My father’s life on Rhodes was turned upside down by the Holocaust. Now his story is the subject of a new play.
If things had gone according to plan, I would not exist.
My parents were born on the Greek island of Rhodes, a jewel in the Aegean Sea. Life for its Jewish community came crashing down when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini passed several decrees that excluded Jews from civil society.
My father, Salvatore Alhadeff, was 25, an accountant and engaged to be married. It was clear to him that he and Becky, his fiancee, needed to leave.
The Berlin Olympics had sparked reports that even the Americans had dropped their Jewish runners to avoid offending Adolf Hitler. Jews were fleeing Europe and the fledgling colony in Africa known as Southern Rhodesia beckoned as a refuge.
Five weeks later it was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest moment on the Jewish calendar. My father spent the day with his father in the island’s 400-year-old Kahal Shalom Synagogue in the back row, seats nine and 10. The following day he set sail for Africa – never to see his parents again. His intention was to bring them out, as well as his sisters and Becky.
It wasn’t to be. They were among about 1720 Rhodes Jews who were placed on three disused merchant ships and deported to Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp and epicentre of the Holocaust. My paternal grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz. My father’s sisters survived.
Read the article by Vic Alhadeff in The Australian.