Salonika, Vergina and Pella

Salonika, Saturday-Sunday, October 13-14

Shabbat: A day of rest with nothing scheduled until 4PM on Saturday.  We slept late, and after breakfast wandered downtown Salonika.  At 4:00 we had a study session with Rabbi Morey Schwartz, the Melton International Director who has been traveling with us.  The topic began with readings from Parshat Noach concerning the Tower of Babel, and included readings from the Babylonian Talmud, Homer and Josephus regarding language and its place in uniting and diving peoples.

We then had a walk along the waterfront, where the pre-war population was heavily Jewish, including all of the dock workers.  There is a Holocaust memorial in a small park there:

It has been pointed out to us on more than one occasion that most of the Greek Holocaust memorials and monuments have been erected by various Greek municipalities and governments in contradistinction to those seen in Polish cities and towns which have almost all been placed by Jewish organizations. 

We returned to the hotel for Havdalah and then went out for a lovely dinner.

On Sunday, we visited two astonishing archeological sites and museums.  On the way out of town, we drove past a boys’ school which had a large per-war Jewish student body.  153 boys were removed by the Nazis; 6 survived.  On the ground outside the school is a series of “stolpersteine” or “stumbling blocks.”  We’ve seen these elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, where small brass plaques with names and dates are placed on the sidewalk outside the homes where Jews once lived.  It provides a constant reminder of the Holocaust as people walk past.  I don’t remember ever seeing them in front of a school:

The graffiti on the wall of the school by now is ordinary for us.  We also stopped at the Salonika University campus which has been built on the site of the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, now destroyed by the Nazis with little resistance from the Greek authorities, we’re told, who wanted the land for the University.  All that remains of 300,000 gave sites is a small memorial made partly of gravestones from the old cemetery:

The monument has been defaced with blue graffiti which someone has tried to remove:

We then drove to the town of Vergina which has what probably is the most astonishing archeological site I’ve ever seen.  We are in Macedonia, and the royal tombs of the great kingdom are here in Aigia, including those of Philip II and Alexander III (The Great).  No photos were allowed, but there is a wonderful web site here:  http://www.aigai.gr/en/multimedia .  Our guide took us through with an expert timeline and discussion of the phenomenal artifacts here.  The tombs were only found about 40 years ago, and the site the authorities have created with the display of the astonishing collection is truly incredible.

After our visit we had lunch, and then drove a short distance to Pella, the ancient capitol of Macedonia and the birthplace of Alexander the Great.  There is another phenomenal museum here, and photos are allowed.  Choosing what to post was a problem!

We started with a great map showing the conquests of Alexander:

And a bust (note that the nine years of his conquests took up the years of his 20s!):

There are fabulous stone mosaic floors.  Here are two room-sized ones, first Dionysus riding a panther, and second, a deer hunt:

This solid gold diadem is impressive, but pales in comparison to the ones at Vergina:

Here’s a photo from the internet of one of the Vergina diadems:

We went back to Salonika and went out for a fun dinner at a Cretan restaurant.  Wonderful!