Jewish Kos

“The Holy Synagogue of the Jewish Community of Kos, 16th Century – 1944)”


Holocaust Memorial, Rhodes

Kos is one of the most popular tourist islands of the Dodecanese. Geographically speaking it is very close the Asia Minor and therefore a significant commercial and cultural center. At a comparatively early period Jews are mentioned among the population of Kos; and under Alexander the Great and the Egyptian Ptolemies (from 336 B.C.) the town developed into one of the great Jewish centres in the Ægean. Josephus ("Ant." xiv. 7, § 2) quotes Strabo to the effect that Mithridates sent to Kos to fetch the gold deposited there by Queen Cleopatra and "800 talents belonging to the Jews." Jews of Kos are mentioned at the time of Antiochus VII., Sidetes, Kos being one of the islands to which the rescript of the Roman consul Lucius was sent (139 B.C.; I Macc. xv. 23). It appears probable that in course of time the Jews became the chief bankers in the island, and that they took charge, at a certain rate of interest, of the large sums of money owned by the temples.

In the sacrificial tablet of the Temple of Adrasteia and Nemesis, they are mentioned (lines 17, 18) as πάντες ὑπὸ τ[ων τρα]πεζειτῶν ή ἄλλως (Herzog, "Critische Forschungen," p. 35). This inscription is of the first century B.C. Rayet ("Mémoire sur l'Ile de Kos," p. 80) thinks that the 800 talents ($960,000) deposited by Cleopatra were held by these Jewish τραπεζήται; but of this there is no evidence (Paton and Hicks, "Inscriptions of Cos," p. xxxviii.). In 49 B.C. the Koans are reminded by the consul Caius Fannius to obey the decree of the Roman Senate and to allow safe passage to Jewish pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem (Josephus, l.c. xiv. 10, § 15). Herod is said to have provided an annual stipend for the benefit of prize-winners in the athletic games (Josephus, "B. J." i. 21, § 11); and a statue was erected there to his son Herod the Tetrarch ("C. I. G." 2502). The epigrammatist Meleager, who was living at Kos about 95 B.C., complains of having been abandoned by his mistress for a Jew (Epigram No. 83, in "Anthologia Græca," v. 160).


1945, Jewish women from Rhodes who survived the Holocaust

According to Josephus, Kos had a Jewish community as early as the Second Temple. According to ch. Maccabees I (15.23), Jews had been living on the island since 142 B.C. In 49 B.C., under the Roman rule, the residents of the island were ordered by Governor Fanios to respect the decree of the Government and permit the safe passage of Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. The first Greek Jew known by name was "Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew", a slave identified in an inscription dated approximately 300 - 250 B.C. found in Oropos, a small coastal town between Athens and Boeotia. It could be assumed that as a result of frequent Jewish movement through Greece a Jewish Community was eventually established. This community is believed to have grown further after the Hasmonean uprising (142 B.C.) when many Jews were sold into slavery in Greece.

In the early Christian era, the fact that Paul the Apostle, upon his arrival in Greece, preached in the Jewish Synagogues in Athens, Corinth, Veria, Kavala (Philipus) gives proof of the existence of many Jewish Communities in this Country. So it will be readily understood that Jewry and the Greek lands have a very close and long standing connection and their histories are intertwined.


Kos town today, Crusader Castle of Neratzia

The visitors to Kos should not miss the view of the port from the Citadel which dominates the area and was built by the Knights of St. John in 1314. It is not known whether Jews continued to live at Kos from Roman times down to the conquest of the island by the Knights of Rhodes in 1315. Under the rule of the knights, however, Jews were banished (1502) from the island (Coronelli, "Isola di Rhodi," p. 180) and transported to Nice, in accordance with the decree promulgated by Pierre d'Aubusson, grand master of the Hospitallers of St. John. It is not definitely known whether the Jews returned from Nice to Kos a year after their banishment, i.e., during or after the conquest of the island by the Turks but Jews returned in 1523, protected by the Caliph as “People of the Book”.

But, according to a document, now at Rhodes, containing some notes on the administration of the community of Rhodes, the community of Kos was in 1685 dependent on that of Rhodes, paying to the latter a tax collected from eighteen persons whose names are mentioned in the document. The amount of the tax, which was paid up to 1870, indicates probably that the community was not very large and had no chief rabbi, but was under the direct control of the chief rabbi of Rhodes.




The Synagogue of Kos at 4, Alexandrou Diakou Street

In 1747 Eliezer Tarsia covered financially for the construction of a small but impressive synagogue that even after his death was preserved with the income from a neighbouring house and two shops he bequeathed. In 1850, 40 families lived in Kos, but were reduced to 25 in 1872. The Jews of Kos exported grapes and raisins and were also involved in metal and clothing trade. In 1901 Kos only had 10 Jewish families who were involved mainly in commerce. The members of the Community lived in harmony and spoke Greek, Turkish and Judeo-Spanish. The Community grew significantly during the Greek-Turkish War between 1918-1922, as refugees came from Asia Minor and particularly from Smyrna.

