ERENSIA SEFARDI - Fairfield - USA - Spring 2000
vol 8 Nr 2
Albert de Vidas - "Me Akodro"
Rhodes Un pan de notre mémoire
By Moise Rahmani
A wonderful illustrated little book with nearly 100 pictures and maps depicting the history of the Sephardic community of Rhodes, from the beginning to its tragic end at the hands of the Germans during the Second World War.
Moise has written from the heart, being himself descendant of Rodeslis, about this unfortunate community on the island and the Diaspora, in Central Africa, the United States, South America and Israel. He has been able to offer us a beautiful painting of a small Sephardic community living peacefully within the benevolent Ottoman Empire, then came the Italian occupation, which was benign until the racial laws were instituted and finally the horrors of the German occupation, deportation and extermination.
Moise describes the heroic figure of Turkish Consul Selahattin Ulkumen who managed to save 52 Sephardis and contrast it with that of the Greek priest of the village of Dimilia where a Sephardic youth, Robert Hasson, tried to find refuge, but was turned over by the priest to the Germans who shot him on the spot.
Customs, traditions, language, history, everything is available for the reader that wants to know about the Sephardis of Rhodes. A must-read book.
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