Transport from Corfu, Kerkira, Ionian Islands, Greece to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 10/06/1944

The deportation operation began on June 8 and was completed around a week later. The delay in the implementation of the plan was due to difficulties related to sea-transportation, while concerns over an eventual reaction of the non-Jewish population of the island had been quickly dispelled. A situation report issued by the Corfu branch of the Secret Field Police (Geheime Feldpolizei 621 - GFP), on April 27, 1944, stated: "As is well known, the expulsion of Jews from mainland Greece has been accepted by the Greek population. Difficulties are only to be expected due to lack of shipping material". Corfu's population suffered from food deprivation due to the island's isolated geographical position and was expected to rather welcome a significant reduction of its number. In a report dated April 28, 1944, sent by the Army Corps headquarters (Korpsgruppe Ioannina, Abt. Ic) to the Supreme Command of the Army (Oberkommando Heeresgruppe E), it was stressed that the Jews' deportation "will also significantly impact the food supply. Security Service and Secret Field Police are currently in the process of making preparations for a deportation of the Jews." However, a reaction did arise. In a long letter, dated May 14, 1944, the island's Military Commander, Obersturmführer Emil Jaeger, expressed his doubts regarding the deportation of Corfu's Jews, issued by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and communicated to him by the SS-Obersturmführer Paul Von Manowski, on May 13, 1944. In it, Jaeger recommended that the deportation be postponed "for an indefinite period of time", stating various reasons, namely: a lack of ships; the more serious and urgent need to deal with Italian soldiers still remaining on the island; the corruption of the German soldiers accepting bribes from Jews; the passive resistance of the ships' Greek crew who showed solidarity for the Jews; and the presence of a Red Cross ship in the harbour that could spread "atrocity propaganda". Nevertheless, the Wehrmacht thought differently. In Athens SS-Obersturmführer Anton (Toni) Burger, who had replaced Dieter Wisliceny, with the task of deporting Greece's remaining Jews, anticipated Jaeger's concerns and asked the Athens Navy Office (Marinediensstelle) to provide Jaeger with the necessary transportation material. On May 13, 1944, Anton Burger went to Corfu and requested the Admiral of the Aegean Sea Fritz Lange to provide extra shipping space in order for the action to be carried out. On May 24, 1944 and without previous notification, this extra shipping space arrived in Corfu, provided by the Athens Navy Office. The arrival of the ships was followed by an order issued by General Kommando XXII., stating that from then on, SS-Obersturmführer Anton Burger would be solely responsible for the implementation of the deportation plan. The ships were withdrawn five days later on the initiative of Admiral Ägäis, because of the delay in the plan implementation and were sent back again in mid-June. Towards the end of May the plan was finally put into effect. On the evening of May 29, 1944, after consulting with SS-Obersturmführer Burger and Sergeant Günter, member of the Secret Field Police, the Island's Commander determined that the Jews would be concentrated and detained in the old Citadel prior to deportation. A few days later, while the allies were bombing Corfu and the battle of Normandy was launched, the Jews of Corfu were quickly and unexpectedly rounded up. On June 6, 1944, posters were hung in key places in the city commanding all Jews to return to their houses before June 8. By dawn of Friday, June 9, the Jewish neighbourhood was surrounded by Nazi soldiers; wild screams and knocks on the doors resounded in every dwelling, calling the Jews to come out of their houses. Josef Vitali, from Corfu who after liberation became Rabbi of the city of Volos, Greece, recalls: "We barely had time to pack a couple of things. My wife took our baby in her arms. Myself, I just took some clothes and the prayer shawl. The Germans were chasing everybody to the 'Arms Square'." After waiting for several hours and undergoing a register call, 1,800 of Corfu's 2,000 Jews were subsequently forced inside the old fortress of the city, called "Palaio Frourio" (Old Fort). "Only two or three families escaped. Esther Matalon testified that the president of the community said: 'No one should try to escape because then they will kill us all'. While detained there, all money and valuable objects were seized, and the Jews were also forced to deliver the keys to their apartments facilitating the plunder of their properties. Aliki Mizan-Sardas recalls: "They told us: 'tomorrow morning at 5 o'clock you should all gather in the courtyard. We will not do anything to you. Do not bring food, do not bring anything. After a while you'll go back home'. We had nothing. No water, no bread. The children were crying. We stayed there from 5:30 in the morning until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Then the Germans said: 'Soon you will go home and you will bring food'. They lied. After one hour they asked for our