Creative Commons

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, emigration was one of the main phenomena that characterize the Greek Jewish remnant. The most significant destination of this outmigration was Palestine/ Israel while other receiving countries were the United States, France, Argentina, Mexico, Canada etc. In this dissertation, I explore the background and the implications of this emigration movement of Jewish people from Greece to Palestine/Israel and the United States, the two major destinations of that migration stream. Firstly, the impact of the Holocaust upon the Greek Jewish community will be examined. The main question I will try to answer in this part is who the Greek Jewish survivors are, what identities had been formed through the differentiated experiences of survivorship (deportation camps survivors, resistance participants, refugees). Secondly, the post-war Greek context will be described. This part is an attempt to understand the particular challenges and the possibilities of the rehabilitation of the Greek Jewish survivors in Greece after the Holocaust. Thirdly, the migration movement of Greek Jews will be explored in the light of both the sending country restrictions to emigration and the receiving countries' admission polic. Furthermore, in this part, emphasis will be given to individual voices of the immigrants for a better understanding of the interaction between the external challenges and limits and the individual decision-making process concerning immigration decisions.