Transport from Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 09/05/1943

On May 9, 1943, the 17th transport left Thessaloniki. This was the largest transport consisting of approximately 4,500 Jews. Apart from the Jews of Thessaloniki, those who lived in the narrow strip along the border between Turkey and the Bulgarian Thrace were also captured and deported on this transport. Among the deporteed counted also Jews from Didymoticho, Nea Orestias, and Soufli. Jacob Aroja who lived in Didymoticho, testified at the trial of the German Consul Fritz Gebhardt von Hahn in Hamburg on February 9, 1965. He was able to affirm that the Jewish inhabitants of the city were captured on April 5, 1943 and transported to Thessaloniki where they arrived on May 6, 1943. Jacob Jivri, deported on this same transport from Didymoticho to Thessaloniki, recalls: "In Thessaloniki we were taken off the train and brought to the Jewish quarter (Baron Hirsch). This neighbourhood had been converted into a ghetto. We stayed there for about two days. There weren’t many people left in the ghetto as Jews from Thessaloniki had already been deported before. [...] Around May 10, 1943, the Jews of Demotika were taken to the train station. In order to fill up the transport, part of the Saloniki Jews, who were still in the Ghetto, were also loaded onto the train together with us." Dr. Marco Nahon and his son were among the very few who survived this transport. Marco Nahon recalls the train journey to the death camp; "Officers with guns drawn threatened the crowd constantly. The transport was escorted by the agents of the Schupo". During the six day journey, inspections took place in the cars and jewelry, gold, soap and even food which consisted of small quantities of figs and raisins, were taken away from the deportees. "Every two days the train stopped in some meadow in open country. The car doors were flung open and everyone on the transport spread out over the fields. Men and women attended to their natural needs, side by side, without any embarrassment. Necessity and common misfortune made one and the same family out of them all". The Jews arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on May 16. Upon arrival at the camp, 466 men were admitted into the camp and tattooed with the numbers 121910-122375. 211 women were also admitted and tattooed with the numbers 44934-45144. The remaining Jews were murdered in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival.