Rescuing Greek Jews under German occupation.

From 1940 on there were some Jewish Agency representatives present in Istanbul. Their task consisted of helping Jews in lands under German occupation, of establishing contact with them and searching for ways to bring them to Turkey.

Thanks to the permission of the Turkish authorities and according to the British promise, Palestinian visas were to be given to Jewish fugitives who will be able to reach Turkey. Among those Jewish Agency representatives were : Zvi Yehieli (kibbutz Givat Hayim,) Zeev Shind (Kibbutz Hayelet Hashahar,) Ehoud Avriel ( k. Neot Mordehai,) Teddy Kolleg (k. Ein Gev,) Menahem Bader (k. Mizra), Vanya Pomerants (k. Ramat Rahel), Moshe Agami and Berkovits (k. Kfar Giladi).

Towards the end of 1942, when it got known that the European Jewry was being annihilated by the Germans, the British bowed to world opinion and handed out Palestinian visas for 5000 children from Balkan countries. With money collected by the American “Joint” (Joint Distribution Committee) and the Jewish Agency, the representatives in Istanbul chartered ships and, in 1944, brought more than 5000 Jewish children, accompanied by fugitives of other ages, from Rumania and Bulgaria to Istanbul, and from there transported them by train to Palestine.
These same representatives succeeded in establishing a sea route from the Greek Aegean coast to the port of Izmir in Turkey after arriving to an understanding with the Turkish authorities and the British agents - a route which was to save more than 1000 Greek Jews from the Germans. This action, which was made possible with the aid of the Jewish community of Izmir, has not been recorded anywhere so far as I know, and I feel it my personal duty to tell its story:

During those days, the British and the Americans operated in a little town called Cheshme about 50 km to the west of Izmir, a communication center which served to gather information about Greek partisans fighting the Germans and about British Air Force pilots or prisoners of war who succeeded in escaping the Germans. This center was of great use in sending aid to the escapees.

Since 1940 there already existed some sort of cooperation between the British S.O.E.(Special Operations Executive) and the Jewish Hagana of Palestine. The British were very much interested in the operation of Jewish parachutists from Palestine behind the German lines, while the Jews in Palestine wanted to save European Jews from German hands. Thus 32 Jewish parachutists, three of them women, were dropped by British planes behind German lines. Some succeeded in accomplishing their missions, but some of them were executed by the Germans
This cooperation started also in the Aegean Sea. A hundred kilometers west of Cheshme exists the island of Evoya, then occupied by German forces. The island stretches from the north-west to the south-east and from its southernmost tip, the distance to Cheshme is only 50 km. During the daytime the island was under German control but the moment darkness set in, the 7th battalion of the Greek Ellas forces passed information to the center in Cheshme and brought British escapees in small boats. At this point, the representative of the political bureau of the Jewish Agency, Reuben Zaslani (Shiloah) contacted Comdr. Tony Sanders of the S.O.E. in Cairo and his representative in Istanbul, Comdr. Wofson. The communication between Greece and Cheshme was of great interest to Zaslani and his superior, Shaul Meyerov (Avigur.)

In order to establish on one hand the cooperation of the Greek partisans and on the other hand the readiness of the Jews of Izmir to support and take in the Jewish refugees from Greece until their papers could be prepared by the British authorities in Istanbul for their travel to Palestine, Zeev Shind was sent to Izmir where he made the first contacts with Mr. Shabetay Shaltiel, head of the Jewish community. Through him Shind met with Mr. Rafael Barki who had escaped from Greece to Izmir and who explained to him how he managed to communicate by letter with his brother in Greece with the help of the partisans and to send through them food, clothing and medicine to be distributed among the needy Jews of Athens. Shind was introduced to a ship handler named Benni Arkadi from whom he obtained a boat which was to serve the partisans for the transport of the Jewish refugees.

