Ioannina's Jewish Community -- The oldest records of Jews in Ioannina date from the early 1300s but it is believed they had been there for at least a couple centuries -- and possibly as long before as the 1st century A.D. Having come directly from the Near East, they like other such Jews in Greece are known as Romaniotes; they spoke a dialect of Greek with some Hebrew and other elements. Over the centuries Ioannina's community grew with infusions of Jews from elsewhere around the Mediterranean, but many then emigrated abroad so that by the mid-20th century there were only about 2,000 Jews in Ioannina. After the Germans occupied Greece in 1941, they eventually rounded up Ioannina's Jews and sent them off to labor and extermination camps, where most of them perished. After the war about 150 returned but today barely 60 Jews live in Ioannina. But they manage to maintain their fine old synagogue. A small Holocaust Memorial is located just outside the citadel, on the corner of Karamanlis and Soutsou.
