The forgotten wartime letters of Abraham Benaroya (1943–1945): an unusual story of Jewish resistance in Greece and Nazi-Germany

Abstract

ABSTRACT Focusing on Abraham Benaroya, a prominent labor leader in southeastern Europe, this research examines his experiences during World War II, a period often neglected in prior studies. Existing scholarship has predominantly highlighted Benaroya's contributions to the Pan-Hellenic labor movement from 1909 to 1924/5, incorrectly assuming that his removal from political power signaled the end of his influence on both Jewish and non-Jewish historiography; however, his wartime writings challenge this notion, revealing a compelling story of individual and familial resistance against Nazi Germany. During the tumultuous years of 1942–1945, amidst the Nazi occupation in Greece, Benaroya's fate took a unique turn. Despite being Jewish, he avoided extermination, and as a Greek Socialist activist he escaped execution and survived internment in various German prisoner-of-war camps. By employing the biographical turn approach and exploring Benaroya's forgotten Holocaust-era letters from captivity, this study presents a narrative of Greek-Jewish individual and familial struggles, choices, and resilience. In doing so, it contributes fresh perspectives to the current bottom-up scholarship, which moves beyond the generalized narrative of Jewish passivity. Instead, the current study offers a profound discourse on the complexities of Jewish survival and resistance under the extraordinary circumstances of the Nazi regime in Occupied Greece.