July 11, 1942, will go down in history as the Black Sabbath for the Jews of Greece during the Holocaust.
In the unbearable summer heat, the Germans terrorized the Jews of Thessaloniki by forcing 9,000 young Jews into the central square and subjecting them to public humiliation for hours. This is recalled by the World Jewish Congress.
The Jewish community negotiated with the German administration for the release of the men, even paying a large ransom for their release.
However, about 2,000 of those arrested that day were sent to forced labor for the German army.
Less than a year later, between March and March 1943, about 50,000 Jews from Thessaloniki, representing 97% of the city's Jewish community, were deported to Auschwitz.