The Jewish Community’s of Thessaloniki project for the documentation of the economic activities of the Jews of Thessaloniki during the first half of the 20th century was implemented in the period 2006-2010, to form a digital collection of documents,. It was a systematic effort to spot and collect historical documents, with the task to preserve a part of the collective memory of the Jews of Thessaloniki. The collection was given the shape of a research tool according to an idea of Yannis Megas and Telis Nahmias. The research team consisted of Heleni-Maria Tsouka, a musicologist, and the historians Ekaterini A. Roussou and Kosmas S. Tseligaridis.
The task was to track the largest possible number of documents relating to the Jewish-owned or the Jewish-and-Christian-owned companies and private enterprises which were founded in Thessaloniki. Pursuing this task, a volume of archival material was collected, on the basis of the first names and surnames which were recognized as Jewish.
Consequently, a digital collection was formed, which includes two parts: (a) companies/private enterprises, (b) documents. The collection is accessible with simple and advanced search machines.
The “companies/private enterprises” was set as a record unit determined by the dates of founding and termination. The indication “companies/private enterprises” leads to data pertaining to specific companies or private enterprises, their background, and their participation in other entrepreneurial forms; besides, small images of the relevant documents are also depicted.
The indication “document” includes pieces of infomarion pertaining to the documents themselves and leads to a small digital image of every document, which can be enlarged.
The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki is thankful to Yannis Megas, who put his private collection in the disposal of the Museum, for his spontaneous and large contribution to the project; the Community is also thankful to the civil service departments, organizations, collectors, holders of private archives, for their valuable cooperation and for spotting and ceding archive material. She also thanks Vlassis Vlassidis, Doris Ikonomou, Manolis Kounenakis, Christina Agriantoni, Maria-Christina Chadji-ioannou, Dimitris Kosmidis, Christos Kavvadas, Sotiris Stepkos, Yannis Konstantinou, Telis Nahmias, Rika Benveniste, Rena Molho, Solita Saltiel, Jeky Benmayor, Nikos Stavroulakis and everybody else who contributed in implementing the project, offering their time and helping with ideas, conversations and advices.
The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki continues to collect documents (legal documents, envelopes, letters, receipts, postcards, advertisements, statutes, minutes of meetings, securities, checks, labels, photographs and objects) pertaining to the economic activities of the Jews of Thessaloniki during the first half of 20th century. Families and researchers who have saved such a material or they are award of its existence are kindly requested to inform
the Museum. Also, the users of the collection are kindly requested to inform the museum for their remarks. |
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