Serres

"The present work focuses on the underlying seminal causes of the Annihilation of Jewish Greeks in Bulgarian occupied Northern Greece, in particular the regions of Eastern Macedonia (the cities of Kavala, Serres and Drama) and Thrace (the cities of Alexandroupolis, Komotini and Xanthi), along with the Annihilation of their brethren of the cities of Didimoteixo, Nea Orestiada and Soufli of the Evros Prefecture of Thrace occupied by the Germans 70 years ago.  A definition of the Holocaust is given that broadens the term beyond its peak point that of the actual assassination of Jews by the Germans and some of their allies.  The definition includes all past historical events and practices that fermented the path to destruction of the European and North African Jewry during the World War II as well as the now and current state practices.  Starting milestones are the Preliminary Peace Treaty at San Stefano and the Peace Treaty at Berlin both of the year 1878.  The root causes of the complicity of the Bulgarian governments of the time in the deportation of the Jewish inhabitants of the “New” Bulgarian territories are analyzed and, given the documentary and archival evidence presented, conclusions are reached.  Also, the nation states that were created in the wake of the First World War and the ensuing Peace Treaties are shown to be fraught with all those ingredients that fertilize the national psyche to accept as legitimate racist and exclusive policies along with anti-Semitic and prejudicial ones.  The distinction of Racial Anti–Semitism versus the millennia old Religious one is emphasized.  Memory is an inseparable part of the Holocaust and, as such, it is both a means of remembrance and link with the past as well as instructive and educative for all generations and as a shield against Holocaust denial, revisionism and/or whitewashing of the past.

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Both Serres and Kittler acknowledge the importance of noise as a fundamental and determining element in information theory, communication engineering and, consequently, sound recording. Sterne describes, however, how recording engineers have mainly sought to eradicate noise in order to reach what Dolby Laboratories called an ‘exceptional purity of sound.’ Technologies of noise reduction provide a way to assess this apparent paradox that the age of recorded music developed a spectacular increase in all kinds of ‘noisy’ musical practices as well as ever more sophisticated technologies to reduce the influence of noise. Operating at the crossroads between noise as a concept in information theory and noise as a physical and acoustic phenomenon, an analysis of the history, technology and politics of noise reduction offers valuable insight in the complexity of noise and the multiple levels on which it is operational. It shows how noise reduction not only produces its own notion of noise exactly by reducing it, but also unavoidably generates noise itself.

"The present work focuses on the underlying seminal causes of the Annihilation of Jewish Greeks in Bulgarian occupied Northern Greece, in particular the regions of Eastern Macedonia (the cities of Kavala, Serres and Drama) and Thrace (the cities of Alexandroupolis, Komotini and Xanthi), along with the Annihilation of their brethren of the cities of Didimoteixo, Nea Orestiada and Soufli of the Evros Prefecture of Thrace occupied by the Germans 70 years ago.  A definition of the Holocaust is given that broadens the term beyond its peak point that of the actual assassination of Jews by the Germans and some of their allies.  The definition includes all past historical events and practices that fermented the path to destruction of the European and North African Jewry during the World War II as well as the now and current state practices.  Starting milestones are the Preliminary Peace Treaty at San Stefano and the Peace Treaty at Berlin both of the year 1878, even though seeds of the later calamity were sowed much earlier:  The sum total of seemingly unrelated historic events led inexorably to the final act of the tragedy.  The root causes of the complicity of the Bulgarian governments of the time in the deportation of the Jewish inhabitants of the “New” Bulgarian territories are analyzed and, given the documentary and archival evidence presented, conclusions are reached.  Also, the nation states that were created in the wake of the First World War and the ensuing Peace Treaties are shown to be fraught with all those ingredients that fertilize the national psyche to accept as legitimate racist and exclusive policies along with anti-Semitic and prejudicial ones.  The distinction of Racial Anti–
Semitism versus the millennia old Religious one is emphasized.  Memory is an inseparable part of the Holocaust and, as such, it is both a means of Remembrance and a link with the past as well as instructive and educative for all generations and acts as a shield against Holocaust denial, revisionism and/or whitewashing of the past."

