Why Thessaloniki, Greece Is Known as the City of Ghosts

Established in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, the city was named after princess Thessalonike of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s half-sister. Already, the city was an important metropolis and the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire, after Constantinople.

In 1430, the city fell to the Ottomans yet retained its status of important commercial and industrial city, though not to the same extent as during the Byzantine period. At that time, the city had a mixed ethnic and religious population of Muslims, Christian Orthodox and a few Catholics until 1492, when Expulsion Edict in Spain forced a vast migration wave of Sephardic Jews to Greece, particularly to Thessaloniki. This influx of Jews contributed city’s dynamic boom, and by 1519, Sephardic Jews accounted for 54% of the population.
For centuries, though considered second-class subjects in the Ottoman Empire, Jews managed to coexist peacefully in Thessaloniki. In fact, before the foundation of Tel Aviv in 1909, Thessaloniki (also called Jerusalem of the Balkans) was the only city where Ladino (Iberian Judeo-Spanish) was the main language. The city kept growing well into the 20th century until the end of the Ottoman reign in 1912, which led to the annexation of Thessaloniki and the Greek portion of Macedonia to Greece at the end of the Second Balkan War.

A census of the city showed that only 25% of the population were Greek Orthodox, leading the Greek authorities to Hellenise the city by, among other tactics, imposing Greek as the main language in an effort to create a cohesive and unified country. After the tragic Great Fire of 1917, which left 70,000 people homeless (most of them Jews), the Greek authorities revamped the city à la française with vast boulevards and broad streets. Later on, the population exchange of 1922 with Turkey saw a considerable portion of Thessaloniki’s Muslim population depart to Turkey while a significant influx of Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks were forced to settle in an unfamiliar country. At the same time, the ongoing Hellenisation proceeded to destroy minarets and mosques as symbols of a horrible past that needed to be erased.

Though the present-day Jewish population in Thessaloniki is minimal, their long heritage and presence are still visible today. Modiano Market Hall, which houses Thessaloniki’s main market, was built by prominent Italian Jew Eli Modiano, while Villa Allatini, on the city’s waterfront, belonged to Moise Allatini, a prosperous Jewish merchant. Furthermore, the famous Aristotle University, which attracts many Greek students, was built on a plot of land that served as a Jewish cemetery.

Unfortunately, this forgotten page of Thessaloniki history is not too well known, but it surely deserves to be taught. If you get a chance to visit Thessaloniki, why not try to discover more about the city’s multicultural past?