Greece: A Striking Holocaust Monument in Volos (and Two Other Memorials There, too)

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Greece: A Striking Holocaust Monument in Volos (and Two Other Memorials There, too)

by Samuel D. Gruber

[n.b this post uses and expands text I wrote earlier this year for the Holocaust Memorial Monument database of the Index of Jewish Art.]

I’ve recently written about Holocaust memorial monuments in the Greek cities of Thessaloniki and Chania. There are many more across Greece. Some are modest and some that more artistically ambitious and built on more prominent sites.

In many cities you’ll find both types. A simpler memorial erected for and often by survivors often with the names of victims inscribed is usually located in the Jewish cemetery or – if there is one – the synagogue. Beginning in the 1980s, however, more public memorials began to be built sponsored by, or at least with permission from, the local municipality. This continues today. A new memorial, for example, was inaugurated last February in the northern city of Xanthi.

I visited there the central Greek city of Volos in Thessaly in mid-May, and I want to thank Victor Sakkis for being an excellent host and guide. I saw three very different Jewish memorial monuments there that the recall World War II and the Holocaust. 

There is one memorial in the Volos Jewish cemetery, erected in 1990, that lists names of those who died in the death camps. This monument is a variation on a traditional flat Jewish Greek grave marker, and as such it serves as a surrogate tomb for the dead who were deported but did not return. It is a simple but moving monument. As I discovered in many Greek Jewish cemeteries, there is a box full of stones to allow the visitor to leave a memory marker on any grave or on this memorial.

Volos, Greece. Jewish cemetery. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 1990. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Jewish cemetery. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 1990. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Jewish cemetery. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 1990. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Jewish cemetery. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 1990. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Jewish cemetery. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 1990. Photo:Viktor Sakkis 2022.

In the 1980s, Volos-born Victor Politis. then living in New York City, proposed to build and sponsor a more public Holocaust memorial in Volos. Plans were developed in cooperation with the Municipality of Volos which provided a prominent site in the grassy tree-lined Riga Fereou square, not far from the town hall. In 1998 a large sculpted public memorial was dedicated to the memory of  those 155 Jews of Volos who died as a result of the German occupation – those killed in Greece and those deported to Auschwitz.

The freestanding monument, designed and carved by Anastasios Kratidis (b. 1965) is a 3.2-meter-high rectangular black stone block set on the center of a stone platform that is raised three steps above ground level. There is an inscribed light stone band applied near the base, on which is inscribed in large numbers “1941-1945”.  

The style of the carving is cubistic and expressionist, as if figures are trapped in the stone and deep angular cuts reveal parts of these forms. I thought about Michelangelo's unfinished "Slaves," those struggling figures trapped intheir marble blocks. On three sides of the black stone in Volos, is inscribed in large Hebrew letters the words to the prayer Shema. On the black stone above the dates and Shema are relief carvings and a memorial inscription in Greek. 

On the side with the dates 1941-1945, a menorah is carved, and above this is revealed part of a figure, the clearest part a raised left arm and clenched fist, bent back over a head. On the side where it is written “Shema Yisrael” [Hear, O Israel!] is shown in deep relief a human face with a hand raised to cover one side.

On the side where it is written “Adonai Eloheinu” [Adonai is our God] is carved a memorial inscription and the names of the sponsors. Above this in low relief a face of a child. On the side where it is written “Adoani Ehad” [Adonai is One] is carved another figure with the right arm raised and fingers outstretched. This relief also shows the head and upper torso.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

The inscription in Greek on the stone reads:

ΤΟ ΜΝΗΜΕΙΟ ΑΝΕΓΕΡΘΗΚΕ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ  ΔΗΜΟ ΒΟΛΟΥ
ΚΑΙ ΤΗΝ ΙΣΔΡΑΗΛΙΤΙΚΗ ΚΟΙΝΟΤΗΤΑ  ΒΟΛΟΥ
ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΤΙΜΗΣΗ ΤΗ ΜΝΗΜΗ ΚΑΙ ΝΑ ΘΥΜΙΖΕΙ
ΤΗΝ  ΕΞΟΝΤΩΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥΣ ΓΕΡΜΑΝΟΥΣ ΝΑΖΙ
ΤΩΝ 155 ΒΟΛΙΟΤΩΝ ΠΟΥ  ΣΥΓΚΑΤΑΛΕΓΟΝΤΑΙ
ΣΤΟΥΣ 66.155 ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ ΕΒΡΑΙΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΟΥΣ
6,097,000 ΕΒΡΑΙΟΥΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΥΡΩΠΗΣ
ΑΘΩΑ ΘΥΜΑΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΧΙΤΛΕΡΙΚΟΥ  ΔΙΩΓΜΟΥ

Translation: The monument was erected by the municipality of Volos / And the Israelitic community of Volos / To honor the memory and remind / The extraction by the Nazi Germans / Of 155 Jews of Volos who are included / To the 66,155 Greek Jews and to  the / 6,097,000 Jews of Europe / Innocent victims of Hitler’s persecution.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument. Anastasios Kratidis, artist, 1998. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

In 1940, Volos was occupied by Italian troops. After the surrender of Italy, in 1943, the Germans occupied Volos. On March 25, 1944, Greek independence day, the Germans planned to deport the approximately 1000 Jewish residents of Volos. Due to the foresight, planning, and action of Rabbi Moshe Pessah, Archbishop Ioakim, Mayor Nikos Saratsis, and local partisans, however, 75% of the Jews were saved, the second greatest percentage of any community in Greece. 130 Jews who could not or would not leave Volos in time were deported to their deaths at Auschwitz. At least 17 other Jews – including Resistance fighters - were executed during the Occupation. 155 members of the Volos Jewish community were killed in all. It is a terrible number, but because of the quick and heroic action of the greater Volos community, including political and church leaders, and the local police; most Jews were able to escape into hiding in nearby villages, or into the mountains. Even the German Consul in Volos played a part in persuading Jews of their need to escape quickly.

Volos, Greece. Memorial monument at synagogue to fallen fighters, 2015. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Volos, Greece. Memorial monument at synagogue to fallen fighters, 2015. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

In 2015, a third memorial was erected in Volos to commemorate Jewish soldiers and fighters form Volos who died in the struggle against the Italian and German invaders. One large marble stele with a dove, and a small matzevah-type stone with the names of the fallen, are now in the courtyard of the synagogue. One who died fighting on the Albanian front was Victor Sakkis's uncle.

I had a very satisfying visit to Volos. The town is small , but lively.  The seaside is lined with attractive cafes. In the evening the pedestrian-only streets are throngs with walkers and bikers, with children playing in the squares in front of churches. I look forward to a return visit soon.

Sources:

Frezis, Raphael. "Holocaust Monument in Volos." Kol haKEHILA, The Newsletter of the Jewish monuments of Greece, December 1999., https://www.yvelia.com/kolhakehila/archive/sites/volos/volos_hol_mon_002.htm (accessed December 21, 2021)

Frezis, Raphael. The Jewish Community of Volos: A Brief Historical Overview, 3^rd edition by Marsel Solomon, Louiza Kone, Evi Kouvli and Efi Abouaf, translated by Anita Cooper-Tsamakis.  (Volos: Jewish Community of Volos, 2018).

“History,” The Jewish Community of Volos, https://www.jcvolos.gr/indexeg.php?cat=67133 (accessed December 21, 2021)

Roula, Mrs. And Louiza Kone. Jewish-Greek Communities: Little Beloved Homes. (Volos: Jewish Community of Volos, 2006).