The Commission assisted with the installation and dedication of a plaque in the Judeo-Spanish language at the memorial on the site of the Nazis’ infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in Poland.

Judeo-Spanish is a traditional language of Sephardic Jews. These people were expelled from Spain in the 15th century, many settling in the Balkans.

The memorial earlier had plaques in the other languages spoken by the people killed at Auschwitz: Bielorussian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Romany, Rumanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Yiddish.

The new plaque recognizes those of the 120,000 -160,000 Judeo-Spanish speakers who were killed on the site. Most of the Judeo-Spanish speakers who were killed in Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945 came from the Balkans. Many came from Salonika (today’s Thessaloniki), Greece, where the pre-war Jewish population of Judeo-Spanish speakers numbered between 60,000 and 80,000.

The Commission officially sponsored the plaque, receiving donations from U.S. citizens for it and its unveiling, and transmitting the donations to Europe.

The inspiration for the plaque came from Professor Haïm Vidal Séphiha of Paris, France, a survivor of Auschwitz, who visited the former killing center in 2000. Noting plaques in the languages spoken by all victims other than Judeo-Spanish, he launched the Judeo-Spanish At Auschwitz campaign.

The plaque was installed at the end of 2002. It was dedicated on March 24, 2003 -- the 60th anniversary of the departure of the second convoy of Jews from Salonika for Auschwitz.

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