A trove of sacred Jewish objects from Greece that was stolen by the Nazis and displaced for decades in Poland is finally heading back home.
Poland returned 91 religious and ceremonial artifacts to the Greek government at a ceremony in Warsaw on February 25. Among them were Torah scrolls, a Torah mantle and silver finials that adorned a scroll’s wooden rollers — fragments of a rich Greek Jewish heritage that was nearly wiped out.
This is the first time Poland has returned cultural property plundered from another country.
The Nazis stole these objects from synagogues in Thessaloniki, a port city once known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans.” Jews made up half of Thessaloniki’s residents in 1919. Some 59,000 Greek Jews, more than 83 percent of the country’s Jewish population, were killed in the Holocaust. The Nazis took the artifacts to Poland, where they’ve been ever since.
This return follows years of advocacy and provenance research. The Greek government formally requested the collection’s restitution in 2024, and the World Jewish Restitution Organization coordinated with Greek and Polish authorities to facilitate it. Now, they are headed to the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency