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This study examines the interplay between Airbnb and gentrification in Thessaloniki and Greece, focusing on their economic and social impacts on urban neighborhoods. Utilizing data from 110 online publications and qualitative insights from ten semi-structured interviews with real estate agents, Airbnb stakeholders, residents, and experts, the research provides a nuanced view of these dynamics. The findings suggest that Airbnb influences housing markets by driving up rental and home prices, potentially exacerbating housing scarcity and displacing vulnerable populations in gentrifying areas. While this aligns with the existing literature, the results remain tentative due to the complexities involved. The trend toward corporate-hosted short-term rentals appears to shift Airbnb away from its original community-focused model, though this shift is still evolving. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced changes, such as a move from short-term to long-term rentals and the conversion of commercial spaces to residential use, impacting neighborhood dynamics. However, these effects may be temporary and do not fully address broader housing issues. While an oversupply of Airbnb accommodations might stabilize rental prices to some extent, its impact on the overall housing crisis remains uncertain. Future research should investigate the long-term effects on housing affordability and social equity, considering the limitations of current findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a new perspective on trade fairs, examining their expected impact on the sustainable development of the host city. To study this impact, the paper examines the annual fair of Thessaloniki, Greece, which has a long history and strong connection with the city. Methodologically, mix research method is used, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings challenge the focus of trade fairs’ benefits in terms of sustainability on the economic aspect. Thessaloniki citizens believe that the fair contributes positively to sustainable urban development, possibly due to their emotional attachment with it and its crucial economic benefits. Stakeholder interviews, however, reveal concerns. Some attribute limitations to outdated fair infrastructure, claiming that a planned redevelopment could address sustainability issues. Others, more critical of the fair, argue that achieving truly balanced development is difficult within the existing mode of socio-economic organisation.

As cousins, we discovered a treasure trove of family papers, revealing the intricate relationship between precarity and privilege of our family from Salonica navigating the post-Ottoman transition. Recognising the potential of family history to provide a more intimate and complex historiography, this article offers our initial study of these family papers. By highlighting the challenges posed by the scarcity of such documents in Middle Eastern studies, emphasising women’s roles in preserving family memory and focussing on the interplay between personal and political domains, we identify the preparation of a family tree as a gendered and socioeconomic project of preserving the past and shaping the present. By tracing our family's origins, including unsettling discoveries, we address matters of identity and memory before embarking on our analysis. By reconstructing the biographies of two generations, we characterise the family’s socioeconomic struggle to sustain their precarious privilege amid shifting frontiers and along their journey from Ottoman Salonica to Kemalist Turkey. Ultimately, this article underscores the significance of family history as a transnational, intergenerational, intersectional and social history that enriches our understanding of the post-Ottoman transition through the lives of ordinary (and some extraordinary) Ottomans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the socio-spatial constitution of the mall, as a basic consumption place, in the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis, employing a geographical approach to malls and a socio-spatial perspective on heterotopia, as a conceptual theoretical tool on the exercise of power and production of space. Introducing the concept of crisis-heterotopia, the case of the Mediterranean Cosmos shopping Centre in Thessaloniki, Greece, is employed, carrying out questionnaires and interviews with residents of Thessaloniki. The findings highlight the internal constitution of the mall as a crisis-heterotopia identified by the socio-spatial and cultural profiles and spatial representations of the consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to trace the creation and the development of the Greek consular network in Bulgaria from the second half of the 19th century until the Balkan Wars. The topic has not been the subject of scientific research so far, but is important for understanding the unequal positions with which the Balkan states enter the period of their independent existence. The study of the Greek consular network on the Balkans also makes it possible to outline the priorities in Athens' foreign policy, as well as to trace the importance it assigns to its compatriots left outside the borders of the free Greek state. Last but not least, it is of interest to Greece to fight to preserve the privileged status it enjoys under the regime of capitulations. However, this effort creates serious problems in Greece's bilateral relations with the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a new mobility solution that brings together different modes of transportation, such