Holocaust Memorials - Monuments, Museums and Institutions in Commemoration of Nazi Victims

in detail

The monument is in the new Jewish cemetery in the Athens suburb of Nikea.

From 27 April 1941 until 8 September 1943, Athens was under Italian occupation, which ordered no particular measures against Jews. The city served as a place of refuge for many Greek Jews from the German occupation zone. On 8 September 1943, the German Wehrmacht took over occupation in the former Italian zone. Immediately afterwards, all Jewish residents of Athens had to register.

On 25 March 1944 all Jews who had gone to the synagogue were arrested and taken to the transit camp at Chaidari, a suburb of Athens. From there the 1,690 detainees were taken by train a few days later to the Auschwitz–Birkenau extermination camp. The only exceptions were Jews with Spanish citizenship, who were taken to the concentration camp Bergen–Belsen.

In the 1950s, the Jewish community of Athens reorganized, not least because a great number of Jews from other cities had moved there. The cemetery in its present form and the monument there date from that time. To this day, the monument remains almost unknown outside the Jewish community.

The monument commemorates the 1,690 Athenian Jews whom the German Wehrmacht arrested and deported by train to Auschwitz–Birkenau a few days later. The Jewish cemetery was laid out in its present form in the 1950s. The monument is almost unknown outside the Jewish community.

27 April 1941 to 8 September 1943
Athens under Italian occupation: no measures against Jews.

25 March 1944
1,690 Jewish residents of Athens arrested and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp

1950s
Monument erected in the Jewish cemetery