Luna - An Invisible Survivor from Thessloniki

Many memoirs and studies have been published in the decades following the Holocaust, telling incredible stories of suffering, victimhood, survival, and heroism. Most of these texts were written by people with a higher education and reflect their perspective, eloquence, and experiences after the war, whereas survivors who lived modest, traditional lives are often overlooked.

Luna Gatenio was one of those people. Born and raised in the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, she relied on her hands and vocational skills to make a living. She spoke Judeo-Spanish, the language of her once-thriving community, but remained illiterate and poor throughout her life.

The lives of invisibles like Luna leave few textual traces behind. No collection of letters, no diary, no autobiography or memoir tell her story. Few documents record her deportation, her survival in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, the agony caused by the medical experiments performed on her, or the loss of almost her entire family. Luna’s memory lived in the hearts and minds of the people who knew her and whose lives she touched. Had it not been preserved, this memorywould have perished with their passing.

In Luna, Rika Benveniste has erected a written monument to the invisible woman she knew. Luna’s story sheds light on a part of Thessaloniki’s Jewish history that has often been overlooked by researchers, offering a glimpse into a world that was almost completely destroyed.