as car-sharing, public transport, taxis, and bicycles, to create personalized service packages for commuters. The present study aims to identify key factors affecting the adoption of a Mobility as a Service system, and to explore the extent to which a local community is ready to accept the implementation of MaaS. The case study investigates the city of Thessaloniki, which is the second largest urban agglomeration in Greece. This study applies a triangulation approach by combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, providing a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and the challenges arising with the implementation of a MaaS system in the city of Thessaloniki. Furthermore, the utilization of MaaS as a tool for vulnerable people, a crucial aspect that has not been analyzed properly in the existing literature, is examined. A quantitative survey analysis was conducted, inferential statistics were applied, and a binary logistic regression model was developed to determine the significant characteristics that most affect citizens' willingness to use a MaaS system. In addition, stakeholders were interviewed to examine their readiness to promote and collaborate for the development of a MaaS system. Results showed that age, driving license, daily time spent on urban trips, the frequency of commuting as car passenger or by public transport (PT), previous usage of a MaaS system, and the number of family members seem to be the most influential factors of citizens' choice to adopt MaaS. For stakeholders, the quality of service provided, and the user friendliness of the system are necessary prerequisites. The findings reveal that the views of residents and stakeholders provide some positive foundations for the development of a MaaS system in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of territorial assets on firms' competitiveness in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki. Questionnaires were handed out to 1311 small- and medium-sized firms located in the area. The research instrument included 27 territorial assets where respondents evaluated the performance of Thessaloniki in these factors. The analysis used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques and included two parts according to the type of firms. The first concerned Commercial firms and the second Industrial Firms. The models for Service firms were not valid; hence, there were excluded. The results indicated that territorial assets are connected with firms' competitiveness since in both models all-structural relationships were statistically significant. Territorial assets have a different impact according to the sector. For commercial firms, Agglomeration, Labour and Cost influence positively their competitiveness. In contrast, industrial firms' competitiveness is associated with Connection and Institution. Overall, it seems that Thessaloniki has more of a commercial character rather than an industrial one. Furthermore, firms' competitiveness in the area is aligned with sustainability. In particular, the commercial and industrial sectors operate relatively providing fertile ground for the development of business practices that also met the needs of the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my 2022-23 Fulbright Award to Spain and Greece, I took on the daunting task of writing six plays, titled Mi Corazón Español Vive Ahora En Grecia: Six Plays of Sephardic Greece, about the Spanish roots of the Jewish communities of Thessaloniki and Veria, of which I am a descendent (my father’s mother, my Nona, Mary Massarano Crespin was from Thessaloniki, and my Nono, Isaac Morris Crespin was from Veroia). This project was built upon a previous 2018 Fulbright project titled Madre de Israel: Three Plays of Jewish Salonika. In this essay, I will document and analyze my dramatic adaptation process for both Fulbright Projects, creating living histories for the stage to memorialize a Sephardic Jewish world nearly destroyed by the Holocaust. Working through a process which included teaching, oral narrative, traditional scholarship, and the creative research of exploring the geography, family histories, and cultural experiences of Ladino/Spanish music, poetry, and storytelling, I have written a total of 10 new plays, all using a non-linear technique of dreamwork for dramatic writing. The challenges tied to this ongoing project include the absence of collective memory, the destruction of entire communities, and the controversial curation of places of Jewish memory.

PrcisIn the Thessaloniki Eye Study (TES) incidence phase population, frequent dietary salt intake was potentially associated with increased risk of open angle glaucoma in antihypertensive users.PurposeThe aim was to examine the association between dietary salt intake and glaucoma by antihypertensive use in the TES population.Materials and methodsThe study population included TES incidence phase participants. Dietary salt intake frequency was assessed by self-report. Outcomes included prevalence of any open angle glaucoma (OAG), primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), and pseudoexfoliation (PEX). Covariates included demographics, cardiovascular disease, migraines, diabetes, steroid use, smoking, history of cataract surgery, central corneal thickness, intraocular pressure, blood pressure, and antihypertensive use. Logistic regression was used to examine associations between frequency of salt intake and glaucoma, controlling for covariates and stratified by antihypertensive use.ResultsThe study included 1076 participants 80.5±4.4 years old, of whom 518 were female. There were 89/1076 (8.3%) participants with any OAG, 46/789 (5.8%) with POAG, and 287/1030 (27.9%) with PEX. In participants with antihypertensive use, frequent versus never salt intake was associated with increased risk of any OAG [adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=2.65, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.12, 6.28; n=784] and POAG (aOR=3.59, 95% CI=1.16, 11.11; n=578) overall, and additionally in participants with diastolic blood pressure

