Remembrance route with “a little food for the road”: reviving the deportation and murder of the city’s Jews

The inhabitants of Thessaloniki froze at eight o’clock on the morning of 9 April 1941, when they saw the German conquerors invade their city. They saw their city under unprecedented German occupation terror, but also the extermination of the Jewish Community.
The tragic and dark history of the Jews of Thessaloniki, who were displaced and murdered by the Nazis, the history that became a cry in the years that followed, and has been passed down from generation to generation for 83 years so that it would never be forgotten “Never”, is attempted to be revived in an experiential way by groups of theatre and cultural routes of the city.
On April 19 after 7 p.m., 50 spectators will have the unique opportunity to experience a unique journey through the city with three stops: A walking narrative, a “memory” bus and a dark warehouse as much as history itself. This warehouse, in fact, will represent the tragic end, the end of the Jews in Auschwitz, which will be revived in the “Melissari Mills” of the municipality of Cordelios-Evosmos, under the auspices of which the whole project is being carried out.

An immersive experience, which will be offered to the public of Thessaloniki by the theatre company “Gran Guignol” and the cultural tours group “Thessaloniki walking Tours” in the framework of the experiential project they organize “A little food for the road”.

“In essence, it is a complex performance supported and subsidized by the Ministry of Culture, a different route that starts from Villa Petridi, continues to the old railway station and ends up in a warehouse of Melissari Mills” stressed talking to makthes.gr the actor and founding member of the team “Grand Guignol” Stathis Mavropoulos.

“We want”, he said, “to grasp the background of the story to approach it as subversively and inclusively as possible, enlisting modern technology. We are working with care and respect for history as we step on it, to highlight in a theatrical and narrative way the deportation and murder of our fellow Jews at Auschwitz.”

Three Stations in One Story: for old to remember and younger to learn

According to Mavropoulos, the project will premiere on April 19 and will run until May 26, 2024, and will take place every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

Speaking about the stations of the experiential journey, he explained that there are three:

It begins with a walking narrative on the western side of the centre of Thessaloniki, with the help of journalist Evie Karkitis. This route will search, as the theatre group member says, for visible and invisible traces of the deportation of our Jewish fellow citizens to the Hirsch ghetto and the Old Railway Station, from where, in March 1943, the first trains for Auschwitz departed.

“In this whole project, we will use individual acoustic means, modern technology, in order to mentally transport the viewers to that time, through the voices of the people who left, those who stayed and those who did not want to know”, Mr. Mavropoulos stressed, with the aim, as he added, to bring the past to life in the present so that everyone can understand what happened.

Then, as part of the performance-re-enactment, actors and spectators will board a “memory” bus, which will take them from the Old Railway Station to a dark industrial warehouse in Kordelios, part of the Melissari Mills complex, where the audience will also use audio equipment to follow mentally the march of the city’s Jews to Auschwitz.

“The warehouse is the third and final stop on our journey,” noted Mr. Mavropoulos, which will conclude with a performance, the text of which is written by Konstantinos Mavropoulos and directed by Christos Papadimitriou.”

Information at tel. 6986818052, info@thessalonikiwalkingtours.com, info@granginioltheatro.gr