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. The roundup of the Jews took place a couple of weeks before the Passover holiday. "One day, he [Burger] came to me and explained that he had received an order from Berlin that the first transport from Athens should leave", Linnemann testified. That year, Passover fell on April 8 and the Germans deceivingly announced that the special flour needed for baking matzah bread for the holiday was to be distributed at the Athens Synagogue on Friday March 24. This deception could not have failed during a period of mass starvation in Athens. Errikos Sevilias, who had registered some months previously, reported at the Synagogue that morning according to the rules of registration. Other Jews who had gathered outside the Synagogue following the announcement were pushed inside the building. "[Inside] there was no sign of flour, and then, suddenly, the big door closed", testifies Errikos Sevilias, "and two Germans who had hid, stood in front of it, armed to the teeth". When night fell, around 800 Jews were trapped and detained inside the Synagogue. There were also around 180 Jews, Italian nationals, who the German authorities did not differentiate from the Greek Jews. A couple of hours later, the doors opened and the detainees found themselves surrounded by armed soldiers. They were subsequently forced into trucks that took them to the Haidari transit camp, located about 5 km from the Synagogue. There, they joined the Jews of Athens who had been arrested during the previous months either on the streets or in their homes. Holocaust survivor Ida Anzel had escaped from Thessaloniki to Athens and, even though she held a false identity card, she had been betrayed and consequently arrested and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. "One morning, four SS men, accompanied by an interpreter came to my house", she testifies. At his trial Friedrich Linnemann also mentioned the fact that Konstantin Rekanatis, an interpreter at the Judenreferat of the Gestapo, tracked down and arrested those Jews who had not complied with the order and had not registered themselves; these Jews were immediately detained at the Haidari camp. The pursuit of hidden Jews was continuous and persistent: Linnemann further pointed out: "I know that on that same day more Jews who had not come to the Synagogue of their own volition were arrested by Greek or German police and brought to the Department." The detainees were kept inside the Haidari camp in horrible conditions, deprived of food and basic needs for many days until April 2 when the train finally departed. Jews from the cities of Preveza, Arta, Agrinio and Patra, captured during the previous days, joined the Athenian Jews on March 29. About a week later, around 1,900 detainees were transferred by truck to the Rouf Railway station, where around 30 freight cars that had been reserved awaited them. They set off for a long journey to the death camps under the supervision of Gestapo men. This was the first transport to leave Athens and the 20th and largest transport to leave Greek soil. On their way through mainland Greece to the North, Jews from six other cities (Chalkida, Volos, Trikala, Larissa, Ioannina, and Kastoria) were added to the transport. The train's first stop was at Chalkida where approximately 90 Jews boarded the freight cars. At the next stop Larissa, located in central Greece 1,900 Jews, residents of Larissa and the neighboring cities of Volos, Trikala and Ioannina, were also added to the transport. In Thessaloniki, the last stop on Greek territory, 900 Jews from Kastoria and the surrounding area joined this transport which now numbered 5,200 persons confined in 80 cattle cars. In some cars, the number of the detainees reached 100. Upon arrival in Vienna, 5-6 cars were detached from the train, and driven north to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. These cars carried 155 Spanish Jews and 19 Portuguese Jewish nationals who had been living in Greece. They were detained in Bergen-Belsen in barracks designated for the neutral detainees until the liberation. Flora Benveniste was in this group of cars and testified: "We travelled for two-three weeks, 60 people one on top of the other […] with only some bread and fruit inside". These deportees arrived in Bergen-Belsen on April 14. The rest of this massive transport continued its journey from Vienna and arrived in Auschwitz on April 11. According to the RSHA report, out of approximately 1,700 Jews who arrived at Auschwitz, 320 men and 113 women were selected as prisoners in the camp. The other 1,067 persons were immediately gassed upon arrival.