Hanna Hamburger
Hanna Hamburger
RelatioNet Project - Katzanelson High School, Kfar Saba – Israel
Mail: Names of Students and emails:
Survivors code: RelatioNetHAHA30ATGR
First name: Hanna
Last name: Mizrahi
Maiden name: Hamburger
Year of Birth: October 11th 1930
City of birth: Athens
Country of birth: Greece
Greece
Before the War
The beginning of Jewish history in Greece may date back to the Babylonian exile, somewhere around 585-549 BC, when Cyrus the Great declared that captured Judeans may return home. Some may have settled in Greece instead.
Crusaders committed violent acts against Jews in Central Europe during the Middle Ages. As a result, many Ashkenazi Jews left for Northern Greece and found refuge in Thessaloniki.
In 1453, the Ottomans captured the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. This was a big change in the life of Greek Jews as Ottomans ruled by Islamic law which allowed Jews to practice their religion and sometimes granted them legal autonomy. This made Greece a place of refuge for fleeing Jews. The Ottomans encouraged Jews to immigrate because it improved their economy. In 1492, many Sephardic Jews fled the Inquisition and arrived in welcoming Greece. This marked the beginning of their presence in the country. Though at first there was friction between the new Sephardic refugees and the local Romaniots, eventually they accepted one another and Ladino, originally a Sephardic language, became the official language of Greek Jews.
In Ottoman-controlled Greece, Jews were very successful; they occupied administrative roles and were active in developing intellectual and commercial life in the region. Since many of the Jewish refugees were leading intellectuals, academics and scientists, their arrival changed the whole nature of the communities in Greece. By the end of the 16th century, about half of Thessaloniki’s population (some 30,000 people) were Jewish. In the centuries that followed, Jews from other countries moved to Thessaloniki and introduced traditions from their countries.
The community’s life in the country was rather comfortable, though not completely void of anti-Semitic laws and practices. For example, the special tax levied on Jews or the general Christian Orthodox disapproval of Ottoman support.
During the Greek War of Independence, 1821 -1829, thousands of Jews were massacred, and three communities - Tripoli, Kalamata, and Patras - were completely destroyed. After the Greek state borders were finalized in 1832, some survivors moved to lands still under Ottoman rule in the north. After the independent Greek state was formed, the port of Thessaloniki began declining in importance hence many Jews left Greece.
When the Holocaust started in 1939 about 70,000 Jews lived in Greece. After the war although most Jews had left Greece for Israel, the United States, Canada, and Australia, some chose to stay. Since then, more Jews left the country following the economic crisis. As of 2015, about 6,000 Jews live in Greece, mostly in Athens, with about 2,000 in Thessaloniki.
Hanna Hamburger - Mizrahi
Hannah was born and raised in Athens. Her family moved very often. She had both a brother and a sister, both older than her. Her family was very much assimilated - all of their friends were Christian, and only her grandmother kept a strict Jewish lifestyle. Nevertheless, they would still celebrate the Holidays and go to the Synagogue, even only to hear the Shofar. As she sees it, the first time she received the title of “Jew” was not from her family, but rather from the Nazis. Her father was born in Turkey, to an immigrant Ashkenazi family, who immigrated in 1922.
In October 1940, the Italians declared war on Greece. In the beginning, the Greeks had the upper hand. This didn’t last long, and in March-April of 1941, the Germans joined the Italians and took over Greece. At that time, she tells that they could see the Greek soldiers retreating.
The Greeks were imprisoning citizens who had Axis-related citizenships. As Hannah’s father had an Austrian citizenship, they took him as well. After it was clear the Greeks were losing, they gave the option of escaping to Egypt to those who were imprisoned, and so he did, leaving Hannah and her family in Greece. As a result, her parents divorced and the family was left without a steady source of income since Hannah’s mother taught French, and during the war, nobody was willing to waste resources on luxuries, such as learning languages. As a result, they moved to a poor neighborhood. Her mother changed their names because Hannah’s father told her to leave the house and run away. At that time, Hannah was 10 years old and wasn’t aware of what was going on.
After the occupation, Greece was divided, with the North under Nazi control and the South under Italian control. Hannah says the Italians were nicer than the Germans. Sometimes, they would even play with the local children - they had funny uniforms and were often teased by the children. They then continued to chase them as a game. Nevertheless, they were still horrible in their own right and did atrocious things like slaughter and burn-down whole villages.
Economically, the situation was dire - her family would sometimes go a whole week without eating. When winter came, it was especially harsh. Hannah tells how her family would all sleep in one bed so as to keep warm. They lived near the Athens Botanical Garden. At the end of 1941, the authorities started handing out food, mainly hummus and pea soup which had floating insects in it. She would walk for an hour with ripped shoes, sometime in the rain, just so she could get something to eat.
Hannah tells how her mother insisted that she and her brothers got their education. When she was in fourth grade, in 1942, she was transferred to high school. She learned normally, despite the age difference. She failed her first year but improved as time passed, and by the second year, she was already doing fine. When she wasn’t in school, she went with to church with the other girls to keep busy and warm. “You know more about Christianity than about Judaism”, this is what she was told. Despite all she went through, she says what helped her was living with the undying hope for a better tomorrow.
All of this came to an end when the Germans invaded Athens in September 1943. Hanna says it was only then that they understood what living under military occupation was truly like. A terrifying period started. The Germans were very cruel. For example, she remembers how they broke a poor child’s arm just for not crossing the street when he saw them walking towards him. Another example is one time when her brother, 15 at the time, was sent to the fortifications to guard and fell asleep. To punish him, they punched him and broke his teeth.
The Germans asked the Rabbi to give them a list of all the Jews. He lied to them, saying that the archive had burned down and he would have to make a new one by hand. When they saw he was taking his time, they decided to take matters into their own hands. They announced that they would give out Matzos for Passover in Beth Shalom Synagogue. Although anti-Nazi organizations warned the people not to go, some did. They never came back. They were led in trucks to trains and were taken from there straight to concentration camps.
At this point, Hannah says, she began to feel true fear. They were afraid to go out. As she puts it, they were afraid to live. They stayed in hiding under false names, and her Grandmother, also named Hannah, was hidden in the house of a young couple.
After Athens was liberated in October 1944, they stayed in the same poor neighborhood in Athens until August 1945. Eventually, they decided to make Aliyah in order to rebuild their lives. Hannah and her siblings finally made Aliyah. They traveled in a ship organized by Youth Aliyah Organization for orphans, even though most on board weren’t orphans. Most were aged 15-22, but some were as young as 8 or 9 years old. Hannah and her family were told they were to join a Kibbutz, and when they asked what the word “Kibbutz” means, nobody really knew either. They came to Israel and lived in Kfar Giladi for one and a half years. Hannah met her husband, Yossef Mizrahi and moved to Kfar-Saba with him.
Hannah came back to visit Athens, but only many years later. She has two daughters, Gila and Yehudit, four Grandchildren, and five Great-Grandchildren, and is currently living in Kfar-Saba. She volunteers at the National Insurance Institute, learns history, and likes going out for walks around the city on Fridays. She tries to forget her life in Athens, but not everything passes.
When asked if there was anything she’d like to add, anything she’d like to tell anybody reading this blog, she said that the thing she would like the most is that the youth remember that we don’t have another country and that this one is ours - and as such we need to fight for it, and not with guns, meaning we need to stay united and strive to be better as a community and as individuals, so as to make this country better.