Thessaloniki is a unique city, paradigm of cosmopolitanism in the recent past and today the second largest city in Greece. The text focuses from the perspective of political-cultural symbology and memory studies. It examines the historical tension between national myths of the Greek state and the ductility of various concepts (Hellenism, Byzantinism, Balkanism). And in its second part, it studies the symbolic map of the memory of today's Thessaloniki attending to its emblematic spaces. All this allows us to contrast some fields of representation defined by fluidity and identity claim based on the national appropriation of classical or Byzantine traces and the relative invisibility of Muslim or Jewish presences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to present, on the basis of source materials and historiographical findings, the regularities associated with the evolution of the Wallachian settlement in Thessaloniki in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this case, a rapid process of assimilation of the newcomers into the local Greek-speaking Orthodox community is noticeable. It took place in the context of coexistence between individual Wallachian families and the Greek population in cultural and economic terms. At the root of integration of Wallachians with the Greeks were the religious community (subordination to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, common churches and liturgy in Greek), the lack of an adequately established Wallachian language tradition, and the impossibility of implementing their traditions (identified with a pastoral-transhumant economy) in urban socio-economic realities. As a result, the settlers in Thessaloniki became Hellenized in a linguistic and national sense, but they kept also some cultural distinctions, defined in terms of kinship or places of origin. This situation could not be altered by cultural activities of Romania, which at the turn of the 20th century aimed at establishing national and linguistic ties with individual Wallachian communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the living and infrastructuring practices of homeless newcomer migrants who find shelter in abandoned train wagons in the west end of Thessaloniki, an area described as “one of the biggest train cemeteries in Europe.” Hundreds of train wagons have been abandoned there over the years, especially after the 2010 financial crisis, when the state-owned railway company was faced with significant financial difficulties. These abandoned wagons form an urban borderland and have provided temporary shelter to numerous homeless and unregistered migrants who stop in Thessaloniki on their route to Central and Northern Europe. Although there is a significant number of studies which discuss the formal infrastructures provided by the state and the NGOs, little attention has been given to the various ways by which homeless and unregistered migrants create and self-manage their own infrastructures to meet their needs. The article aims to shed light on this shortage while examining the (re)production of arrival infrastructures by the migrants themselves. In doing so, the article builds upon the concept of abandonment and attempts to enrich it by drawing on the theories of arrival infrastructures and urban commons. It combines spatial analysis and urban ethnography in order to explore how an urban borderland with abandoned infrastructures, like the train wagons, are re-used and transformed into commoning infrastructures, where newcomers and settled migrants join their forces in their attempt to support each other, meet their needs and of “becoming otherwise.”

Situated in the north of Greece, Thessaloniki, the country’s second largest city, is foremostly admired for its uninterrupted history of over twenty-three centuries. In solid proof of this remarkable continuity, its historic center is interspersed with a wide array of archaeological and architectural remains that date from Hellenistic to modern times. The most distinguished segment of this unique heritage is by far the city’s Early Christian and Byzantine legacy. More than half of its surrounding walls, fourteen churches and one bath comprise a unique ensemble, revered in the whole of Europe as early as the 19th century. Not surprisingly, at the end of the 20th century, it became one of the first Greek cultural assets to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Thirty-four years have passed since then, a substantial period of time that allows, on the present occasion of the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, for a review and appraisal of the impact of the inscription. This is precisely the goal of this paper, which will be pursued through an original discussion and evaluation of the consequences of World Heritage status, on one hand for the monuments themselves, and on the other, for their urban, architectural, social and educational setting. Extensive bibliographic research and thorough on-site examination will provide the basis for this discussion, which will culminate with a didactic conclusion as to the degree to which the full potential of the inscription has been achieved or remains to be pursued.

