Four peoples, each with their own culture, language and faith, shared a small Mediterranean town and experienced, each in their own way, the upheavals of war, modernity, emigration and occupation. With the German takeover in 1943, the Holocaust in 1944 and the beginning of Greek rule in 1947, this multiethnic world perished forever. At the centre of this book stands the Sephardi community Spanish-speaking Jews who arrived in Rhodes sometime after the Spanish expulsion edict of 1492 and who remained the largest single group within the old city walls until Italy adopted German racial legislation in 1938.
When sultan Abdulhamit II ascended to the Ottoman throne in 1876, the Jews of Rhodes were among his most loyal and traditional, not to say hidebound, subjects. But within the course of a few decades, this bastion of piety and rabbinical tradition was thoroughly transformed by French rationalism, Italian secularism and the pressures of economic globalization. Many unlikely characters come alive in this spirited account of the vibrant and irretrievably Lost Worlds of Rhodes: The French monks who impart universal values to provincial Turks, Greeks and Jews; the Rhodian schoolboy lost in a Congolese jungle; the Italian general who brings sanitation to the medieval town; the Greek shepherd who knows the history of Rhodes better than any scholar; the Turkish diplomat whose wife was murdered by the Nazis and who then risked his life to save Jews from the SS. These are just some of the stories related directly to the author, who combines journalism with scholarship in the recreation of a unique cultural microcosm.
Cover designer: Christer Jonson.
Cover illustrations: Sephardic lady, circa 1910, and Turkish peanut-seller, circa 1900, from the Soriano Family Archive; a contemporary picture of the town, with the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes in the background.
Nathan Shachar is the Jerusalem correspondent of the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. His previous books include The Mysterious Passion, a widely acclaimed interpretation of Spanish History, and prize-winning collections of essays on the Middle East and Latin America. His The Gaza Strip: Its History and Politics was published in early 2010 (Conveys his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Gaza Strip by means of a moving and entertaining narrative, Ramy Wurgaft, El Mundo, Madrid).
Copyright Nathan Shachar, 2013, 2014
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2014.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
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Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shachar, Nathan.
The lost worlds of Rhodes : Greeks, Italians, Jews, and Turks : between tradition and modernity / Nathan Shachar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84519-455-0 (p/b : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-78284-052-7 (e-pub)
ISBN 978-1-78284-053-4 (e-mobi)
ISBN 978-1-78284-054-1 (e-pdf)
1. Rhodes (Greece : Island)Ethnic relations. 2. Rhodes (Greece : Island) History19th century. 3. Rhodes (Greece : Island)History20th century. 4. ItaliansGreeceRhodesHistory. 5. JewsGreeceRhodes (Island) 6. SephardimGreeceRhodes (Island)History. 7. Turks GreeceRhodesHistory. 8. MinoritiesGreeceRhodes (Island) I. Title. DF901.R4S53 2013 949.587074dc23
2012029397
This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures.
Contents
Hic Rodus, hic salta!
An introduction
France in Rhodes Mirage or Promised Land?
On the incredible love of France among Eastern Orientals
The Seeds of War Italy in 1911
Italian colonialism and the Italo-Turkish war of 19111912
The Road to Psinthos
Visiting the last battlefield of 1912
Fiat Lux! Italy A Light Unto the Nations?
The beginning of Italian occupation and the first reaction of the natives
Incipit vita nova
Daily life between the old and the new
Opening Up
The beginnings of tourism
Kulturkampf
Mussolini challenges French cultural hegemony
A New Career Going Away Forever
On emigration
Twilight
The years of Cesare de Vecchi
Greeks and Jews A Wound Unhealed
On the oldest of bilateral relationships
Index
List of Illustrations
The author has made every effort to contact copyright holders, and gratefully acknowledges those individuals, museum curators and companies who have responded to his enquiries. The author and publishers apologize for any errors or omissions in the list below and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in the next edition or reprint of this book. Descriptive captions are given in the plate section, which is placed after .
1 Maurice Soriano, miraculously saved by the Turkish consul lkmen. (Courtesy of David Galante)
2 David Galante after his liberation from Auschwitz. (Courtesy of David Galante)
3 Map of Rhodes town and its three ports, middle of the 19th century.
4 Crusader Rhodes seen from the north during the first Ottoman naval siege, in 1480. (Original at the National Library, Paris).
5 The town of Rhodes in the 1970s, viewed from southwest. (Courtesy of Esther Fintz-Menasc)
6 Cape Kumburn, the northernmost tip of the town, and the island, of Rhodes. (Courtesy of Esther Fintz-Menasc)
7 Girls in the Sephardi part of the old town, around 1920. (Courtesy of Esther Fintz-Menasc)
8 Lucia Modiano, the only Rhodian Auschwitz survivor who returned to live on the island. (Courtesy of Lina Cohen, Haifa)
9 Issachar Avzaradel, Judeo-Spanish poet, Ashdod, Israel, in the 1960s. (Courtesy of Solly Notrica, Ashdod)
10 Giamila Tarica, 19142012. (Courtesy of Solly Notrica, Ashdod)
11 Rhodian Jews at the turn of the 20th century. (Photo by Vitalis Strumza)
12 Final preparations for the Holocaust: Decree signed by General Ulrich Kleemann, the Wehrmacht commander of the Eastern Aegean. (The Nuremburg Trial Records)
13 Cesare de Vecchi, the Duce, General Emilio di Bono and the young flying ace Italo Balbo. Reprinted from Il Quadrumviro scomodo by Cesar Maria de Vecchi, Milan 1983.
14 German tanks outside the Crusader fortress of Rhodes. (Courtesy of Jewish Museum, Rhodes)
15 Cesare de Vecchi at his desk. Reprinted from Il Quadrumviro scomodo by Cesar Maria de Vecchi, Milan 1983.
16 The young Turkish consul on Rhodes, Selahattin lkmen. (Courtesy of Selahattin lkmen)
17 The Capelouto family in 1908. (Courtesy of Esther Fintz-Menasc)
18 The steamer Pencho, acquired by the nationalist Jewish Beitar movement in Slovakia in the spring of 1940. (Courtesy of Jewish Museum, Rhodes)