""The present work focuses on the underlying seminal causes of the Annihilation of Jewish Greeks in Bulgarian occupied Northern Greece, along with the Annihilation of their brethren in Skopje, Bitola, Štip and Pirot, also occupied by Bulgaria, as well as with the Annihilation of Jewish Greeks from Thessaloniki and surroundings and the cities of Soufli, Didimoteixo, Nea Orestiada of Thrace occupied by the Germans 70 years ago. A definition of the Holocaust is given that broadens the term beyond its peak point that of the actual assassination of Jews by the Germans and
some of their allies. The definition includes all past historical events and practices that fermented the path to destruction of the European and North African Jewry during the World War II as well as the now and current state practices. Starting milestones are the Preliminary Peace Treaty at San Stefano and the Peace Treaty at Berlin both of the year 1878. The root causes of the complicity of the Bulgarian governments of the time in the deportation of the Jewish inhabitants of the “New” Bulgarian territories are analyzed and, given the documentary evidence presented, conclusions are reached. Also, the nation states that were created in the wake of the First World War and the ensuing Peace Treaties are shown to be fraught with all those ingredients that fertilize the national psyche to accept as legitimate racist and exclusive policies. The distinction of Racial Anti–Semitism versus the millennia old Religious one is emphasized. Finally, all of the above lead to the inexorable conclusion that the Jewish citizens of the Balkans, given their centuries of epitomizing, with their predicament and sufferings, what was wrong in our region and Europe in matters of civil rights and other liberties, are the de facto bridge to friendship and understanding amongst our neighborly states""

""English Summary – Abstract

An aspect of recent Modern Greek History, known to a minimal degree (and, also, minimally recorded), is the forced apprehension and deportation by Bulgarian occupying forces of all Jewish Greeks from the cities of Alexandroupolis, Komotini, Xanthi, Kavala, Drama & Serres of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace during WWII in March 4, 1943.  They were swiftly deported to Treblinka in occupied Poland where they were immediately annihilated–murdered upon arrival by gassing in the Extermination Camp bearing the same name.  A few days later (March 15), the first rail convoy of Jewish Greek deportees “departed” Thessaloniki.  The train was “loaded” with 2800 souls, packed like sardines, 80 to a single cattle car.  Final destination was the Concentration and Extermination Camp Complex Auschwitz – Birkenau, also situated in Poland.  Almost a total of 50000 doomed humans were deported by the Germans from Thessaloniki in a succession of convoys.  2000 survived and none survived of those deported to Treblinka.  I narrate with documentation how this abominable crime was perpetrated and reach the conclusions with factual interpretative synthesis.  For the first time ever, I attempt a quantification of Memory – Remembrance.  I calibrate the Memory Stick (“yardstick”) by introducing the (unit of) Measure of Remembrance.  For comparative purposes, for this particular case, I define this unit as the sum total of all remembrance – memorial expressions, outward manifestations, events, publications, etc pertaining to the Massacre of 149 Christian Greek inhabitants of Chortiatis in September 1944[ http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/5303/Memorial-Massacre-Chortiatis.htm , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chortiatis ].  I assign to this unit the value of 100.  I leave to the individual reader the task of assigning a Memory – Remembrance gradation to the Memory Stick pertaining to the annihilation of their Jewish Greek inhabitants for each of the 6 aforementioned cities based on the facts and numbers presented in my work.  Bear in mind that the Christian Greeks of Chortiatis were massacred in retaliation for an attack of Greek Resistance against Germans whilst the Jewish Greeks were murdered just because they were . . . Jews!

For Bulgarian occupied Eastern Macedonia and Thrace the catastrophic fate of their Jewish inhabitants was inexorably linked and woven into the fabric of Bulgarian lingering irredentism since the abrogation of the Treaty of San Stefano (1878) that, for a few months at least, had created the “Greater Bulgaria”.  Appending to that, the simmering Anti-Judaism, always present, never really extinguished, and even State sanctioned, critical mass, that led to genocide, was reached in 1943.  By that time, all excuses for not handing in “their” Jews were exhausted and, having to redeem the “largess” of their ally, the German Reich, for their territorial enlargement and, choosing amongst the less of the two “evils”, the Bulgarian government handed over the Jews of the “new” territories for certain assassination.  Even though they were not Genocidist themselves, they had no real qualms for their deed so they are not absolved of their guilt.

Memory and Remembrance teaches and educates the new generations.  It also acts as a catalyst for further research and also, as I show, as a yardstick of how far words of noble thoughts have transubstantiated into fact and daily practice and/or if the de jure incorporation of the Jew, or any other minority for that matter, as enshrined and mandated in the Constitutions of our Democratic States turned into a de facto one.  The omens are fortunate.

URL link of the Power Point Presentation (in Greek):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wutahdh8tlaykw/Paul%20Hagouel_Holocaust%20Annihilation%20Memory%20Jews%20EMacedonia%2C%20Thrace%20%26%20Thessaloniki_20130406_.pps
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