Ex-Thessaloniki mayor who fought to recognize city’s Holocaust history dies at 82
Yiannis Boutaris, born to a famed Greek winemaking family, led efforts to capitalize on city’s rich Jewish history and campaigned to establish Holocaust museum
THESSALONIKI, Greece — Yiannis Boutaris, a Greek winemaking legend and political maverick who as mayor of Thessaloniki broke taboos to revive the city’s rich history, has died aged 82, his family and officials said.
“He was the daring visionary who fought with all his might to bring the city back in touch with its rich multicultural, colorful and cosmopolitan past,” said current Thessaloniki mayor Stelios Angeloudis.
Boutaris, who sported an earring and numerous tattoos, long argued that Thessaloniki should capitalize on its forgotten centuries-old heritage as a Jewish and Turkish metropolis.
The city was the birthplace of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, and was home to around 50,000 Jews before the Holocaust.
Elected in 2010 and again in 2014, Boutaris campaigned to bring tens of thousands of Turkish and Jewish tourists to the city’s historic landmarks.
“We are brothers with the Turks, and partners with the Jews,” he said in 2015. “Our goal is to isolate hotheads and persuade them that history cannot be altered.”
In 2017, he helped create the city’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is still under construction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended the dedication of the site in 2017 and then-president Reuven Rivlin was on hand in 2018 to lay the foundation stone.
At the 2018 ceremony, Boutaris said the museum would tell the story of Jewish communities from all over Greece and the southwestern Balkans.
“It will symbolize our shame,” he said. “For what happened, for what we did, and mostly for what we could not or did not wish to do… during and after the war.”
Born into one of Greece’s top winemaking families, Boutaris was also the founder of Arcturus, one of the country’s leading wildlife protection groups.
“Until the final moment he did not cease fighting for nature, wildlife, freedom, diversity for all, the right to life for every creature,” Arcturus said in a statement.
He was also an early proponent of cremation, and introduced the city’s annual Pride parade.
His activities angered the Orthodox Church and the city’s powerful nationalist faction, and he was beaten by far-rightists during a 2018 protest.
In a 2021 interview, Boutaris said he was proud that Thessaloniki was no longer seen as a “conservative” city.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
