By Prof. Yitzchak Kerem

This article surveys the highlights of Sephardic Greek Jews in the revolts in Birkenau and Warsaw in 1944. At the end, a brief depiction will be noted of the role of Algerian Jews in the Allied Embarkment of Algiers in 1942 as extension of Sephardic heroic resistance in North Africa in the Holocaust. 

The Role of Salonikan Jews in the Birkenau Revolt

At Auschwitz-Birkenu, the Sonderkommando— Jewish prisoners forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria— lived under the constant shadow of death. Tasked with the horrifying job of pushing victims into gas chambers and cremating their bodies, they were privy to the Nazis’ methods of mass murder and were therefore systematically executed after a three months working to eliminate witnesses. Among the Sonderkommando were Greek Sephardic Jews, whose experiences of dehumanization beyond imagination ignited extraordinary acts of defiance and risk. 

Many of those stories ended in tragedy: one Salonikan Sonderkommando, Isaac Errera, a Larissan navy officer, attempted to escape while disposing of ashes in the Vistula River— he was discovered, and subsequently shot. Similarly, Yomtov Yakoel, a lawyer and community leader from Salonika, who was arrested by Nazis after fleeing to Athens, was executed after serving as a Sonderkommando slave laborer. The deaths of these two figures enraged Greek Jews in Auschwitz and was a significant factor that prompted them to revolt.  

On October 7, 1944 Greek Jews participated in the Sonderkommando revolts in Birkenau in crematoria 3 and 4. Lieutenant Colonel Yosef Baruch, a former Corfiote career soldier arrested in Salonika in 1943 and deported to Birkenau, played a key role in organizing the resistance. He too, was a Sonderkommando prisoner; he worked in Sonderkommando Crematorium 2 and was part of the general Auschwitz-Birkenau revolt committee. Baruch planted bombs in the walls of the crematorium to use for the revolt, although his group was unable to act as SS guards locked down the camp at the start of the revolt.

In Crematorium 4, the Greek Jews, joined with other Jews from France and Belgium, attacked and killed their captors, killing some eight guards. They set mattresses on fire, rendering the crematorium inoperable. The uprising then spread to  Crematorium 3, where Greek Jews and Hungarian prisoners began to, too, kill German guards and revolt. 

It was at that moment that Isaac Barouch, a Salonikan of Skopjean origin, put a bomb in the furnace of Crematorium 3. Before the crematorium blew up, the Greek Jews, many of whom were captured partisans, sang a Greek partisan song and one verse of their national anthem. It was a moment of triumph, of incredible bravery and dignity before death. The Germans forced them out of the building and shot them outside of the site. 

One of the survivors of the revolt, Salonikan prisoner Isaak “Hugo” Venezia, provided crucial testimony. Due to the heavy smoke in the building, he climbed to the top of an outside wall— where he fell from smoke inhalation, into the courtyard of Crematorium 2.  It was there that he informed the Greek Jews there about the events in Crematorium 3, and Holocaust survivor Leon Cohen later wrote about them in his diary. 

The young, too, played a role in the revolt: Jacko Maestro, a fifteen year old Salonikan, is one iconic figure. Fluent in German due to his interactions with locally stationed German soldiers in Salonika, Jacko worked as the labor coordinator (Arbeitsdienst) for 16,000 inmates in Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Living with political prisoners and enjoying relatively  free movement throughout the camp, he supplied smuggled gunpowder  to the Sonderkomaando in handkerchiefs. Although the revolt was ultimately suppressed, the Salonikan Jews’ pivotal role in the Birkenau Revolt exemplifies their unwavering courage and determination to resist, even when faced with near certain death— marking them as key figures in one of the most significant acts of defiance within Auschwitz. 

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The Warsaw Revolt

After the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, its ruins became a labor camp for Auschwitz inmates. Two groups of Salonikan inmates from Auschwitz were sent there in August and October 1943 to clear rubble and build the Gesiowka labor camp. As “foreigners” unfamiliar with Warsaw's Jewish past, the Salonikans were selected for this task. Of the 3,683 Auschwitz inmates sent to Warsaw, approximately 1000 were Salonikan Jews. The first group, consisting of 500 Salonikans and two Polish doctors, was tasked with tearing down walls, blowing up cement structures, and clearing rubble. Another 500-600 Salonikans arrived in October 1943, followed by more Jews from France, Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. The conditions were horrific, of course— typhus plagued the camp and claimed the lives of 50-60 prisoners daily. 

