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13 - Being a Holocaust Survivor in Greece: Narratives of the Postwar Period, 1944–1953

from IV - The Aftermath: Survival, Restitution, Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2018

Giorgos Antoniou
Affiliation:
Aristotle University, Thessaloniki
A. Dirk Moses
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

Using the multiple voices of Holocaust survivors in Greece located in the Visual History Archive of the USC Shoah Foundation, this chapter reconstructs the fate of the Holocaust survivors in the postwar period, a topic so far largely neglected. The surviving Jewish community in Greece was paralyzed and most of its traditional institutions ceased to exist. The creation of new lives, community networks, and identities was a long-term process that has not yet been subjected to thorough historical research. The chapter investigates various survival strategies, survivors’ experiences immediately upon their return when they faced Greek majority society, and the process of personal and communal renewal. It then focuses on Jewish migration and the impact of the Greek civil war, which dramatically effected all those who lived in Greece. Was this the main reason why survivors contemplated emigration or was emigration rather an attempt to rebuild their lives in a completely new environment that would not constantly remind them what they had lost? Finally, the chapter traces the impact of the Holocaust on the identity shift that survivors in Greece experienced after the war and assesses the significance of their Greek national identity.
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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