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(Suite de la page 18)
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.
Heinz Ziffer
The above article was edited by Rachel A. Bortnick, 2001
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