Transport from Athens, Attiki Voiotia, Central Greece, Greece to Bergen Belsen, Camp, Germany on 02/04/1944

One day later, on September 21, the Chief Rabbi of Athens Elias Barzilai was invited to Wisliceny's office and was given twenty-four hours to deliver the names, addresses and professions of all Jews residing in Athens. These registers were to include Athenian Greek Jews, as well as the Greek and Italian Jews that had fled from Thessaloniki during the two previous years. Rabbi Barzilai consequently convened a general council in the Athens Synagogue, and a committee was elected to take immediate action. The committee's immediate first steps comprised meetings with both the Head of the Greek Church, Archbishop Damaskinos and the collaborationist Prime Minister Ioannis Rallis. During his meeting with the Jewish delegation on September 22, the Prime Minister reassured them by drawing a distinction between the "subversive Thessalonian Jews" and the "conservative and law abiding" Jews of Old Greece (referring to the Greek State that was formed after the Greek War of Independence). The latter group, considered by him to be "real Greek citizens", had no reason to worry about their future. Archbishop Damaskinos, on the other hand, issued a clergy announcement to all parishes declaring that priests and Christians in general had an obligation to do all they could to help, and to issue baptismal certificates for the Jews so that they could pose as Greek Orthodox Christians. This was consistent with his previous letters of protest sent some months previously in March 1943 to both the then Prime Minister Konstantinos Logothetopoulos and to the Reich's Plenipotentiary Günther Altenburg. In a collaborated action, the Chief of Police in Athens, Angelos Evert, and two other Police commanders (Dimitrios Vranopoulos, Mihail Glykas) took the initiative to issue genuine identity cards with false Greek names that would certify the Christian religion of the holder. It is estimated that thousands of these identity cards were distributed to Athenian Jews, but the exact number of those whose lives had been saved following this measure is unknown. At the same time, Chief Rabbi Barzilai did not comply with the measures. He destroyed the community records and advised his community members to flee or to go into hiding. After asking Wisliceny for a few days' delay, he fled Athens a couple of days later with the assistance of the EAM-ELAS Resistance fighters. A couple of weeks later, on October 14, the EAM underground newspaper Eleftheri Ellada published an open letter from the Rabbi, calling on all Greeks to imitate the example of the EAM and extend assistance to the persecuted Greek Jews. The Rabbi's example was followed by many Athenian Jews who also managed to flee or to hide in time; some fled to the mountains and others hid in Athens, moving from apartment to apartment until the end of the War. Wisliceny's response to the Rabbi's contrivance was immediate. On October 8, an order was issued, signed by the Supreme Commander of the Security Service and Security Police (HSSPF) Jürgen Stroop, obliging the Jews of Athens to register at the Athens Synagogue within five days. Whoever did not comply with the order would be shot. After this first registration, the Jews were to present themselves at the City Hall every two days. The delay of the deportation was extended until October 17, but only 1,200 out of around 3,500 Jews of Athens had declared themselves. One month later, the number still barely reached 2,000 Jews. During a period of around five months, from October 1943 until March 1944 no further actions against the Jews were taken as a decisive action was being prepared. In the meantime, SS Hauptsturmführer Anton Burger was sent to Athens to replace Dieter Wisliceny in order to execute the deportation plan. SS Untersturmführer Friedrich Linnemann, member of Eichmann's Office of Jewish Affairs (Department IVB4 at the RSHA), testified during his trial: "Around two or three days after the arrival of Burger, he summoned the whole Department. He explained that he had been sent from the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), in order to solve the Jewish Question here. Through telephone calls to other cities and islands, I understood that Burger had given the order to enforce the registration of the Jews." Burger had indeed ordered the registration of the Jewish populations in all the formerly Italian-occupied cities of Greece and, from his office in Athens, coordinated a mass arrest....