Among these prisoners was Shaul Senor, a Salonikan pioneer who had made Aliyah to Kibbutz Beit Oran in the late 1930s. After returning to Salonika to bring his bride to Eretz Israel, he became entrapped by the war and was drafted as an officer; he fought against the Italians in Albania before being deported to Auschwitz to be a forced laborer. While clearing the destroyed remains of the Warsaw Ghetto, Shaul attempted to escape with help from the Polish resistance— he killed two guards and took their weapons but was ultimately caught. He was executed on June 25, 1944, in front of all the camp prisoners, in what survivors recall as a dramatic and harrowing scene. 

Yet some Salonikan Jews managed to escape the Warsaw Ghetto successfully. Moshe Ben-Ouzilio, along with Baruch Almaliah, escaped through the sewers from the former ghetto area to the new city. As they crossed Warsaw, they carried an injured Polish officer on a stretcher, holding it above the chest-high sewer water to protect him. They dodged German bombing and shooting while running from street to street. To avoid detection, Moshe erased his Auschwitz tattoo and prisoner triangle, leaving only a scar on his arm. After joining the Polish resistance, Moshe reunited with his cousin Gabi Ben-Ouzilio, who had also escaped Gesiowka.

Gabi fled Warsaw in the spring of 1944 with two other prisoners: a French Jew named Weinstein and a Salonikan Jew named Matalon. The three wandered through Poland for weeks, hiding with a Polish Gentile family. Eventually, Gabi was betrayed to the authorities and sent back to Auschwitz; upon arrival, he faced imminent execution. However, fifteen year old Jacko Maestro, the Salonikan labor coordinator at Auschwitz, disguised him as a Polish political prisoner by giving him a new uniform. The young man saved his life: Gabi survived the war, made Aliyah to Haifa, and changed his name to Ben-Ouziel, which contributed to his later anonymity.

Amid these escape stories, additional evidence of resistance emerged through archival photographs of Salonikan Jewish prisoners in Warsaw, discovered in the Majdanek death camp archives. One photograph identified Shaul Senor and Gabi Ben-Ouzilio, standing together in prison uniforms. 

When the Armia Krajowa (AK) launched its uprising on August 1, 1944, approximately 400 Jews remained in Gesiowka. Most were caught in the crossfire and killed, but 17 Salonikan Jews escaped and joined the resistance. Among them were Alberto and Dario Levi, who played pivotal roles in the revolt.

Alberto Levi recalled escaping the camp through the sewers, after which he worked in a hospital treating injured resistance fighters. His brother, Dario Levi, a former Greek army tank gunner, operated a captured German tank and fired shells at Pawiak prison, freeing Jewish and other prisoners during the attack on the Gesiowka camp. Alberto later became an officer in the AK, conducting sabotage missions against German forces in the Polish countryside.

The uprising was fraught with challenges for Jews, who faced anti-Semitism from some Polish resistance groups. About a hundred Jews rescued from Gesiowkafought house-to-house in the Old Town under a vehemently anti-Semitic National Armed Guard Forces [Narodowe Sily Zbrojne, NSZ], which assigned Jewish fighters to carry out unnecessary and dangerous suicide missions. When it was disovered that NSZ Sergeant Bedek was shooting advancing Jewish fighters in the back, one of the Salonikan Gesiowka men executed him.  Many Salonikans later joined the more inclusive Armia Ludowa (A.L.) movement, which fought in battles at Stara Miasto. 

On October 3, 1944, Gavriel Cohen, a former high-ranking officer in the Greek army, died in combat with most of his unit after crossing the Vistula River. Survivors like Isaac Aruh and Dario Nusen hid in a bunker beneath the ruins between Sliska and Sienna streets. Alberto and Dario Levi continued fighting for 63 days, holding out against German forces until the uprising ended in early October 1944.

Historian Edward Kossoy documented the bravery of Salonikan Jews during the Warsaw Uprising. He noted how 50 Gesiówka prisoners, including several Greeks, were liberated at the Umschlagplatz by the Kedyw (HQ Diversions Command) unit. These men joined a Kedyw battalion under Lieutenant Stefan Kaniewski, defending landmarks like Radziwill Palace, Bank Polski, and Simon’s Mall against relentless German attacks. Kossoy emphasized the toll of these efforts:

Edward Kossoy, in his research on the liberated Auschwitz Jewish Gesiowka survivors who fought with the Polish resistance against the Germans in Warsaw, has additional depictions of the role and fate of involved Greek Jews:

“The price of blocking German entry into the Old Town was heavy: the strongholds held out until the last days of the Old Town, but then the Nalecz battalion ceased to exist.”

