Use of port archives made public: criticism of hegemonic history pertaining to the Jewish presence in Greek Thessaloniki

Abstract

The Thessaloniki Port Archives, whose collections were recently catalogued, cover the history of the waterfront from the 1920s to the present day. Among their various collections, the Minutes Books of the Port Authority for the 1920s–1940s are a unique repository that sheds light on unknown chapters in the history of local Jews who found a living in dock works. While the Jewish Salonikian historiography identifies the early 1920s as the period in which local Jews were in fact excluded from the port labor market, the Minutes Books tell a very different story; a reality of continued presence until the German Occupation of World War II. Studying the dock activities contributes to the ongoing discussion on Greek Jewry in terms of memory, metanarrative, and archiving, and by using the postmodern lens on the archiving process, this research will also be able to offer new perspectives on the economic history of Salonikian Jews in the challenging times of the interwar years, and in World War II as well.