Patrick Comerford
I have been recalling in recent week how I have come across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised I had written little about these sculptures over the years.
Rather than leave these photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I started an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki. Over these few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.
The sculptures I have looked at in recent weeks include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower, the Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square, and ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square.
Before World War II, Thessaloniki was home to a vibrant, centuries-old Sephardi, Romaniote and Ashkenazi Jewish community with over 50,000 to 60,000 people. Following the Nazi occupation in 1941, forced labour, ghettoisation, and systematic mass deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau destroyed the vast majority of the community. Throughout Europe, I regularly come across the Stolpersteine or ‘Stumbling Stones’ by the German artist Gunter Demnig. His project places engraved brass stones or cobblestones in front of the former homes, schools or work places of Holocaust victims who were deported and murdered by Nazi Germany.
Demnig’s Stolpersteine are small, cobblestone-sized brass memorials set into the pavement or footpath. His project began in Germany and has spread across Europe. So far, over 100,000 hand-engraved Stolpersteine have been laid in at least two dozen countries across Europe, making this dispersed project the world’s largest memorial. I have seen them in Berlin, Bratislava, Dublin, Prague, Venice, Vienna and in Thessaloniki.
The memorials in Thessaloniki are on the footpath in front of the 1st High School of Thessaloniki (1ο Γενικό Λύκειο Θεσσαλονίκης). They commemorate 149 Jewish children who were expelled from the school and deported to concentration camps on 8 May 1943 – of the 149 schoolchildren, only six survived. Five other Stolpersteine were placed at the harbour in Thessaloniki on 21 October 2016 to honour five Jewish workers in the port who were arrested, deported, and exterminated at Auschwitz in 1943.
The initiative has been driven by local groups, including a former school pupil, Apostolos Dereklis, and the Citizens’ Initiative for the Stolpersteine in Thessaloniki, with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Thessaloniki Office.
‘Stumbling Stones for Thessaloniki’ began as initiative by two Humanity in Action senior fellows, Regina Frentzou and Evanthia Panagiotou, with a social art project to recover collective memory and individual commemoration of the victims of the Nazis in Thessaloniki. They were inspired during their experiences in Berlin in 2014, and felt there was a lack of commemoration for the victims of the Holocaust in Greek cities, particularly in Thessaloniki.
Thessaloniki was once known as the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’. Demnig’s Stolpersteine on Vassilisis Olgas are critical visual anchors on the footpath that force people to ‘stumble with their heads and hearts’ over the fate of the city’s Jewish population, which was wiped out almost entirely in 1943.
Leoforos Vasilissis Olgas or Queen Olga Avenue is lined with once elegant fin de siècle villas, some now decaying and crumbling. It was once the most elegant and one of the richest areas of the city, and the home of many ruling families at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and each villa tells its own unique story. Some are galleries, others house cultural and historical institutions. Many retain their detailed colourful decorations, some even their impressive furniture, all influenced by the eclecticism of the 18th and 19th century.
Several villas have been preserved after painful restoration efforts, including the Villa Mordoch, the Villa Ahmet Kapanci (1890), the Villa Mehmet Kapanci (1893) and the Villa Bianca. Others are still sadly awaiting restoration after many decades, including the Villa Hirsch and the Salem Mansion at No 20. The Salem Mansion was designed in 1878 by Xenophon Paionides (1863-1933) for the wealthy Jeborga (Τζεμπόργκα) Jewish merchant family in 1878. It was bought in 1894 by Emmanuel Salem, the most important Jewish lawyer in the city and his family gave it its name to the Salem Mansion (Η Επαυλη Σαλέμ).
The first High School of Thessaloniki is housed in two of these elegant villas on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue, the Villa Hadjimishev, probably designed by Frederic Charnot and built in 1890 for the Bulgarian Theodore Hadjimishev, who was forced to abandon the villa and the city during the Balkan Wars, and the Villa Modiano, built in 1899 and now the main school building.
The Villa Modiano was built for Joseph Modiano and his family. The family was originally from Italy and settled in Thessaloniki in the early 18th century. The Modiano and Allatini families created a trading empire in the Balkans, mainly in the fields of grain, silk and leather. The house later passed to Molho family and from 1918 on the Villa Modiano was part of the Boys’ High School. After World War II, it accommodated 15 to 22 refugee families in 1946-1958.
Demnig’s project has created the world’s largest decentralised memorial, and it has expanded to over hand-engraved stones spread across dozens of countries. These cobblestone-sized brass memorials are critical touchpoints for public history, local memory, and reflection, and the project fulfils the Talmudic teaching that ‘a person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten.’
I have stumbled upon these brass plaques in many cities, including such as Berlin, Bratislava, Dublin, Prague, Venice and Vienna, as well as Thessaloniki.
Dublin’s first Stolpersteine or stumbling stones were installed on 1 June 2022 outside Saint Catherine’s National School on Donore Avenue – close to Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’. The six stones commemorate Irish Holocaust victims who grew up or had deep roots in Dublin: Ettie Steinberg Gluck, her husband Wojteck Gluck, and their baby son Leon, who were arrested in France and murdered in Auschwitz; Isaac Shishi, born in Dublin and murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania; and Ephraim Saks and his sister Jeanne (Lena) Saks, both from Dublin, who were murdered in Auschwitz.
El Malei Rachamim (‘God full of compassion’) is a prayer for the departed that asks for comfort and everlasting care of the deceased. It is said at Jewish funeral services, but different versions exist for different moments.
This version for the Shoah (Holocaust) is found in the Reform prayer book, Mishkan T’filah:
Fully compassionate God on high:
To our six million brothers and sisters
murdered because they were Jews,
grant clear and certain rest with You
in the lofty heights of the sacred and pure
whose brightness shines like the very glow of heaven.
Source of mercy:
Forever enfold them in the embrace of Your wings;
secure their souls in eternity.
Adonai: they are Yours.
They will rest in peace. Amen.
May their memories be a blessing, זצ״ל
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
In this series:
1, Introduction (21 September 2026)
2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)
3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)
4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)
5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)
6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)
7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)
8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)
9, ‘The Stumbling Stones’ (‘Stolpersteine’) by Gunter Demnig (9 October 2026)
Next: ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis by Vasilis Doropoulos, Ermou Street
