Morris Venezia
| Morris Venezia | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Maurice Venezia 25 February 1921 Salonica |
Maurice Venezia (now Morris Venezia) (born Thessaloniki, Greece, 25 February 1921) is a Jewish-Italian-Greek survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp; he was a member of the special squads (Sonderkommando) and he is one of the few eyewitnesses to the gas chambers.
He is the brother of Shlomo Venezia. Since the end of World War II, he has lived in California.
The ancestors of Morris, Sephardi Jews, were expelled from Spain in 1492 (with the Alhambra Decree) and travelled in Europe before settling in Greek Macedonia, under the Ottoman Empire. In their period of stay in the Republic of Venice, the family acquired the last name Venezia (Venice) and Italian citizenship.
In Thessaloniki Morris's family - with scarce economic means - was part of the community of Italian Jews; the children attended the Italian school in Thessaloniki (a school aligned to the Italian prevailing Fascist doctrine). His father, Isacco Venezia, a barber, had left as a young man to join the Italian armed forces as a volunteer during World War I. Thanks to this, when his father died, Morris could go and study in Italy for free, at a high school (Istituto tecnico) in Milan, through the intervention of the Italian Consulate in Thessaloniki; Morris's family (his mother Doudoun (Angel), his younger brother Shlomo, and younger sisters Rachel, Marika and Martha) could live in Thessaloniki with the support of their relatives.
When the Racial Laws against the Jews were introduced in 1938, Morris was expelled from Italy, without finishing his studies, and returned to Greece. In 1940, after the Italian declaration of war, the subsequent invasion of Greece and the bombardment of Thessaloniki (November 3, 1940), by the Italian armed forces, the Greek police began arresting people of Italian nationality. Many Italians were captured, including Maurice, and imprisoned in a building in the center of the city; afterwards, they were transferred around Athens and were released on arrival of the Italian Army.
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