Isle of Rhodes

I split from the group last night to do a solo day trip to the Isle of Rhodes. I've always held Rhodes in some sort of mystical, almost fairy-tale like quality.

Part of my Dad's side of the family is from Rhodes, and I remember his uncle, in his old-age, speaking very fondly about his boyhood days there.

As I got older, I learned that some of my closest friends turned out to have ancestry tracing back to Rhodes.

The place has always intrigued me, and, as I found myself in the Greek Isles this week, I couldn't resist going there.

The boat trip there itself was great. The group I have been traveling with was staying in Fiora, a city at the top of the mountain on which the island of Santorini sits. I took a cab down to port a few hours early and, after a quick meal, laid on the dock of the port, the only person on the it, for an hour or so. It was a dead silent, star-filled night. All I could see besides the white tips of the waves were the shadows of the mountains that towered behind me.

The overnight trip was not bad at all. I woke up at 7 on a couch on the boat, went outside to one of the boat's balconies and watched the sea as we pulled in to port.


I arrived in Rhodes this morning around 8:30.

I bought a map and wandered around the old city, trying to make my way to the Jewish section. I didn't realize that I was holding the map upside down, and somehow ended up at a huge palace.

Sensing I was lost, a man asked if he could help me out. Yes, I said. I pulled out my map. He turned it right side up.

He pointed out some key locations and marked them with his pen. His deep and humorous sounding British accent intrigued me and we began to talk. Now technically retired, he had been a Royal Air Force officer who had specifically worked on designing and building nuclear weapons. In his words: "I worked all of my life to destroy Eastern Europe, but in the end, I ended up falling in love with it."

What he fell in love with was the palace that I had run into; it's stones, it's history, and most of all, it's underground tunnels. His name is Graeme Jones, and he now goes by the occupation title: "explorer."

The palace, which had been at different times the headquarters for both the Knight's Templar and the Crusades, holds a series of underground tunnels beneath it that nearly cover the length of the entire city. Having realized that there is no definitive map of these tunnels, Jones decided to do just that. He has spent the last 5 years mapping, measuring, and getting to know the tunnels, moats, walls, bricks, and stone that surround and are beneath the palace. At this rate, he says, he'll be finished in 40 years. Now 60, he admits that he probably won't get the chance to see his project completed, but he says he really enjoys doing what he's doing one day at a time.

We talked for a while, and before long, a few other people joined in. Jones asked us all if we'd like to go on a stroll. He took us on an in-depth and exciting tour of the palace's moats, leading us into pitch black tunnels when he could, showing us where draw bridges used to stand, and telling us exactly how battles were fought, with what, and exactly where.

He showed us the wall of the moat, telling us what layers were added when, which bricks protected which empire, and which stones destroyed others.


Jones loved to talk and, not wanting to spend the whole day learning about this moat, I left the tour after about one hour and a half.

I found the Jewish section of town and quickly found what remains the only intact synagogue on the island; the old Jewish section of town was bombed and destroyed during WWII. Luckily, this one synagogue remains. It was the synagogue in which my uncle's family used to belong, as well as my friend's families - before they all came to the United States.


I quickly found a plaque that listed the family names of the once lively synagogue.


I quickly found my family connection on the list (Franco), as well as the families of many of my closest friends.

Wandering around the synagogue, I found many documents either commemorating or memorializing many of these families. One such document:


Walking around the synagogue and it's accompanying museum, it became obvious that this now nearly non-existent Jewish community used to be a very active one and was a central part of the lives of those Jews who lived there. I learned that the Jewish community of Rhodes used to be large - around 1600 people prior to WWII. However, on July 23, 1944, all of the Jews in Rhodes were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. Only 10 percent of those survived the war and returned to Rhodes. Then, for various economic reasons - not to mention the creation of the State of Israel -, people began to move away. I spoke with an employee at the Synagogue today who said that only 7 Jewish families remain on the Isle of Rhodes today, less than 30 people.

The employee I spoke with was a young man probably around my age. He is a member of one of those seven families and, throughout our conversation, I couldn't help but wonder how the people connected to me were once connected to the people that are connected to him.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the charming city. I climbed to the top of the pillar on which the Colossus of Rhodes - one of the 7 wonders of the World - used to stand, and I enjoyed a few beers and a good meal in the hot, beach sun...

It's a surreal feeling being the only person standing on the stone-lined street that the Crusades used to line down. It's a creepy feeling standing on a spot inside a palace's moat in which thousands of people fought and died. It's a strange feeling to imagine a centuries-old Saturday morning service in the same synagogue that I stood in today, thinking about the then-children, now all grandparents, great-grandparents or great-great grandparents of many of my friends and family, now passed on and sitting way up high on that family tree.


I used to think of Rhodes as a mystical and fairy-tale like place. I still do.