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| Chania |
| Cretan Jews since 142 BC |
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| The restored Synagogue of Chania. |
Crete was in close contact with its Eastern Mediterannean neighbors, and especially Hebrew Palestine, since Minoan times.
The first known testimony of a Jewish presence in what is today Greece dates from the 5th century BC. The oldest physical proof of a Jewish presence in Crete dates from 142 BC: a circular sent to ancient Gortys by the Roman Senate concerning a judicial settlement in favor of a Jew.
In 1875 Ava Delmedego (or Avadakis, in the Crete-fied version of his name) becomes the first Jewish member of Crete’s General Assembly. In 1883, according to the writings of German traveler Maltzan, Chania has a 160-strong Jewish community. The 1900 census reveals 726 Jewish inhabitants on the island, the majority in Chania.
Some Cretans, even today, remember the virtuoso Camonte brothers musicians, who, at the turn of the 20th century, provided musical accompaniment to silent movies at the Ideon Antron cinema. Most Jews in Chania in those years were traders, small industry owners, or manual laborers. At the break of WW II, Crete’s Jewish community was no more than 400-strong.
Under various occupations - Roman, Byzantine, Andalusian Arab, Venetian and Ottoman, the Jews of Crete were a distinct and quite fascinating thread of continuity. Toward the end of the 19th century as a consequence of the struggle between the European Powers, the Ottoman Empire and insular revolts aimed at unifying Crete with the Mainland of Greece, Jews began to emigrate until, by 1941, there was only one community that survived - that of Hania - numbering approximately 270 people. It had two synagogues dating from the Middle Ages - Beth Shalom and Kal Kadosh Etz Hayyim.
In that year, during the bombing of Chania, Beth Shalom was destroyed leaving only one synagogue to serve the needs of the community. Crete was overrun by the Germans in 1941. They were met by fierce resistance from the local population and the three main towns, Chania, Rethmynon and Herakleion, were badly bombed.
On the morning of May 20, 1944 all Jewish homes received a copy of a special order, written in Greek, with the following:
“You, your family, and your fellow Jews, in order to be shipped, must prepare immediately for departure. You have 46 minutes. You and your relatives must carry…”
The same night, the Nazis arrested 314 Jews in Chania who were detained at the Agnia camp until June 3, and the next day they were moved to the Makasi Tower jail in Heraklion. In the afternoon of June 7, more than 300 Jews, 48 Greeks and 112 Italian guerillas were forced to embark on the commercial ship Tanais and taken away.
For some years the details of the last hours of the Tanais and the fate of its crew and human cargo was not clear. What was known is that the ship had been sunk and that all had perished. Evidence has now appeared through the Foreign Office in London that in fact the Tanais had been sighted by a British U-Boat and was given two torpedo broadsides and sank within 15 minutes.
Only 7 Cretan Jews survived the Holocaust. In 1956 there were only 2 Jewish families in Chania, and today the Jewish community has 10 members. |
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