In December 1943 Meyerov arrived in Izmir and assured himself of the arrangements. Barki arranged a meeting between Thomas, Meyerov, and the Commander of the Greek boats, in which it was decided that the partisans would receive food, clothing and medicine in exchange for the transport of the refugees. At the arrival of each group, Meyerov or his man in Izmir would take their documents to Istanbul in order to obtain Palestine visas from the British, while the refugees would be taken care of by the Jewish community until the date of their departure for Palestine.

Barki sent to his brother in Athens instructions to prepare the Jewish refugees in groups. Unfortunately the first group of 19 refugees who set out on 19th of December, did not arrive in Cheshme and was considered as lost. Later on some members of that group were seen in Haleb (Aleppo, Syria). Probably their boat was sunk and they were rescued by another ship and brought to Syria.

After this mishap the boats reached Cheshme regularly. But it appeared that some Greek officers sometimes mingled among the refugees, a fact which did not please the partisans and, in order not to offend Thomas, Mr.Barki from Izmir instructed his brother in Athens not to help escaping Greek officers anymore. All the same, in one of the boats in Cheshme appeared Mr. George Papandreou (who after the War became Prime Minister in Greece) and was very well treated by the Jews of Izmir.

At the beginning of 1944 Meyerov returned again to Izmir from Palestine in order to inspect the development, and appointed Moshe Agami (Auerbuch) to direct the job in Izmir in his place. Agami had just returned from his mission in Persia at that moment. Shaltiel introduced Agami to Thomas and at this meeting Agami assured Thomas of 5 gold Sovereigns for each refugee and of the supply of two more boats. Thomas was appointed to replace Barki in Athens and Captain Jan took over Thomas’s job in Evoya.

Cmdr. Tony Sanders from Cairo protested that in boats which were for the transport of British soldiers no refugees should be given space because of its being against the rules, but the partisans were not willing to lose golden Sovereigns and went on as before.

A report dated April 8th 1944 mentioned that up to this date 500 refugees had arrived in Izmir. The report on June 23d mentions 171 refugees more. The Jewish community under the leadership of Mr. Shaltiel surpassed all the expectations. To provide all the refugees with food, clothing, and living quarters in private homes would not have been possible without a full scale mobilization of all the resources. Mr. Shaltiel’s young assistant Avram Chicourel and his friends volunteered to put up the necessary organization. The monetary aid was mobilized by the industrialists and businessmen of the community. This was not an easy task after the 1942 property tax, imposed mainly on the minorities, which had ruined many Jews financially.

Until August 1944 more than 1000 Jewish refugees had reached Izmir. 859 of them found refuge in Palestine while the rest preferred other countries. Agami finished his job in Turkey and was transferred to Rumania in order to organize the transfer of Jewish refugees from there to Palestine.

With these few lines I wish to express my deep respect to the Greeks of Evoya, to the Barki brothers, to the Turkish and British authorities in those troubled times, to the Jewish Agency officials, all of them volunteers, and especially to the Jewish community of Izmir to which I belonged before settling in Israel.

Sources Consulted:

* Tuvia Friling: “Arrow in the Dark”-on the rescue attempts during the Holocaust {in Hebrew}
** “Crossroad Istanbul” by Vanya Pomerants {in Hebrew}
*** “Davar” the Israeli daily in may 6th 1983.

I was born in Vienna but from 1933 on I grew up in Izmir. As a university student in Istanbul during the years 1940-1944 I was a member of the steering committee of the youth organization “Neemane Zion” (The faithful of Zion) in both Istanbul and Izmir and, later on, the head of the organization in Izmir. As such, I was involved in cooperation with the representatives of the Jewish Agency and the special agents for legal and illegal immigration sent by the “Hagana” (The Jewish Defense Force in Palestine) as well as with the president of the Jewish community Mr. Shaltiel and his assistant Mr. Chicourel, until I settled with my wife and baby son in “Gevulot”, a kibbutz in the Neguev, upon the establishment of the state of Israel.

The above article was edited by Rachel A. Bortnick, 2001