In 1933 Kos was shook by a very strong earthquake. As a result many human lives were lost. Important monuments, including the synagogue, were ruined. Immediately after the destruction of the old synagogue a new one was built very close to the port. It exists up to this day and is located on 4, Alexandrou Diakou Street. The synagogue served the religious needs of the 140 members of the Jewish Community. When Italy surrendered in 1943, the islands of the Dodecanese were occupied by the Germans. The members of the Jewish Community of Kos were arrested and their properties were seized.


Plaque commemorating the holocaust victims from Rhodes


Jewish schoolgirls Rhodes 1930's

On July 22, 1944, the Jews from Kos and Rhodes were crowded on three cargo ships which went to the port of Piraeus. Once there, they were forced onto cattle trains and were deported to Auschwitz. During the Holocaust, all members of the Jewish Community of Kos perished. Only one person survived the Holocaust and returned to the island.

This was not the first episode of persecution. As Kos changed hands like a shuttlecock between opposing armies, so, too, did the fate of the community. Between 1306-1522 all Jews were expelled twice under the rule of the Knights of St. John, to return again after the invasion by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1523. The Knights' imposing Castle still commands the Harbour.

There was a Blood Libel in 1850, under Ottoman occupation, but the Colonel in charge, Ramiz Bey, established Jewish innocence. As we shall see, this is not the only example of a Turkish individual defending Jewish persecution. War again, this time between Greece and Turkey, 1918-1923, led to an increase in population as Jews fled from Izmir. Their number reached 160 by 1939.





Italian troops invaded Kos in 1912, and the outbreak of World War 11 reinforced their presence. Such had been their tight control of administration and the policy of 'Latinisation', that even in 1944 all Birth, Death and Marriage certificates were in Italian. Looking at the ominous red stripe on the documents for every Jew made one realize how far back the community had been in peril. The region suffered great hardship, hunger, and bombardment by the allies between 1940 and 1943. War brings out the very worst in Man but perversely, occasionally, the best of spirit. Food supplies to the community were at starvation levels. Observing their plight, the new commandant of the region in July 1942, Admiral I. Campione, enforced fair distribution of food regardless of fascist dictates.


Alexander Angel a young Jewish boy on Rhodes wearing the star of David in 1943. Jews on Rhodes were not required to wear the yellow star and he is wearing it as an innocent gesture of pride. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944


On 3 September 1943, the Italians surrendered. There was much rejoicing but fate played a cruel hand. The rescuing British forces were out numbered by the Nazis who occupied the Island on the 3 October 1943 (an interesting account of the campaign by the British Caithness regiment is at:

www.internet-promotions.caithness.

There were brave acts of Greek resistance throughout the occupation, and after writing a courageous condemnation of persecution, the Archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos, was threatened with the firing squad by the Nazi General Strop. Another example of indomitable spirit can be seen across the harbour in Pothia where a number of citizens bravely painted their houses blue and white, the colours of the banned Greek Flag.


Memorial to the Jews of Rhodes and Kos, Jewish Cemetery, Rhodes

The Nazi response to such things was demonstrated shortly after their arrival. They impressed their might by hanging non- Jewish patriots, Elias Kapiris and George Zoumpoulikos, and the same fate befell Theokritos Kostoglou, Anezoula Patakou and Stamatia Peri in April 1945.

For the Jewish community, all that had been feared throughout the war came to be on July 23, 1944. A few days earlier two senior Nazi officers met with the elders of the community with instructions that listed Jews were to congregate in the harbour. Despite the issue for Rhodes and Kos of some 42 exit visas by the Turkish Consul, Salahattin Ulkemen, an act recorded in his honour at Yad Vashem, three small cargo boats transported some 2000 souls from the islands to Piraeus.

The 30-year-old Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen approached the German general in charge and demanded that all Turkish subjects be released. He went further, demanding the spouses of Turkish citizens be released, invoking Turkish law that anyone married to a Turk is a Turk. The Germans assented. Ülkümen was playing a dangerous game. He bluffed the Germans — there was no such law.






Selahattin Ülkümen 1914 - 2003

Ülkümen’s bold personal action is credited with saving 42 families. But his bluff didn't go unanswered. The Germans bombed his home in retaliation. His wife, nine months' pregnant, was seriously injured and died of her wounds while giving birth to the couple's son, Mehmet. 643 of Rhodes' Jews were deported to Auschwitz; all but 151 were exterminated or died in the labour camps.

In June 1990, Ülkümen was installed on the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel. What used to be known as the Righteous Christians has been changed to the Righteous Gentiles because as a Muslim Mr. Ülkümen was the first non-Christian to receive the award.


The president of the Central Jewish Council of Greece, Moisis Constantinis (R) presents on July 24, 2008 in Rhodes an award to Mehmet Ülkümen (L), son of Selahattin Ülkümen, The Turkish Consul General on the island who in 1944 saved 42 Jewish families from being deported to Nazi concentration camps.

