An Ode to Salonika: The Ladino Verses of Bouena Sarfatty

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 “The Miseries That the Germans Inflicted on Salonika” The Nazi invasion of Salonika on April 9, 1941, would determine the fate of the twenty-five-year-old Bouena and her family as well as all of Salonikan Jewry. Bouena survived by fleeing and joining the partisans, at first the EDES Royalists1 and later the ELAS Communists.2 She eventually reached Palestine, accompanying a group of children she had smuggled out of Greece. She later returned to work as a dietitian in the displaced persons’ camp in Siderokastro, Greece, and encouraged Jews to immigrate to Palestine. This particular collection of verses, entitled Komplas de las mizerias ke izo lo[s] almanes a Salonique del 1941–1943 (in English, “Coplas about the Miseries That the Germans Inflicted on Salonika, 1941–1943”), contains ninety-nine strophes. The traumas that Bouena as well as the community had experienced remained with her until her dying day. Interestingly enough, one perceives that events are often represented in the verses as belonging to the present rather than to the past, for she relived them time and again. The use of this tense seems to add a sense of authenticity and realism, as if the verses were part of a diary.3 The lost world here is not one whose heyday passed as the result of modernization or secularism, but rather the result of war and manmade devastation. In his collection of Sephardi Holocaust poetry, Isaac Jack Lévy writes, “[T]he primary duty of Sephardic writers is not the verbalization of the message but rather the message as a means of retaining their own identity through remembrance of fallen brothers and sisters.”4 Bouena is clearly engaged in remembrance but her verses are unusual in that their message does more than help the survivors retain their identity, for the verses simultaneously send an informative message of historic significance. On October 28, 1940, Mussolini, without consulting with Hitler, decided to invade Albania with the intention of pushing onward into Greece.5 On November 14 the Greek army mounted a counteroffensive in order to deter the Italians; its troops crossed over into Albania and were successful in their campaign against the Italians. In Bouena’s opinion, Mussolini was unsuccessfully imitating Hitler and he inadvertently created an embarrassing military situation. Hitler realized that he had no choice but to bail out his ally, and Miseries the Germans Inflicted on Salonika u 183 quickly sent troops via Bulgaria in order to quash the Greek army. Bowman notes that after the Greek surrender the defeated soldiers (one of whom most likely was Bouena’s fiancé) were not interned as prisoners, but rather were released; it seems that most of them simply walked home.6 In the very first verse in the collection, Bouena notes that at Passover rumors of a pending German invasion began to circulate. The reaction of the community was to close down its shops and for each family to wait at home; soon after, the sounds of the destruction of stores reverberated in their ears as their food supplies were plundered.7 No one knew precisely what to anticipate, but it was clear that this first action augured ill for the Jews of Salonika. The Nazis wasted no time upon entering the city. The tentacles of the Rosenberg Commission reached into Greece because there were valuables worth confiscating. Between May and November 1941, Alfred Rosenberg and a unit of German officers and academics raided synagogues, schools, banks, presses, hospitals , private homes, and other institutions, and carried off invaluable books, religious items, manuscripts, and the like.8 Their workers quickly located and pillaged the homes of the cultured and the wealthy, sending truckloads of treasures to Germany. Bouena describes the day they plundered the Sarfatty home,9 noting that they had done their homework, for they knew exactly what in each home was of value; for instance, they were aware that her family possessed valuable paintings. The reactions of her family members and her neighbors varied from hysteria to an acceptance of the inevitable. The Nazi pillaging was focused and steady. Germany was in dire need of iron for the war effort; one Jewish family possessed a formidable supply of iron and the Germans were overjoyed to discover such a valuable cache in Salonika.10 In essence, the Germans looted, requisitioned, and attempted to claim as much as possible as quickly as possible. As it turns out, even the most basic commodities were of value to the Nazis...