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8 - The Scale of Jewish Property Theft in Nazi-occupied Thessaloniki

from III - The Question of Property

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2018

Giorgos Antoniou
Affiliation:
Aristotle University, Thessaloniki
A. Dirk Moses
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

This chapter identifies the property of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community and its exploitation. Thessaloniki was the country’s largest Jewish community (almost 50,000 people, 20 percent of the city population), of whom 96 percent were murdered. Archival material about its assets has not yet been studied exhaustively. We know that about 4,250 assets declarations of March 1, 1943 indicate the degree to which the property may have been exploited by the Nazi and Greek authorities to support the Greek economy. All the Jewish households had to declare their total assets: real estate, bank deposits, merchandise, gold coins, jewelry, art or worship objects, as well as the houseware and animals. Most of them declared their assets, believing rumors about the Nazis preparing a special taxation system for them, depending on their property. This study relates the persecution and the violent looting of the Jewish property to the utilitarian practices of Nazi Germany, the perpetrators and the bystanders, the collaboration of the Greek state, and the overall functioning of the economy during occupation, which mainly was characterized by hoarding. It also suggests that Jewish gold reserves seem to have “helped” the Greek economy significantly.
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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