On Tuesday, 25 February 2020, Alexandra Patrikiou, a Jewish Museum of Greece (JMG) historian, along with Orietta Treveza, who is responsible for the JMG’s educational programmes, visited the 9th Highschool in Ilion, at the invitation of Athina Athousaki, a German teacher, to conduct a Holocaust programme to mark the National Day of Remembrance for Victims and Heroes of the Holocaust (27th January).
The pupils of the third grade watched the 2012 Israeli documentary film “Numbered”, by Dana Doron and Uriel Sinai, which is based on Auschwitz prisoners, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who were tattooed with serial numbers, first on their chests and then their left arms. The film documents the dark time and setting during which these tattoos were assigned as well as the meaning they took on in the years following the war. A discussion with the pupils, followed.
Then, the Yad Vashem documentary “May Your Memory Be Love”: The Story of Ovadia Baruch was screened for the pupils of the first and second grade. The film follows the deportation of Ovadia, a Thessaloniki native, to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he met a fellow Thessalonian, Aliza Tzarfati, whom he married after the war and emigrated with to Israel. An extensive discussion ensued on the events of the persecution of Greek Jews during the Second World War. Furthermore, the students were given the opportunity to ask questions regarding the Jewish communities of Greece, the Jewish religion as well as other victims of Nazi policies.