Copyright of Menotyra is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The parameters that affect bicyclists' satisfaction are of vital importance when it comes to determining the reasons that endure bicycle usage in an urban environment. This research refers to the factors that affect bicycle users' satisfaction with the existing infrastructure in the Municipality of Thessaloniki, Greece. Bicycle dependence in Thessaloniki is relatively limited when it is compared to other European cities with similar topological and demographic characteristics. This article aims to determine the most suitable measures that policymakers should implement to enhance bicycle infrastructure. The data collection process was realized through an online questionnaire survey addressed to the bicycle organizations and groups that are situated in Thessaloniki. Inferential statistical analysis investigated the dependency between the perceived satisfaction and the perceived level of safety of cyclists. Ordinal and multinomial logistic regressions were applied to identify the significant problems that influenced cyclists' satisfaction, as well as the most important improvement measures suggested by the survey participants. The findings revealed that the lack of safety and urban integration of bicycle infrastructures were the statistically significant issues affecting users' satisfaction. The development of a safe, integrated, and interconnected bicycle network area emerges as a priority to increase cyclists' satisfaction and daily bicycle trips in cities with low bicycle culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though many stakeholders generally acknowledge cities' presence and growing importance in international relations, the impact of their autonomous foreign policy remains unclear. Despite prior observations of city diplomacy, knowledge of how intensively city diplomacy is interconnected with the foreign policy of central governments is vague. The article is therefore focused on the circumstances that push cities to undertake diplomatic action and the consequent implications for the Europeanization process of the region. The conclusions reveal that Thessaloniki city diplomacy leverages the Europeanization of the region and has the capacity to complement the Greek government's foreign policy. The article also argues that the cross-border exposure of cities implies possibilities for further Europeanization of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global hegemonic resilience discourse, green infrastructure is projected as a “win-win” approach to urban planning. Following the trend of adopting resilience as the new silver bullet for urban development, and in the midst of the recent financial crisis, Thessaloniki, Greece, joined the 100 Resilient Cities network of the Rockefeller Foundation in 2014. This event marked a shift in the city’s public space production and governance programme, introducing new private actors in decision-making processes, an emphasis on green space economic benefits, and an extensive regeneration programme heavily focused on the city centre. The article scrutinises these changes to uncover the policy implications of the turn to resilience in green public space production. Based on data on green public space spatial distribution; semi-structured interviews with municipal representatives and senior employees and representatives of the government, civil society, and local professional associations; policy document analysis; and comparative analysis of all relevant development and planning documents, and drawing on Brenner and Theodore’s (2005) conceptualisation of neoliberalism, the article argues that greening policies in Thessaloniki form an ongoing enclosing process of the urban green commons that articulates in a threefold manner: their discursive construction as “natural assets,” the implementation of spatially selective policies, and the post-politicisation of decision-making processes.

Lifetime cancer risk characterization of ambient PM-bound carcinogenic metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were examined in the cities of Los Angeles (USA), Thessaloniki (Greece) and Milan (Italy), which share similar Mediterranean climates but are different in their urban emission sources and governing air quality regulations. The samples in Milan and Thessaloniki were mostly dominated by biomass burning activities whereas the particles collected in Los Angeles were primary impacted by traffic emissions. We analyzed the ambient PM2.5 mass concentration of Cadmium (Cd), Hexavalent Chromium (Cr(VI)), Nickel (Ni), Lead (Pb), as well as 13 PAH compounds in the PM samples, collected during both cold and warm periods at each location. Pb exhibited the highest annual average concentration in all three cities, followed by Ni, As, Cr(VI), Cd and PAHs, respectively. The cancer risk assessment based on outdoor pollutants was performed based on three different scenarios, with each scenario corresponding to a different level of infiltration of outdoor pollutants into the indoor environment. Thessaloniki exhibited a high risk associated with lifetime inhalation of As, Cr(VI), and PAHs, with values in the range of (0.97–1.57) × 10−6, (1.80–2.91) × 10−6, and (0.77–1.25) × 10−6, respectively. The highest cancer risk values were calculated in Milan, exceeding the US EPA standard by a considerable margin, where the lifetime risk values of exposure to As, Cr(VI), and PAHs were in the range of (1.29–2.08) × 10−6, (6.08–9.82) × 10−6, and (1.10–1.77) × 10−6, respectively. In contrast, the estimated risks associated with PAHs and metals, except Cr(VI), in Los Angeles were extremely lower than the guideline value, even when the infiltration