On this day in 1944, the first Jews transported from Athens arrived at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. 66% of Athens’ Jewish population was saved by Elias Barzelai; the head rabbi of Athens, who had connections to the National Liberation Front and Archbishop Damaskinos, Barzelai protested the deportation of Jews. The Jewish presence in Athens can be traced as far back as the third century BCE. Jews inhabiting Greece were known as Romaniotes, an ethnic Jewish minority belonging to the eastern Mediterranean; Romaniotes and Sephardic Jews were great contributors to Greek society. Under the Roman Empire, Paul the Apostle was a Hellenized Jew from Tarsus. Under Byzantine and Ottoman leadership, Jews contributed immensely to overland and maritime commerce, and dyeing in particular was a major Jewish industry until the end of the Byzantine Empire. The flourishing of Jewish life came to a halt in 1943. Three years after Greece came under Nazi occupation, German officials began rounding up Athenian Jews. At first, Archbishop Damaskinos, as spiritual leader of not just Athens, but all of Greece, was told that the Jews were merely being deported to Poland to work in factories. However, after discovering the true fate of those deported, Damaskinos openly protested the deportation of Jews. He wrote an open letter to the German diplomat, Gunther Altenburg, in which he reminded Altenburg of St. Paul’s words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek,” highlighting that all people are the same, regardless of their respective ethnicity or background. Damaskinos’ letter was met with hostility by the Germans. The SS commander Jurgen Stroop had even threatened to execute the Archbishop by firing squad, to which Damaskinos sarcastically replied: “According to the traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, our prelates are hanged, not shot. Please respect our traditions!”. He then proceeded to quietly issue fraudulent Christian baptismal certifications to Romaniote Jews, making it easier for them to flee. Due to the bravery of Damaskinos and others, the Jewish population of Athens, unlike most cities in Europe, grew after the Holocaust. Today, there are approximately 3,000 Jews in Athens, and Jewish institutions, such as the Lauder School of the Jewish Community of Athens, are thriving.