Dr Hilary Pomeroy and Martin Barzilai
Phantom Graves: Salonika’s Jewish Cemetery
Summary
In the early 20th century, Jews made up almost half of Salonica’s population. The Jewish cemetery was possibly the largest in Europe with at least 350,000 graves. Today, after its destruction during the Nazi occupation, all that remains of that vast necropolis are scattered fragments used as building material. Cultural historian Hilary Pomeroy, in conversation with photographer Martin Barzilai, the grandson of Salonican Jews, discusses interviews and photographs in Martin’s recent book Cimetière Fantôme: Thessaloniki.
Dr Hilary Pomeroy
Dr Pomeroy holds a PhD from the department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary University of London and is teaching fellow emerita in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. She has been an invited speaker at universities and institutions throughout Europe and has published numerous articles on Sephardi culture.
Martin Barzilai
Martin Barzilai was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He graduated in 1994 from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière in photography in Paris. His first interest was in the historical, political and social issues of his native continent. He has also produced numerous photo reports on these themes in Greece, France, Tunisia and Israel/Palestine (New York Times, Rolling Stone, Le Monde…). Between 2011 and 2015, in Buenos Aires, he was a member of the Sub cooperative. with whom he produced the Huis clos project (exhibited at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, among others). He has been selected for the Argentinean national visual arts fair (2014 and 2015). He received the first prize of the book at the Rendez-Vous Photo festival in Strasbourg for Refuzniks published by Libertalia (2018). In 2023, he published Cimetière fantôme - Thessalonique (Creaphis), supported by the Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah. He just published a new book : Nous refusons (Libertalia) (2025) supported by Amnesty International. His work has been exhibited in Paris, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Los Angeles. After Barcelona and Buenos Aires, he currently teaches photography in Paris.