factor was assumed to be at peak. The lifetime cancer risk values associated with As, Cd, Ni, Pb, and PAHs in Los Angeles were in the range of (0.04–0.33) × 10−6. This observation highlights the impact of local air quality measures in improving the air quality and lowering the cancer risks in Los Angeles compared to the other two cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past decade, Greece has been a hotbed of crisis and austerity. Unsurprisingly, austerity and counter‐austerity politics captured academic and public attention. This paper seeks to contribute to discussions on the articulations and legacies of austerity in Greece, and beyond, by emphasising questions of reproduction. The paper centres on utilities‐based indebtedness (UI) to explore the legacies of austerity. It understands UI and experiences with it as tethered to the enduring financial vulnerability and precarity that austerity politics inscribed in life and work during the early 2010s. Drawing on feminist writings, the paper mobilises social reproduction as a lens to explore the legacies of austerity in the encounters and entanglements between the monetary and the mundane. It draws on interviews with households conducted in 2019 in Thessaloniki to show how UI is a legacy of austerity and to trace austerity's afterlives in the visceral realties of living with UI. The paper argues that life with UI was a manifestation of a crisis in social reproduction, whereby households could not meet all their basic needs without falling into UI. It then zooms in on family and personal relations to trace the afterlives of austerity in the everyday. It explores the impact of UI and the uncertainties of reproduction on these relations and how decisions on debt and bill payments as well as reproductive practices became enmeshed in them. Overall, the paper demonstrates that, besides enduring landscapes of hardship, austerity left behind a heightened tension between the necessity for, and unsustainability of, relationships of solidarity as care, which became a key form of support because of austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education of girls in the Ottoman Empire was carried out in traditional primary schools until the Tanzimat period. There were no above-primary schools for girls. During the Tanzimat Period, the first girls' rüşdiye school (advanced primary) above primary schools was opened in Istanbul in 1859. With the Maârif-i Umûmiye Nizâmnâmesi (Regulation on General Education) dated 1869, the education of girls was redesigned, and it was decided to open primary and rüşdiye schools for girls outside of Istanbul. The newly designed primary schools would have a different structure from the traditional ones. In this study, the establishment and development of the schools opened for the education of girls in the province of Thessaloniki, the interest of the people of Thessaloniki in these institutions, and the problems encountered were evaluated. The study also reveals what kind of development took place in girls’ education outside the capital Istanbul during the Ottoman modernization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the waqfs, established during the Ottoman period and which gave Salonika a Turkish-Muslim identity, was implemented in the middle of the 18th century by Vizier Numan Pasha, the governor of Salonika. First, the Pasha, who established a family waqf by donating real estate merely without any charity on August 1749, built a mosque, dervish lodge, and school in Ahmed Subası District and put them into service on March 1755 approximately six years after the registration of the first waqf. Also, he donated lots of books and made additions to the movables and real estate he had previously donated. Two foundation certificate-charters (vakfiye) and three supplements to foundation certificate-chartersin the Archives of General Directorate of Foundations, related to the institution which turned into a semi-family waqf in this way, and some documents and books in the archives were evaluated. Information was given about both waqf monuments and the donated ones. Moreover, it was made an effort to introduce both charitable service buildings (hayrât) and income-producing properties (akarât) by transferring data about the personnel serving in the waqfs. Apart from those mentioned, the contribution of a philanthropist from Salonika to the waqf was briefly mentioned, although there are additions made after the death of Numan Pasha, these were not mentioned. That is there as to why there is no foundation certificate-charters related to these movables and real estates which are understood to have been donated by the pasha's children or descendants. The data related to the mentioned income sources, which are seen in the accounting records of the waqf and which are understood to have been added later, were evaluated in another study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture / Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of the Academic Studies of Turkish-Islamic Civilization / Türk Islam Medeniyeti Akademik Arastirmalar Dergisi (Timad) is the property of Necmettin Erbakan University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Thessaloniki was seen as a very strategic place politically and economically for many states, and the capture of Thessaloniki gave that state power and prestige in the context of the Aegean Sea and the Balkans. Although Thessaloniki remained under Turkish rule for many years, the extraordinary conditions brought about by the First Balkan War prevented the Ottoman Empire from transferring enough power there. Our study deals with the attacks on Muslim Turks in the city by Greek and Bulgarian soldiers after