Exhibition "Enterpreneurial Life"

In the early 1920’s, the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki numbered around 65,000 people, a little less than one third of the population of the city. Thessaloniki was slowly trying to recover economically, after continual wars, the loss of the Balkan hinterland and above all the biblical destruction of the great fire of 1917, which burnt down three quarters of the old city and left 73,000 people homeless, out of which 52,000 were Jews. The Asia Minor catastrophe and the ensuing arrival of refugees radically changed the demographic structure of the city. During the 1930’s, following a wave of antisemitism and the arson of the Campbell district that led to the emigration of a large number of families to Palestine, the Jewish population decreased to 53,000, equalling about one fifth of the city’s population.
 
Following the liberation of the city, the once all-powerful empires of the Jewish families of Allatini, Morpourgo, Fernandez and Saul Modiano, weakened progressively. This was due either to their relocation abroad, or because of the calamitous consequences of continual wars, but was mainly the result of acquisitions by investors from southern Greece, who were attracted by Macedonia’s wealth. Representative examples of acquisitions are those of the Allatini brickworks by Kosmas Panoutsos in 1926, the Olympos-Naousa brewery of Allatini Misrahi and Fernandez by Karolos Fix in 1927, and the Kassandra mines of the Allatini Brothers by Kanellopoulos in 1927.      
       
         

Despite this, the contribution of the Jewish population to the economic life of the city in the inter-war period was essential.

At the same time, there was an influx of refugee businessmen from Constantinople, Ionia, the Pontus and Eastern Thrace. Their arrival and zeal to rebuild their life, combined with their commercial ingenuity, led to the further decrease of the Jewish presence in the sectors of small commerce and small industries, in a state of competition that was not fair at all times.

During the inter-war period, the active Jewish population that also included a significant number of women -tobacco workers and weavers- consisted roughly of 12,000 dockworkers, labourers and craftsmen, 6,000 office workers, 5,000 small traders, and 2,500 professionals and businessmen.

  

This exhibition aims to depict the significant activity of the Jewish population in the sectors of trade, small industry, industry and the related services in Thessaloniki, during the inter-war period. Information is drawn from commercial guides of the period, while the exhibition is based on original collectors’ material, such as advertisements, correspondence, photographs, share certificates and a number of objects that were either manufactured or commercially represented by Jewish businessmen.

This exhibition, organised by the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, demonstrates the enormous range of activity of Jewish businessmen and indicates their domination in sectors such as commercial agencies, retail trade, insurance and several small industries.

  

Special advisor: Nicholas Hannan Stavroulakis
Archive research: Eleni Maria Tsouka

The exhibits are on loan from private collections.