Concert-tribute to the Chortiatis Holocaust Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Leo McFall

The term “Chortiatis Holocaust” or “Chortiatis Massacre” refers to the mass murder of 146 Greeks from the martyred village, the vast majority of whom were women and children, by Nazis and collaborationist forces on September 2, 1944. This was in retaliation for an attack by the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) on a passing German vehicle. This date is indelibly marked in the history of the Municipality of Pylaia-Chortiatis, which, along with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra (TSSO), commissioned the acclaimed British composer David Bruce to create a new work dedicated to the memory of those who left this world so unjustly and painfully on that tragic day. The work will serve as a living monument to the victims of Chortiatis, capable of traveling to every corner of the earth and making the Massacre known to a global audience.

The concert fittingly concludes with Shostakovich’s “Eighth Symphony”, written in the year that the Chortiatis Massacre took place. The work describes the horror of war, expresses grief for the suffering of innocent victims and ultimately offers a drop of consolation