Cultural Destruction

The Hebrew characters on the gravestone have been almost completely removed. It is no longer possible to reconstruct whom the stone was once dedicated to. It originally belonged to the Jewish cemetery in Thessaloniki, which was established at the end of the 15th century and was one of the largest in Europe. After the city was occupied by the Wehrmacht, Germans and locals looted the cemetery. Some stones were marked with a Black Cross and swastika and rededicated to fallen members of the Wehrmacht; others were used as building material throughout the city. In 1943, most of Thessaloniki's Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

The German occupiers denied certain cultures and peoples in Europe the right to live. This led to mass murder, but also to the destruction of material and immaterial cultural assets. These crimes did not go unopposed, as those affected tried to protect cultural assets and hold on to religion or education even under extreme conditions.