the capture of Thessaloniki by the Greeks, through the German consulate in the city. Our study, which also reflects the diplomatic power of Germany in the twentieth century, also showed the Turkish-German alliance before the First World War. The reports of the German consul in Thessaloniki, which is the source of our study, were obtained from the Balkankrieg (1912-1913): Grausamkeiten in der Kriegführung catalog in the Archive of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts) and its translation was carried out by. These reports, which we obtained from the 1912-1913 catalog in the archive of the German foreign ministry, include the events such as looting, pillaging and killing of Muslim Turks in the city, but also in a sense, why the Greeks and Bulgarians resorted to such a way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Klaus Hallof and the Berlin Inscriptiones Graecae. This contribution is a review of two volumes of the Berlin edition of the Corpus of the Ancient Greek Inscriptions. Especially one of them, number XII 4 (the islands Kos and Kalymna), has luckily come to an end after more than one century's work. Klaus Hallof, who has overseen the 'Arbeitsstelle' of the IG at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences since 1990, gave a final report of the problems in publishing that volume, the political and the objective ones. The paper is resuming these problems as far as legal historians are concerned. The technical problems of IG X 2,1s2 (Thessaloniki) are mentioned too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benjamin Samokovlija (Sarajevo, 31.III.1918 - Skopje, 28.II.1996), comes from a Jewish family. On April 5, 1941 he was mobilized in the ranks of the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the second half of August 1941, Benjamin joined the ranks of the National Liberation Army and the People's Liberation Army. He took part in numerous battles in the anti-fascist war for the liberation of Yugoslavia. After the Fourth Enemy Offensive of the Supreme Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia which took place in the first half of 1943, Samokovlija together with part of his partisan unit were captured by the Germans and imprisoned in Zenica. After a month in the Zenica prison, a group of 600 prisoners, including Samokovlija, were transferred to the Thessaloniki concentration camp. In October 1943, through an EAM connection, Benjamin Samokovlija managed to escape and join ELAS. He remained in the ranks of the Greek partisans until the contact with the Macedonian partisans from the First Macedonian-Kosovo Brigade on the territory of the Aegean part of Macedonia in the period between the second half of December 1943 and January 1944. He was admitted to the III Battalion and was in charge of the agitprop of the battalion, from where he was later transferred to the ranks of the II, V and X brigades, acting as a battalion commissioner and participating in the battles for the liberation of Macedonia. At the very beginning of World War II in 1941, Benjamin Samokovlija lost many of his immediate family members, including his parents and wife. As direct witnesses to the measures taken for the physical and economic destruction of the Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the German occupying authorities, their collaborators and the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia, his three sisters joined the People's Liberation War. His eldest sister Laura was killed in 1945. Benjamin Samokovlija is the holder of several military and state decorations. During his tenure, he ran a number of state-owned enterprises. It is particularly important to emphasize that for less than two decades he served as President of the Jewish community in the Republic of Macedonia, building strong friendly relations with other religious communities in the country.

This article explores the political and discursive framing of the emerging project Holocaust Museum of Greece (HMG) based in Thessaloniki (announced in 2013). As an "in situ" Holocaust museum, the HMG could represent an important step toward recognizing Jewish suffering in a country where—compared with the rest of Europe—unprecedentedly high levels of antisemitic attitudes have been recorded over the past decade. Supported by a qualitative media analysis and supplemented with data from our online survey, we explore how HMG stakeholders and potential local visitors reflect on the project. Occurring amid contemporary endeavors in Holocaust commemoration and Greek-German reconciliation, we connect it with their persistence in combating far-right tendencies and antisemitism. Specifically, we investigate whose memory HMG stakeholders aim to display, how they reflect on dominant Greek historical narratives and whether they express a clear memory commitment and a genuine effort to produce a more integrated historical interpretation of the Holocaust in Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience narratives have gathered increased attention in city-regional planning over the last two decades, emphasizing holistic foresight, long-term strategic visioning, cross-sectoral integration and collaborative modes of planning. Combining such resilience narratives with the established idea of socio-spatial imaginaries, we introduce the novel concept of 'resilience imaginaries' and explore its application in the city-region of Thessaloniki, Greece. This paper illustrates that resilience imaginaries can be viewed as dynamic and politically contested visions for long-term city-regional development, collectively structured by civic stakeholders, institutionally expressed through city-regional governance transformations and materially manifested