Rhodes

Yehuda Levy family, 1928
Yehuda and his wife, Miriam Notrica, died at Auschwitz- Birkenau, Aug. 1944
complements of Stella Levy
and Aron Hasson, Rhodes

In 1944 there were close to 2,000 Jews living on the island,
50 of whom, as Turkish citizens, fell under the protection of
the Turkish Consulate. The rest were deported on

July 20, 1944.
The timing of the deportation is especially painful, since less than three months later, the Germans were forced to leave Greece.

Deportations from Rhodes were the last conducted by the Germans in Greece.

On July 20, 1944, the Jews of Rhodes and the neighboring island of Kos, were sent by boat to the Greek mainland. Crammed into boats in the hot summer sun, without food and water, 23 Jews died on the voyage to the mainland. After landing on the mainland, they were incarcerated in the SS-operated transit camp Haidary, from whence they were deported by train to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only 151 Jews from Rhodes survived the Holocaust.

For 2,300 years, Jews have lived on the beautiful island of Rhodes
at the southern tip of the Aegean Sea. The community became Sephardic in the 16th century, and was among the most renowned Sephardic communities in the world. The synagogue in Rhodes, Kahal Shalom, was built in 1575 and is the oldest functioning synagogue in Greece.
Rhodes was part of Italy during World War II, having been ceded to the Italians after World War I. As with other areas under Italian occupation, the Jews of Rhodes remained relatively safe until the Germans occupied the island in
September 1943.

Today there are only 35 Jews living in Rhodes. Kahal Shalom still stands in the "Juderia," a testimony to the thriving community that once lived there.