One of the last Greek Jewish witnesses, Heinz Kounio, dies at 98

One of the past surviving witnesses to the demolition of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community, Heinz Kounio, has died astatine the property of 98.

Greece’s Central Board of Jewish Communities (KIS) paid tribute to him arsenic an “emblematic figure” — among the earliest Greek Jews to papers the horrors of the Nazi decease camps from firsthand experience.

In May 1943, German concern authorities began the wide deportation of Thessaloniki’s Jews. Of the 46,091 radical forced into cattle cars and sent to extermination camps, conscionable 1,950 survived.

Born successful 1927, Kounio was lone 15 when helium was deported to Auschwitz successful occupied Poland with the archetypal transport from Thessaloniki.

Assigned the fig 109565, helium survived alongside three household members — something helium aboriginal credited to their quality to speak German successful a radical mostly made up of Ladino-speaking dockworkers.

“If we didn’t speak German and if we hadn’t arrived first, we would not person survived,” helium recalled successful a 2017 interview.

Determined that the atrocities would not beryllium forgotten, Kounio recorded his experiences successful his 1981 self-published memoir I Lived Through Death, dedicating his beingness to Holocaust remembrance and education. In 2016, helium met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then serving arsenic overseas minister, during an authoritative visit to Thessaloniki — a infinitesimal that underscored some idiosyncratic testimony and humanities reckoning.

Thessaloniki Mayor Stelios Angeloudis described Kounio arsenic “part of the city’s history,” noting his unwavering committedness to passing connected the truth of the Holocaust to younger generations.

“He made it his life’s intent to guarantee thing of this abominable transgression remained hidden,” helium said. Kounio was laid to remainder connected Friday astatine Thessaloniki’s Jewish cemetery, with authorities officials and assemblage leaders successful attendance.

His passing resonates beyond Greece.

In Melbourne, 99-year-old Lola Seror — different Greek Jewish Holocaust survivor — who featured successful Neos Kosmos, continues to stock her story, preserved successful the publication Maria and Lola: Sisters successful Survival.