Seventieth commemoration of the Martyrs of Rhodes

JANINE COHEN
Of the 1 673 people deported only 151 survived when Auschwitz was liberated six months later.
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Rabbi Moshe Kazilsky welcomed the capacity audience and conducted a moving memorial service. Candle-lighting was led by Irene Melamed on behalf of her mother Anna Almeleh, who is a Holocaust survivor from Rhodes. Victor Cadranel read the Lamentassion in Ladino.

In an interesting and informative presentation, Maurice Turiel, honorary life president of the JSHC, shared his experience of participating together with 400 descendants from the Rhodes community, from all over the world at the 70^th Commemoration event in Rhodes in July.

Tali Nates, director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre introduced “It Never Rained on Rhodes”, a short experimental video about the universality of loss – loss of place, heritage, youth or cultural identity – as explored by New York artist Barry Salzman, through the lens of one small community that suffered unspeakable losses 70 years ago. 

The film is a small piece of a much larger photography and video project that Salzman started together with his cousin, Lisa Capelouto – both descendants of grandparents who were born on Rhodes.  

They recognised that there were not many people left that could share, first-hand, what made their life on this island so special, and how it differed from that of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have grown up throughout the Sephardic Diaspora.

The project includes both objects and text, as well as video and photography large year shot in four countries. It covers 22 of the surviving Jews who were born on Rhodes and their 300 descendants. 

Its 100 hours of amassed content, makes it the most comprehensive collection of oral histories of the Rhodes Sephardic community that exists today.

Salzman is currently identifying institutions to house these oral histories and to make them available to communities, academics and students around the world.