Six Greek fighters—Baruch, Sami, and Yacov Arditi; Josef Nahmias; Yakov Mallah; and Yacov Parente—escaped capture with help from Catholic nuns. They boarded a suburban train and, after hearing the code word “Amchu,” disembarked before reaching German checkpoints. Fleeing into a forest, they survived for four and a half months with food supplied by a Polish cobbler.

Steven Bowman published this vivid depiction of the whereabouts of the Salonikan Jews during the Polish underground revolt beginning on 1 August 1944:

“On August 1, 1944 , with the Russians approaching the east bank of the Vistula, the signal was given for the various underground organizations in Warsaw to rise in revolt. The strongest group was the Armia Kraiowa, under the leadership of General Bor-Komorowski . The battle lasted for two months while the Russians waited patiently across the river for the Germans to destroy the Polish Resistance. 

The Germans wrought terrible carnage, massacring Polish civilians, among them Jews. The Greeks who remained in Warsaw have their own memories of the revolt. A number of Greek Auschwitz inmates were housed on the outskirts of the ghetto area in the military prison on Djika Street. With the other prisoners (Hungarians, Rumanians, and Poles), they were freed on the first day of the revolt and sent to the front lines to dig defensive trenches. Polish anti-Semites harassed them as they faced Nazi artillery fire. This is confirmed by Albert Levi, who participated in the revolt and claims that the Greeks took an active part in the fighting-we recall that many had seen service in Albania and through their reckless disregard for their personal safety provided inspiration for some of the rebelling forces. 

Levi himself joined the defenders' medical corps. During the revolt the Greeks separated on the advice of Isaac Arukh, so that some might survive to chronicle their fate. Levi records several battles and even the formation of a Greek contingent that fought under its national flag. Ultimately only twenty-seven of them survived the war.”

Their sacrifices and defiance remain an enduring symbol of resistance during the Holocaust.

Spring 1944, l to r, Italian Jew and three Salonikan Auschwitz prisoners  Moshe Benouzio, Shaul Senor, and Yitzhak Angel in Gensche [Gesiowka] Auschwitz labor camp, destroyed Warsaw Ghetto. (photo courtesy of historical archive of Yitzchak Kerem, source : Maidonek Archive ZIH-II-10-033).

The ruins of the "Gesiowka" labor camp at No. 24 Gesia Street in the Warsaw (Warszawa) ghetto.

Note: After the liquidation of the ghetto, Jews from Greece and Hungary were brought here and put to forced labor at clearing the ruins of the ghetto, so that the building materials could be reused. During the Polish uprising of August 1944, the prisoners were liberated and took part in the fighting.

(photo courtesy of Sarah Shner, Yad Vashem)

Cover photo: Moshe and Gabi Ben-Ouzilio in Warsaw after liberation.

Notable Sephardic Resistance During Operation Torch

Salonikan Jewish spy Guy Calvet (formerly Guy Cohen) served in the French Secret Service, spending two years in the Middle East for the French government-in-exile. On 8 November 1942, he played a crucial role in the coordination of the U.S. forces during Operation Torch, aiding in the Allied landing in Algeria. Eisenhower’s forces required local support in Algeria to assist with the Allied invasion and to resist the French fascist Vichy regime.

José Albouker served as the deputy commander of the Jewish underground in Algeria, leading efforts against the Vichy occupation after the American troops landed in Algiers. The coordination between Algerian Jewish youth and the American army was challenging and fraught with danger. The Jewish underground had limited weapons—resulting in tragic losses, including one death and many imprisonments. Despite setbacks in Oran, where the port of Mers el Kebir was fiercely contested, the Jews fought valiantly in Algiers. They were trained by the Gentile trainer Geo Gras at his gym.

Albouker and his comrades took over the Vichy police headquarters in Algiers, donning fascist movement uniforms and issuing fake warrants. The contributions of the Jewish underground have been largely overlooked in the broader historiography of World War II and the Holocaust. Recently, filmmaker Rami Kamhi released Leil Hapetaim (“Night of the Fools”) to shed light on the Jewish resistance, and many activists have been interviewed in France, paving the way for more scholarship on this vital history in the future. 

Yitzchak Kerem is the editor of Sefarad v’HaMizrah [Hebrew University] and a Spiegel Holocaust fellow [Bar Ilan University].