The blog post above explains that the Jewish year 5676 on one of the stones is ~1915 AD.
Thessaloniki was once the city with the largest Jewish population in Europe, and the one with the largest Jewish cemetary (300,000 - 500,000 tombs) in the world [1].
During the Nazi occupation, after the Nazis abducted the members of the community and sent them to Auschwitz (with the collusion of the puppet authorities and the Greek Orthodox church), the people of the city took the tombstones from the cemetary and used them in their houses. They were also used to line the cobbled streets of the city, but I couldn't find any pictures online showing this clearly. Worse, it seems like the city's Aristoteleion university was built on top of the cemetary grounds [1].
The story of the Jewish community's treatment by the Greek citizens of Thessaloniki during the occupation fills me with shame, as a Greek woman. I prefer to remember the actions of the Archbishop of Zakynthos, Chrystostome: asked by the Nazis, in 1943, to provide a list with the names of all the Jewish Zakynthians, the archbishop delivered a list with only two names: his own and that of the mayor of the city. The two men had previously worked together to help the Jewish inhabitants to escape, by providing them with forged papers, etc [2,3].
Of course the city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) has a long tradition in desecrating Jewish tombs – one needs only to visit many of its churches and public squares which are paved with looted tombstones by the old Jewish Cemetery. That particular cemetery, the largest Jewish cemetery in the world with an area over 350 acres and tombs from the 2nd century CE, was destroyed by the Municipality of Salonica in 1942 while his Jewish citizens were rounded in the Baron Hirsch Ghetto before being sent to Auschwitz to be murdered there. Or one can dig inside the campus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki to find the bones of 300/500.000 Jews who are still buried there in the grounds the University desecrated to build its buildings.
http://valiacaldadog.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post_3356.htm...
The blog post above explains that the Jewish year 5676 on one of the stones is ~1915 AD.
Thessaloniki was once the city with the largest Jewish population in Europe, and the one with the largest Jewish cemetary (300,000 - 500,000 tombs) in the world [1].
During the Nazi occupation, after the Nazis abducted the members of the community and sent them to Auschwitz (with the collusion of the puppet authorities and the Greek Orthodox church), the people of the city took the tombstones from the cemetary and used them in their houses. They were also used to line the cobbled streets of the city, but I couldn't find any pictures online showing this clearly. Worse, it seems like the city's Aristoteleion university was built on top of the cemetary grounds [1].
The story of the Jewish community's treatment by the Greek citizens of Thessaloniki during the occupation fills me with shame, as a Greek woman. I prefer to remember the actions of the Archbishop of Zakynthos, Chrystostome: asked by the Nazis, in 1943, to provide a list with the names of all the Jewish Zakynthians, the archbishop delivered a list with only two names: his own and that of the mayor of the city. The two men had previously worked together to help the Jewish inhabitants to escape, by providing them with forged papers, etc [2,3].
________
[1] https://abravanel.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/jewish-cemetery-o...
From the English version:
Of course the city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) has a long tradition in desecrating Jewish tombs – one needs only to visit many of its churches and public squares which are paved with looted tombstones by the old Jewish Cemetery. That particular cemetery, the largest Jewish cemetery in the world with an area over 350 acres and tombs from the 2nd century CE, was destroyed by the Municipality of Salonica in 1942 while his Jewish citizens were rounded in the Baron Hirsch Ghetto before being sent to Auschwitz to be murdered there. Or one can dig inside the campus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki to find the bones of 300/500.000 Jews who are still buried there in the grounds the University desecrated to build its buildings.
[2] http://www.kathimerini.gr/832170/article/politismos/vivlio/t... (Greek)
[3] http://www.aish.com/ho/p/The-Jews-of-Zakynthos.html