First hand accounts of the bestiality of the eight day boat journey and the subsequent 13 day train journey, where those who died were unceremoniously thrown off, can be found in 'The Juderia: A Holocaust Survivor's Tribute to the Jewish Community of Rhodes' (Laura Vardon, Prager, 1999) and 'The Jewish Martyrs of Rhodes and Kos' (Hiskia M. Franco, Harper Collins, Zimbabwe 1997).



In the nine months before the War in Europe had ended, nine in every ten of those deported from Rhodes and Kos had died. Of the 140 deportees from Kos, 137 perished. The Jewish population of this once small but proud community now stands at three, the children of the late Moshe Menasce. Survivors do return but it is not easy - 'I fear so much I would hear the whispers of my people in the streets' (Laura Vardon, p.166)


Auschwitz-Birkenau - The "Judenrampe" where the "selections" for the gas chambers took place. 80% were killed when they arrived

Today only the Synagogue remains on the island. It is easily recognized due to the Star of David on the gates. It is now used as a Municipal Cultural Center. There is a monument inside the door listing the names of the 140 Jews from Kos whose lives were destroyed in this pointless act of evil by the racist Nazi State in the dying days of WW11. There are two Jewish cemeteries at Kos. One very old one, situated on the seashore at Cape Sable, is no longer used. The other, more in the interior of the island, contains over one hundred tombs, the earliest dating from 1715. Following are the names of the chief families in 1901: Romano, Capelluto, Angel, Tarica, Gabaï, Couriel, Benveniste, Coenca, Alhadef, Mir, Pisante, Habib, Abzaradel, Franco, Finz, Ergas; the most prominent among these families being those of Tarica, Alhadef, and Franco. The last-named was engaged especially in exporting raisins, the chief product of the island, and had connections at the principal centres of commerce of Europe. Later on Jews from Salonica came every year to the markets of Kos to buy the products of the island.


La Juderia, Rhodes


1946 photo of the President of the Jewish Community laying a wreath at the fountain in La Juderia

The evil of the Shoah always shocks but the memorial plaque on the outside of the Synagogue is stark;

The only redeeming feature of this tragedy, other than the Jews from Rhodes who escaped to Turkey, is that for the first two decades of Italian rule more than 2,000 Rodian Jews emigrated on Italian passports and their descendants keep the memory of this cultured and unique community alive. In 1941 2,000 Jews lived in Rhodes. They had four synagogues. "Shalom" Synagogue, on the junction between Dosiadou and Simiou Streets, as well as the ancient Jewish cemetery, survived World War II. "Shalom" synagogue was originally built in the 12th century, was destroyed during the war between the Turks and the Knights Templar and was rebuilt in the 15th century. Only 150 of them survived. Today the Community is comprised of about 40 people.




Bimah of the Synagogue of Rhodes

On June 2002, a Holocaust Monument was unveiled in the Jewish Martyrs Square, in the old town of Rhodes, in memory of the Jews of the island who perished during the Holocaust.


The “Square of the Martyred Jews” (known in Greek as “Martyron Evreon”), is located in the heart of the former Jewish Quarter of Rhodes Town. The present park area of the square was originally an area of Jewish homes and small shops. However, the area was bombed during World War II, and in its place was established a small park and square. The present fountain ornamented with three seahorses replaced a previous fountain that was destroyed during World War II.

As well as Greek this unique community spoke Ladino and French. Ladino is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. As a Jewish language, it is influenced heavily by Hebrew and Aramaic, but also Arabic, Turkish and to a lesser extent Greek and other languages where Sephardic expellees settled around the world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire. Like most other Jewish languages besides Hebrew, Judaeo-Spanish is in serious danger of language extinction because most native speakers today are elderly, many of whom had immigrated to Israel where the language has not been transmitted to their children or grandchildren.



It is worthwhile visiting the website of The Jewish Museum of Rhodes to learn more about this unique community and culture;

www.RhodesJewishMuseum.org

And the wonderful resource of the Jewish Museum of Greece which I have relied on in compiling this piece;

www.jewishmuseum.gr

During World War II, when Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany, 86% of the Greek Jews perished owing to enemy actions, extermination and execution, and in many cities where prosperous Jewish Communities existed, only a few individuals remained. Out of 77.377 Greek Jews, only 10.000 survived the Holocaust. Those who survived the War owe their lives to the help of their Christian compatriots. Several joined the Resistance or the Greek Army in the Middle East. On Rhodes and Kos the evil was emphasised and made more poignant by the drama of the deportations to the Auschwitz happening so late in the war, the Jews being protected under Italian Occupation and no doubt the false relief felt when the islands were taken by the British before the Germans invaded.

Standing in front of the stark reminder of these racist murders on the front of the Synagogue in Kos you can only recall the words of the Holocaust survivor Abel Hertzberg:

"There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times."

Remember the Shoah and respect the memory of the victims.

“in the world which will be renewed”

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”


See also;

Auschwitz - Birkenau

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.html

Muslim Kos

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/muslim-kos.html


Jewish Cemetery, Kos