The letter in which lawyer Moses Saul informed Italian Consul General Guelfo Zamboni of the impending persecution of Thessaloniki’s Jews was discovered buried in the archives of the Italian Cultural Institute of Thessaloniki (Instituto Italiano di Cultura), a building recently sold to a German supermarket chain.
Saul, who served as legal adviser to the consulate, wrote to his superior on February 17, 1943:
“The chief rabbi of Thessaloniki spoke yesterday at the Beth Saul Synagogue, informing the Jewish population that as of the 17th of this month the use of trams and telephones is forbidden, as is movement after sunset and gatherings on the main streets. These orders have not been published in the newspapers, except for the one concerning registration. Furthermore, as reported in the newspapers on the 10th of the month, from the 15th all Israelites, with the exception of nationals of the Allied powers and Turkey, are required to reside in designated zones and to wear a distinctive mark…”
The first train
A month later, on March 15, 1943, the first train carrying Jews bound for death departed from Thessaloniki for Auschwitz. By August, the Germans had organized a total of 18 such “missions,” deporting around 50,000 Jews from the city, of whom only about 1,200 would return.
In an effort to prevent as many Greek Jews as possible from boarding these death trains, Zamboni forged personal documents at great personal risk, presenting them as being of Italian origin. He managed to save many before the Germans uncovered his scheme – though it was impossible to save them all.
Saul’s letter was discovered in 2003 by Italian professor Antonio Crescenzi in a dusty cardboard box in the basement of the large Italian-owned building at the corner of Vasilissis Olgas and Fleming streets in Thessaloniki. Until 2014, the building housed the Italian Cultural Institute, before the Italian government decided to shut it down.
The archives had been moved there, along with other consular material, after the neoclassical Villa Olga – home to the Italian diplomatic mission since the war years – was deemed unsafe following the 1978 earthquake.
Within its walls lay valuable fragments of Thessaloniki’s history, linked to the city’s long-standing Italian presence and multicultural past – fragments preserved thanks to Crescenzi’s tireless efforts.
The closure
For 17 years, Crescenzi taught Italian at the institute, and it fell to him to lock the doors of the historic building in 2014, when the Italian state closed it despite objections from then-mayor Yiannis Boutaris and a small number of institutions who saw the move as a loss to the city’s multicultural heritage.
Since then, the fate of the property – a 6,500-square-meter building in central Thessaloniki – remained unresolved. In mid-January, it was revealed that a major German supermarket chain had purchased it, 12 years after its closure.
“It was very difficult for me to be the last to close the door, and with it a part of the history of the Italian presence in the city,” Crescenzi recalls.
Speaking to Kathimerini, he adds:
“The Italian-Jewish community of Thessaloniki was one of the strongest economically and culturally in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. With the Nazi occupation in 1941, its systematic extermination began – it nearly vanished. The surviving buildings therefore acquire exceptional importance, not only as architectural works but also as carriers of collective memory, directly linked to the history of humanity and the crimes of the 20th century.”
The Italian researcher rescued what he calls “small” historical treasures of Thessaloniki from the basements of the abandoned and somber building.
“This vast structure was built in 1933 as a school named after King Umberto Primo (Umberto I), designed by Italian architects Mario Paniconi and Giulio Pediconi in a fascist architectural style. Two other Italian schools worldwide – one in Casablanca and another planned for Grenoble – were constructed in the same fascist-rationalist style, an important architectural movement that emerged mainly in Europe during the 20th century, emphasizing logic, functionality and geometric simplicity.”
The site once hosted the famed Villa Ida, named after the wife of Italian-Jewish financier Levi Mondiano, which was later demolished to make way for an additional wing. In 1936, the Umberto Primo school opened, attended by Italian, Italian Jewish and Greek Jewish students. With the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War, the building was requisitioned and used as a hospital by the Greek authorities.
During the German occupation, it briefly resumed operation as an Italian school, but was soon forced to close due to a lack of students – most of whom had been rounded up and deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis.
The ‘orphan’ list
In 2003, after heavy rainfall flooded the building’s basements, Crescenzi – while attempting to salvage archival material – stumbled upon something extraordinary.
He found graduation certificates, report cards and commendations belonging to at least 157 Jewish children of Thessaloniki – documents that were never collected. Most of the children perished in the crematoria, while some managed to flee the city and survive.
With this “orphan” list in hand, he set out to trace, if not the original owners, then at least their descendants.
“We managed to locate several families, and in an emotional ceremony in Thessaloniki we returned the documents to them,” he says.
He uncovered more than just school certificates and awards. Among the finds were dusty documents and maps that shed light on lesser-known chapters of the building’s past.
In the 1960s, an Italian tobacco factory operated there, producing cigarettes from tobacco varieties sourced from Macedonia and Thrace – even the Black Sea coast – and exporting them to Italy under the brand name MACEDONIA.
Earlier, between 1936 and 1940, the fascist cultural magazine OLIMPO was published on the premises, under the direction of the Greek editor Stylianos Xefloudas.
As Crescenzi explains, until recently three buildings in Thessaloniki belonged to the Italian state: Villa Olga, which once housed the consulate; the Italian Cultural Institute; and the former Infectious Diseases Hospital.
The dilapidated villa was put up for sale, the institute was acquired for “commercial use,” and the fate of the hospital remains uncertain.
Yet several imposing buildings have survived – designed by prominent Italian architects for wealthy Jewish and Ottoman patrons – still evoking the atmosphere of interwar Thessaloniki, if not earlier eras.
A few days ago, after the historic building had been sold, Crescenzi requested permission to visit the site. He was accompanied by a company representative and the German consul, Monika Frank. He was determined to solve the “mystery” of a large stone in the courtyard, marked with faint engravings resembling letters.
According to testimony from a Thessalonian Italian-Jewish survivor, the architects had once hollowed out the stone to conceal a copy of Mussolini’s decree authorizing the building’s construction. Crescenzi made one final attempt to verify the claim.
In the end, the markings proved to be the initials “I.M.L.” – Ida Levi Modiano, for whom the villa had been built.
As he left, visibly moved, Crescenzi turned to the company representative and said:
“Take care of this building – it is part of Thessaloniki’s history.” Soon, the space will take on a very different life, moving to the rhythms of a supermarket.