The series of exhibitions entitled “In the same city. Christians and Jews in Thessaloniki” was inaugurated in the afternoon of Sunday March 20, 2022, at the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, by the Greek Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni. As Mrs. Mendoni stressed in her speech “the Jewish Museum and its collections will be the core of the collections of the Holocaust Museum of Greece in Thessaloniki, which the government aims to do as soon as possible”. “We want it to become reality so that it houses not only the memory, but also the history and the cultural identity of the Jewish community, because we owe it to our homeland, to Greece, to Thessaloniki, but especially to all those who were lost, because there were many who got on the train and never returned,” the Minister said.

The President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) and President of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, David Saltiel, in his address explained that «This series of exhibitions seeks to present the atmosphere of Thessaloniki in the late 19th and early 20th century through unpublished photographs, documents and objects and includes three sections. The first thematic section “Music, Theater, Culture through the archives of the Thessaloniki State Conservatory”, which was inaugurated at the Jewish Museum, presents information on the individual, social and geographical identity of hundreds of Jewish families in Thessaloniki, covering a period of 28 years (1915-1943), thus the period between the founding of the Conservatory and the deportation of the Jews from Thessaloniki. A second thematic cycle will follow, under the title “Εducation and Sports” which will be hosted in May at the philanthropic fraternity of Thessaloniki and a third cycle under the theme  “Institutions and operation of communities, trade, entrepreneurship, publications, press, personalities of Thessaloniki” which will take place in October at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki», Saltiel stressed.

The series of exhibitions is co-organized by the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Georgios Konstantinidis Archive and the Hellenic Parliament Foundation for Democracy. The exhibition was curated by the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, the file Georgiou Konstantinidis and the Faculty of Jewish Studies of AUTh, with the kind support of the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Thessaloniki and the Thessaloniki State Conservatory.

 Source: amna.gr