Why go
The medieval city can obscure much later upheaval. Rhodes passed from Ottoman to Italian rule in 1912, endured German occupation during the Second World War, and joined Greece in 1947. The fate of its Jewish community gives these dates human weight, especially around the Jewish quarter and Kahal Shalom Synagogue.
The full story
Rhodes had long been home to a Jewish community as well as Greek, Ottoman and other residents. In 1840 its Jews faced a false ritual-murder accusation, a reminder that coexistence did not prevent persecution. Italy seized the island from the Ottoman Empire in 1912 and retained it after the First World War. Following Italy's armistice in 1943, German forces occupied Rhodes. During the Holocaust most of the island's Jewish population was deported and murdered. Turkish consul Selahattin Ülkümen helped save people with Turkish citizenship or family connections, at serious risk to himself and his family. Kahal Shalom Synagogue and the Old Town's Jewish quarter give a place to consider this history rather than treating it as an abstract wartime statistic. Germany surrendered the Dodecanese in 1945; British administration followed before Rhodes and the other islands united with Greece in 1947. These rapid changes in sovereignty are part of the modern island behind its ancient and medieval monuments.