through city-regional planning interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RumeliDE Journal of Language & Literature Research / RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of RumeliDE Uluslararasi Hakemli Dil & Edebiyat Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the effects of short-term exposure to PM10 and O3 on all-cause, cardiorespiratory, and cerebrovascular mortality in the urban area of Thessaloniki, Greece. An analysis was performed on the vulnerable subgroup (the elderly population). The primary effect estimates employed were the relative risks for every 10 µg/m3 increase in air pollutant concentrations. Strong associations between PM10 and O3 levels on mortality were reported, with the elderly people becoming frailer. An increase of 10 μgr/m3 in PM10 concentration resulted in a 2.3% (95% CI: 0.8–3.8) and 2% (95% CI: 0.1–4.5) increase in total and cardiorespiratory mortality, respectively. O3 concentrations showed even stronger associations for all-cause (3.9%, 95% CI: 2.5–5.3) and cardiorespiratory deaths (5.3%, 95% CI: 3.1–7.7) with 10 μgr/m3 increases; no statistically significant associations were found for cerebrovascular causes, while both pollutants presented stronger impacts on health between day 0 and 3. Concerning the elderly, the total mortality rose by 3.2% (95% CI: 1.5–5) due to PM10 concentrations and by 4.4% (95% CI: 2.9–6) due to O3 concentrations. In total, 242 (170) all-cause deaths were annually attributed to the PM10 (O3) level in Thessaloniki. In the efforts towards achieving a sustainable environment for humanity, health benefits resulting from two air pollution abatement scenarios (a 20% reduction in PM10 levels and full compliance to the European Union PM10 limits) were quantified. The analysis led to a respective decrease in total excess mortality by 0.4% and 1.8%, respectively. This outcome stresses the necessity of appropriate civil protection actions and provides valuable scientific knowledge to national and regional administrations in order to develop proper health and air quality plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate the spatio-temporal variability of tropospheric NO2 Vertical Column Densities (VCDs) and surface concentrations that were retrieved using Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) measurements over Thessaloniki, Greece, for the period June 2020 to November 2022. The MAX-DOAS system captures the NO2 seasonal variability very well, reporting low concentrations during summer and higher concentrations in the winter, as well as the diurnal cycle with higher NO2 amounts in the morning followed by a reduction towards noon. The "weekend effect" is evident, with approximately 30% lower NO2 concentrations on the weekends compared to the working days. An excellent agreement is found with in situ data from a nearby air quality monitoring station with Pearson's correlation coefficients ranging between R = 0.90 and R = 0.99. The spatial variability is assessed by comparing the NO2 concentrations at four azimuth viewing directions of the MAX-DOAS system. Despite the large variability due to short- and long-term temporal variations, higher NO2 concentrations of up to 25% (statistically significant at the 95% confidence level) are reported for the azimuth that crosses the entire city center and an urban area compared to those pointing towards the sea. The MAX-DOAS tropospheric NO2 columns are then compared to those measured by the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on board the Sentinel-5P satellite. Despite the generally good correlation (R = 0.72 and R = 0.89 for the daily and monthly data, respectively), a clear underestimation of TROPOMI is found (approximately 55% in winter, 21% in spring and 40% during autumn and summer), mainly due to the much larger satellite footprint that provides a smoother perception of the NO2 concentration, while the MAX-DOAS measurements are more affected by local emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most efficient way to reduce damage and losses in metropolitan areas with complex functions that are exposed to disaster risks is to reduce their vulnerability, which necessitates an assessment of the urban system's vulnerability. Regarding the areas located near Seveso establishments, they are characterized by high levels of vulnerability, both spatially and sectorally, as they present an increased risk due to the possible occurrence of large-scale industrial accidents. In this study, a vulnerability assessment indicator system (VAIS) that assesses the vulnerability presented in the areas located near Seveso facilities was proposed. The VAIS consisted of social, environmental and spatial indicators, and an assessment of the indicators was carried out by collecting the appropriate data. The study area is located in the western part of Thessaloniki and includes the Seveso site and the adjacent municipal districts. Prioritization of the examined municipal districts based on their overall vulnerability was carried out using multicriteria analysis methods. The results showed that there was a convergence among the three categories of vulnerability (social, environmental and spatial) in the areas that presented the highest vulnerability. The MD of Kalochori (MD7) was the most vulnerable MD in the study, while the less vulnerable ones varied depending on the vulnerability category (social, environmental or spatial) considered each time. The proposed methodology may prove to be a highly useful tool in decision-making processes when used by the relevant authorities who are qualified to define and implement a site-specific security management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]