00:00Most of the tourists who take Elias Matalon's guided tours are Jewish.
00:07Whenever he takes visitors to the synagogue in Thessaloniki,
00:10Matalon always sings a Sephardic song.
00:13It is the music of his ancestors,
00:15Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century
00:19and fled to Greece,
00:21turning the city of Thessaloniki into a vibrant center of Jewish culture.
00:26Thessaloniki was once known as the Jerusalem of the Balkans.
00:29At one point, about half the city's population was Jewish,
00:33yet few visible traces of the city's Jewish past remain.
00:36But Elias Matalon knows the stories that are hidden behind,
00:40and in some cases in, the walls of his native city.
00:43Today, he is guiding two tourists from Israel around the city.
00:47His tour brings Thessaloniki's Jewish past and culture to life for the visitors.
00:52The Jews are a people,
00:55and it is important that a people has a memory, a past,
00:59that it lives on.
01:03In the Jewish Museum, they learn about what happened to the city's Jewish cemetery.
01:08With almost 500,000 graves,
01:10it was once one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world.
01:14In 1943, the city authorities applied to the occupying Nazi forces
01:19for permission to destroy the cemetery.
01:21In order to expand the city and use the gravestones as construction material.
01:26Within a few short days, centuries of Jewish history
01:30and a key part of the life of the city's Jewish community
01:33had been completely erased.
01:36Today, a university stands on the site of the former cemetery.
01:40In 1998, a monument was erected here.
01:44Few are aware of its existence.
01:46Elias Matalon would like more people to be aware of the memorial
01:50and reflect on what it means,
01:52so that they understand the city's history better.
02:11In general, Thessaloniki's Jewish past has been largely forgotten.
02:15But if you look closely, traces are visible all over the city.
02:19Here and there are remnants of gravestones with Hebrew inscriptions.
02:30Among other things, the city's authorities used pieces of gravestones
02:34to repair damage caused by a major fire in 1917.
02:38In this way, the stones that had previously marked
02:41the final resting places of thousands of Jews
02:44were integrated into the fabric of the city.
02:49We are now standing on pieces that used to be graves.
02:54Today, there are these remains.
02:57It is really sad, because this is not their place.
03:01Their place was where they were.
03:04I don't think it's right to take pieces from any grave
03:08and make pavements, walls, etc.
03:13I think it's shameful.
03:17Elias Matalon hopes that many people, Jews and non-Jews alike,
03:21will hear the story of what happened to the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki.
03:25Only those who were aware that the city was once home
03:28to a vibrant Jewish community,
03:30which for centuries helped shape and build Thessaloniki,
03:33can truly understand this city.
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