Thessaloniki’s Mayor Yiannis Boutaris told the municipal council on Monday that Thessaloniki will acquire a Holocaust museum. Expected to be located on the premises of the old railroad station, a study on the museum is to be presented shortly. The agreement to establish the museum was signed among the Thessaloniki Jewish community, the city of Thessaloniki and the Greek transport ministry.

“This is the fulfilment of a historic responsibility for Thessaloniki,” said Mr. Boutaris. He said that the museum will be around 7,000 square meters in size and would include a Nazism-awareness center that will stand as the “city’s symbol against totalitarianism”.

Mr. Boutaris has been instrumental in recognizing Jewish history in Thessaloniki. It should be noted that Mr. Boutaris gained media attention when he wore a yellow Star of David badge, like the ones worn by Jews, during his recent swearing-in ceremony. His efforts to approach Israeli visitors have paid off as tourists from Israel going on organized trips to Thessaloniki to explore their own roots prior to 1943 when the Nazis occupying Greece deporting the bustling Jewish community mainly of Sephardic origin.

The male Jews of Thessaloniki are registered in the town square, July 1942. Photo by Bundesarchiv via Wikimedia Commons

About the Jews in Thessaloniki. In its heyday the Thessaloniki Jewish community was a prominent center of Sephardic Jewry for 450 years following their expulsion from Spain. In March 1943, Nazis sent jewis to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. By August, 49,000 of the 55,000 Jewis living in the area were deported. Less than 2,000 survivied.