Exhibition opening "In the Same City: Christians and Jews in Thessaloniki"
Saturday 17 February 2024
The exhibition “In the Same City: Christians and Jews in Thessaloniki”, co-organized by the Hellenic Parliament Foundation for Parliamentarism and Democracy, the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki and the Archive of G. Konstantinidis Archive.
The opening event was opened by the Foundation’s Secretary General, Professor Evanthis Hadjivassiliou, who welcomed the co-organizers and the guests, warmly thanking all the contributors for their multi-dimensional and demanding work. He then expressed his pleasure at the fact that the Parliament Foundation had the opportunity to participate in the cycle of exhibitions presented in Thessaloniki, in the publication of the Greek and English catalogues, as well as in the present exhibition in Athens, in the Foundation’s exhibition space. With its participation in the exhibition, he stressed, the Parliament Foundation celebrates the coexistence of the two communities, Jewish and Christian, in Thessaloniki, but also pays tribute to the Israeli community of Thessaloniki, which was exterminated during the Occupation, in the darkest hour and the blackest crime in human history, the Holocaust.
Then, the event was welcomed by the President of the Parliament,
the Member of Parliament of Thessaloniki, Efstratios Simopoulos, who congratulated the Parliament Foundation for the organization and thanked the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki and the Konstantinidis family for their important contribution to the preservation of the memory and history of the city. He also referred to the importance of the creation of the Holocaust Museum in Thessaloniki, which, he said, would be a landmark of international appeal, while he made proposals for the creation of an archive of the city’s life from the inter-war period to the present day.
The former Speaker of the Parliament, Nikolaos Voutsis, referred to the importance of memory against oblivion, while he singled out, among the various initiatives of the Hellenic Parliament for the preservation of memory, the memorial marble column with the engraved names of the Greek Jewish MPs who were victims of the Holocaust, which has been placed on the Pavilion and the creation of a permanent Greek exhibition on the victims of the Greeks in Auschwitz. He also stressed the need for remembrance – even self-critical remembrance – of the Holocaust in modern Greek society.
Hannah Pinto, secretary of the Community Council of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, referred to the important initiatives of the Parliament and the Parliament Foundation for the promotion of the history of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki. He noted that the exhibition and the two parallel editions of its catalogue in Greek and English confirm, once again, the stance of the Greek Parliament against segregation, discrimination, intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism.
Isaac Nino Saltiel, chairman of the committee of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, eloquently presented the thematic sections of the exhibition and the additions to its presentation in Athens: the applications “Searching for the traces of Jewish presence in Thessaloniki” and “Mapping childhood. The Jewish children of Thessaloniki until 1943”, as well as the student audiovisual project “I chose life” on the life of the violinist Iakovos Stroumsa, who survived the Auschwitz camp.
Georgios Konstantinidis praised the excellent cooperation he had with the co-curator, former director of the Jewish Museum, Evangelos Hekimoglou, and the assistant professor of History at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Georgios Antoniou. He referred to the process of creating the exhibition and its presentation in three circles and venues.
Anna Enepekidou, director of the Foundation’s services and artistic curator of the exhibition in Athens, thanked all those who cooperated: co-organizers, external collaborators, colleagues from the Parliament Foundation, the conservation department of the Library of the Parliament, the Publications and Printing Department of the Parliament, the technical services of the Parliament. All of them, he said, contributed so that, with the valuable exhibition materials entrusted to the Parliament Foundation by the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki and the Konstantinidis Archive, an exhibition environment of knowledge and understanding, inspiration and creativity, mobilization of the senses and observation of the narrative through historical documents and the paths of memory could be created.
The inauguration was honoured by the presence of a large number of people, people of letters, arts, science, the Church, diplomacy and politics. Among them, the Rev. Vassilios Chrysopoulos, representing His Beatitude Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Rena Dourou, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament B2 of the Western Sector of Athens, and the Member of Parliament of the Dodecanese Vassilios Ypsilantis, Manolis Kefalogiannis, Member of the European Parliament, Chrysoula Aliferi, Ambassador, Special Envoy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the fight against anti-Semitism and the defence of the memory of the Holocaust, Dr. Dr. Leon Saltiel, representative of the World Jewish Congress and the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, Dimitris Giannakis, Ambassador (retired), former Special Envoy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for combating anti-Semitism and defending the memory of the Holocaust, Nadia Kechagia from the diplomatic office of the Parliament, Athena Synarelli, Director of the Library of the Parliament, Chr. Xenopoulou of the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports, Victor Nar, Director of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, and co-organizers Dr. Xenia Eleftheriou, Scientific Director of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki and Lucy Nahmia, one of the contributors to the exhibition in both Thessaloniki and Athens.
The attendees were invited to take a tour of the exhibition, to “walk” through Thessaloniki at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, to discover the many micro-histories condensed in the valuable documents of the past, to listen to the music of the era, to sit in the “Byzantium Café” and watch advertisements of the time, to be photographed in the photographer’s studio. They can also read the memories of the people who survived Auschwitz camp, and reflect on the values that the exhibition illuminates – symbiosis and co-creation – in the face of intolerance and totalitarianism. At the end of the event, they received the exhibition catalogue as a souvenir.
The exhibition “In the Same City: Christians and Jews in Thessaloniki” is presented at the exhibition space of the Foundation of the Hellenic Parliament, 11 Vas. Sofias and 1 Sekeri Street (entrance from Sekeri Street). It will last until the end of April 2024 and will be accompanied by educational programmes and parallel events.
Credits
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Georgios Konstantinidis
Evangelos Hekimoglou
Georgios Antoniou
Stavros Zoumboulakis (1st cycle)
GENERAL EDITING, RESEARCH AND MEMORANDUM
Evangelos Hekimoglou
Georgios Konstantinidis
AUTHOR – TEXT EDITOR
Evangelos Hekimoglou
Georgios Konstantinidis
Lucy Nachmia
MUSEOLOGICAL ADAPTATION & ARTISTIC EDITING
Anna Enepekidou