On 4 December 2012, an EHRI workshop on Greek Holocaust-related archives took place in Athens. Presided by Dr. Veerle Vanden Daelen (Ceges-Soma, 'Identification & Investigation' Work Package leader in EHRI) and co-organized by Dr. Agiatis Benardou (Athena RC/IMIS, EHRI user requirements), an EHRI delegation met with a representative sample of the Greek Holocaust research community, including members of major universities, museums and archival institutions.

Special attention to Greece

EHRI devotes special attention to Greece as this is one of the Southern European countries with the largest pre-war Jewish communities (70 to 80,000 Jews) which counted over eighty percent of victims. The Greek language and script, requiring transcription, make the integration of Greek material a challenge for the project. Moreover, in the EHRI user requirements interviews, both junior and senior Holocaust scholars on Greece were interviewed by the Greek EHRI partner institution Digital Curation Unit in Athens. These interviewees have been a great help in bringing together the representatives for Greek Holocaust research which EHRI was able to gather on this sunny Tuesday in December in Athens.

Unite knowledge

The purpose of the workshop was to unite knowledge about Holocaust-related archival collections in Greece. There were presentations of Ms Zanet Battinou and Ms Anastasia Loudarou of the Jewish Museum of Greece and Mr Vassilios Ritzaleos of the General State Archives. The main part of the workshop, however, consisted of an open discussion about where important Holocaust collections can be found in Greece. Participants included the leading scholar on Greek Holocaust history professor Hagen Fleischer of the University of Athens; Ms Aliki Arouh, who is responsible for the archives of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki; Dr Helen Katsiadakis of the Academy of Athens, and several young scholars who have done extensive PhD research in Greek archives. Dr. Maria Theofilatou, the European Commission’s project officer for EHRI, was also present, as well as Dr. Conny Kristel, project coordinator of EHRI.

Similar project

The result after a long day’s work was a detailed overview of collections, institutions and research and documentation projects which EHRI can now use as a starting point to further elaborate this case study on Greek archives. EHRI has already set up a similar project in Ukraine, combining local expertise and partnerships with ongoing documentation projects to achieve an integrated overview of the Holocaust-related archival collections in a given country. The workshop in Athens definitely provided the necessary knowledge and contacts to move ahead with the important yet complicated task of connecting Greek Holocaust archives.

Photo

From left to right: Dr. Vassilios Ritzaleos (General State Archives), Ms. Anastasia Loudarou (University of Thessaloniki/Jewish Museum in Greece Digitization projects), Ms. Eleni Beze (University of Thessaly), Mr. Leon Saltiel (University of Macedonia), Dr. Maria Theofilatou (EU project officer for EHRI), Dr. Conny Kristel (NIOD-KNAW – project coordinator EHRI), Ms. Zanet Battinou (Director of the Jewish Museum in Greece), Mr. Hans Boers (CEGES-SOMA, Brussels – EHRI), Dr. Veerle Vanden Daelen (CEGES-SOMA, Brussels – EHRI), Mr. Stavros Angelis (Digital Curation Unit, Athens), Ms. Aliki Arouh (Jewish Community of Thessaloniki), Dr. Agiatis Benardou (Digital Curation Unit, Athens - EHRI), Ms. Anna Maria Droumbouki (University of Athens), Prof. Hagen Fleischer (University of Athens), Dr. Maria Vassilikou (Editionsprojekt Judenverfolgung 1933-1945), Dr. Nikolaos Tzafleris (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Prof. Panos Constantopoulos (Digital Curation Unit, Athens - EHRI) & Dr. Helen Katsiadakis (Director Modern Greek History Research Centre, Academy of Athens).