keys. We gave them the keys and we entered [the fortress]". On June 9, on the day that the Jews were arrested, a Manifest was issued, signed by Corfu's Prefect Ioannis Komianos, Mayor Dimitrios Kollas, and the Police Director Dedopoulos, stressing the following: "As is the case throughout the rest of Greece, also in Corfu, the Jews are to be gathered and wait for their transportation to a work detail. This measure will be welcomed by the law abiding, indigenous population. It will benefit our dear, beautiful island. Corfian Patriots, now commerce is back in our hands! Now we ourselves will harvest the seeds of our labour!...". According to the plan, all of Corfu's Jewish population was to be transferred and detained for a short period in the island of Lefkada, a short distance from Corfu, before continuing their journey to Athens. As a result, the period of detention inside the old fort varied as the deportees were boarded and transported from one island to the other on different days. The first transport from Corfu to Lefkada took place one day after the Jews were arrested; around 300 people were transferred to Lefkada via Igoumenitsa, a coastal city opposite Corfu in northwestern Greece. Among the deportees were Corfu's Rabbi Yacov Nechama, the head of the island's Jewish Community, and survivor Perla Soussi. Perla Soussi testifies being aboard "big, open, motor vessels" that transferred them from Corfu to Lefkada. Upon arrival at Igoumenitsa, they were loaded onto trucks that drove them to Lefkada. The rest of the detainees were deported directly from Corfu to Lefkada upon similar motor vessels. The conditions of the transportation of the Jews of Corfu were dangerous; Walter Wohlschlegel, a member of Corfu's Secret Field Police and translator, testifies: "A high-ranking SD Officer who was in charge implementing the deportation explained to me that the Jews were unlikely to reach their destination. Death would probably overtake them on the boat". A second transport followed after a couple of days from Corfu directly to Lefkada, while the third and last one took place around a week later. Constantin Rekanatis, a translator in the Judenreferat of the Gestapo in Athens, testifies: "On June 10, 1944 the Jews had to be captured and transported. Since there were no ships at their disposal on that day, the action had to be postponed until the June 20." SS Untersturmführer Friedrich Linnemann, member of the Security Service in Athens, describes in his trial testimony the day that he, Anton Burger, and Constantin Rekanatis travelled to Corfu in order to supervise and execute this last and largest transportation of Corfu's Jews to Lefkada. "Around two weeks after the action in Athens [end of May], Burger, Rekanatis, myself, and one other person, went by boat to Corfu. Burger told us that the Jews had been arrested and that we had to bring them by boat to Athens". In the meantime, the Jews from Corfu who had already arrived in Lefkada were kept in an open place, described by the survivors as a "garden". The last transportation from Corfu to Lefkada took place around mid-June. Once all of Corfu's Jews were gathered in Lefkada, they were ordered again onto boats and transferred to Patras, a port and city in Peloponnese west of Athens. In Patras the deportees were kept inside a school guarded by Greek soldiers (Euzones), called also Tagmatasfalites or Germanotsoliades [German Evzones]; these were security battalions established in 1943 by the Greek puppet government of Ioannis Rallis in order to support the German occupation forces. The deportees were detained there for a couple of days and then transferred to Piraeus, the port of Athens. As soon as they got off the ship in Piraeus, they were crowded into trucks that took them to the Haidari concentration camp in Athens where they were kept for a couple of days. On June 21, trucks took Corfu's Jews to the Athens train station, along with Jews from Athens who had been arrested on previous days. There they were loaded into cattle cars and transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau in what constituted the 21th transport to leave Greece for the death camps. During the long journey of several days, the deportees, around 70 persons in each car, had to endure intense cold, famine, and humiliation. Each wagon had only one small window covered with a grid and two buckets inside; one contained water and the other was designated to serve as a toilet. "They gave us raisins, onions and very little water", remembers Perla Soussi. The journey lasted around eight days and many died. Dario Nissim Matitiyahu testifies: "We travelled through Yougoslavia. There were partisans there and so we went back and travelled through Bulgaria. From there, we arrived in Poland, at Auschwitz". Corfu's Jews arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau most probably on June 29. Danuta Czech, in her Auschwitz Chronicle lists 2,044 people on this transport, arriving in Auschwitz on June 30. Once they were unloaded and separated into male and female lines, they were subjected to a selection process. 1,423 persons were sent directly to the gas chambers and the rest were selected for work details and tattooed with a registration number.