, the sole Holocaust memorial cannot be made more central in the public square surrounded by cultural institutions in what was once the heart of a thriving Jewish community.” (Borschel-Dan, 2014)

Conclusion:

Today, Salonika is home to fewer than 1,000 Jews (Tomky, 2025) a fraction of what it once was.  The Jewish community has made strides to teach and preserve Ladino by working with Instituto Cervantes (Jones, 2020). It is not just the magnitude of the loss of life that is so devastating, but the destruction of Salonika as a unique center of Jewish life and civilization that flourished for centuries. May Greek Jewry recover and preserve its remarkable past. 

Sources: 

Antoniou, G., & Moses, A. D. (2018). Introduction: The Holocaust in Greece. In G. Antoniou & A. D. Moses (Eds.), The Holocaust in Greece (pp. 1–12). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108565776 
Borschel-Dan, A. (2014, January 29). Salonika’s Jews were wiped out by the Nazis. Is their monument to disappear too? The Times of Israel. http://www.timesofisrael.com/salonikas-jews-were-wiped-out-by-the-nazis-is-their-monument-to-disappear-as-well/ 
Droumpouki, A. M. (2016). Shaping Holocaust memory in Greece: Memorials and their public history. National Identities, 18(2), 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2015.1027760 
Fleming, K. E. (2014). “Salonica’s Jews”: A Metropolitan History. Jewish History, 28(3/4), 449–455. 
Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture. (n.d.). Jewish Community of Thessaloniki (Salonika). Sephardic Studies. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from http://www.sephardicstudies.org/thes.html 
Hagouel, P. (2013). The History of the Jews of Salonika and the Holocaust. 3(3). https://www.academia.edu/128854306/The_History_of_the_Jews_of_Salonika_and_the_Holocaust 
Jewish Virtual Library. (n.d.-a). Modern Jewish History: The Spanish Expulsion. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-spanish-expulsion-1492 
Jewish Virtual Library. (n.d.-b). Virtual Jewish World: Salonika, Greece. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Salonika.html 
Jones, S. (2020, July 30). Thessaloniki’s Jews: “We can’t let this be forgotten; if it’s forgotten, it will die.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/30/thessalonikis-jews-we-cant-let-this-be-forgotten-if-its-forgotten-it-will-die 
Malul, C. (2017, November 9). When the Nazis Desecrated the Jewish Cemetery of Salonika. The Librarians (National Library of Israel Blog). https://blog.nli.org.il/en/thessaloniki_cemetery/ 
Molho, R. (2013). Salonika, a metropolis of the Jewish diaspora. In W. Kokot, C. Giordano, & M. Gandelsman-Trier (Eds.), Diaspora as a Resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space. LIT Verlag Münster. 
Naar, D. E. (2007). From the “Jerusalem of the Balkans” to the Goldene Medina: Jewish Immigration from Salonika to the United States. American Jewish History, 93(4), 435–473. 
Naar, D. E. (2014). Fashioning the “Mother of Israel”: The Ottoman Jewish Historical Narrative and the Image of Jewish Salonica. Jewish History, 28(3), 337–372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-014-9216-z 
Naar, D. E. (2016). The “Mother of Israel” or the “Sephardi Metropolis”? Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Romaniotes in Salonica. Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society, 22(1), 81–129. https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.22.1.03 
Pehrson, R. (2013). The Sephardic Jews of Salonika, Greece [Master’s thesis, The University of Utah]. https://www.proquest.com/openview/865d1bfdb3dbe150da9461883b3a4e80/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750 
Salonika. (n.d.). Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/salonika 
Tomky, N. (2025, April 5). In search of Greece’s once-great Jewish city. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250404-in-search-of-greeces-once-great-jewish-city 
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (n.d.-a). Salonika. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/salonika 
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (n.d.-b). The Holocaust in Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20130305-holocaust-in-greece.pdf 
World Jewish Congress. (2014). WJC urges Germany to resolve Greek Jewish Holocaust dispute. World Jewish Congress. https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/wjc-urges-germany-to-resolve-greek-jewish-holocaust-dispute 
Yad Vashem. (n.d.-a). 11 July 1942, Jews being Terrorized by Nazis in Salonika, Greece. This Month in Holocaust History. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/july/1942 
Yad Vashem. (n.d.-b). The Jewish Community in Salonika—A Learning Environment. Retrieved June 2, 2026, from https://www.yadvashem.org/education/educational-materials/lesson-plans/salonika