The Jewish Community of Salonika: History, Memory, Identity

by Bea Lewkowicz

This book is a pioneering study of the often forgotten Sephardi voices of the Holocaust. It is an account of the Sephardi Jewish community of the Greek city of Salonika, which at one point numbered 80,000 members, but which was almost completely annihilated during the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War. Through her systematic series of interviews with the remnants of this once-flourishing community, the author reawakens the communal memory and is able to show how individual identities and memories can be seen to have been shaped by historical experience. She traces the radical demographic and political changes Salonika itself has undergone, in particular the ethnic and religious composition of the city's population, and she interprets the narratives of the Salonikan Jewish survivors in the context of this changing landscape of memory and as part of contemporary Greece. With the vivid power of oral history and ethnography, this book highlights a significant aspect of the Jewish experience.

266 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2006

About the author

Bea Lewkowicz is a Social Anthropologist and Oral Historian with over 30 years of experience documenting the life stories of individuals shaped by displacement and upheaval. She has curated numerous exhibitions, directed multiple films, and co-founded two significant oral history archives: the AJR Refugee Voices Archive and the Sephardi Voices UK Archive, where she currently serves as Director. A member of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies at the University of London and the Editorial Committee of Jewish Renaissance, she has also trained others in oral history methodology.
Her work explores themes such as trauma and memory, diasporas, nationalism, and the construction of identity. Deeply influenced by her own family history—her parents were child survivors of the Holocaust from Poland and Czechoslovakia—she has long been committed to preserving the voices of those forced to leave their homes. Through sound, image, and storytelling, Lewkowicz continues to give voice to personal histories and make them accessible to wider audiences.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Style and Structure This book is written in a very specific and distinctive style. The author pays a lot of attention to details and descriptions of the environment. It takes some time to get used to the pace of the narrative. Overall, it is a solid example of its genre. You can examine the writing style more closely at the link below. >>> https://script.google.com/macros/s/AK...