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Jackito was born in Salonika. He reached Auschwitz with the first transport on April 21st 1943 and had the inmate number 109624 tattooed on his arm. Because he knew fluent German, he became the translator for the Salonika Jews and was made the deputy manager of work distribution among the camp inmates.

Jakitto (Jacob) Maestro was born in Greece in 1927. When the Germans invaded Greece, Jakitto began trading with the SS soldiers stationed in the city and managed to learn the German language. In March 1943 Jakitto was sent to Auschwitz in the first transport of Greek Jews. The Jews of Salonika couldn't understand the orders they were given and so they suffered many beatings and punishments. Thanks to Jakitto's knowledge of the German language, he was selected as the translator for the group and even got the role of distributing work among the inmates. He used his position as work organizer and his access to the card index where the names of the prisoners appeared, to transfer the Salonika prisoners from difficult places of work to others, thus saving about 1,000 prisoners. He also made connections with prisoners in various positions. He knew how and where to obtain liquor, cigarettes, and jewelry, which he used to bribe the camp commanders and SS personnel. The connections he formed and the bribes he handed out contributed to the release of prisoners from medical experiments and the acquisition of vital medicine. This is the story of one of the survivors, as told by his son, Mr. Shabtai "Sabi" Hanan: "My father, Abraham Hanan, born in Salonika in 1927, was deported in the first transport on 15.3.1943 from Salonika to Auschwitz and was saved by Jakitto Maestro on a number of occasions. My father was sent to a leather production plant. After skinning the animals the leather was transferred to chemical baths, and my father had to make sure the skins remained underwater. The acids could cause damage that soon led to death, so Jakitto traded my father with a German prisoner who was anyway sentenced to death, thus saving him. Once my father was caught for stealing 12 potato peels and sentenced to 12 whip lashes. After being beaten and injured he was declared dead and tossed on the pile of dead bodies on the way to a quick cremation to prevent the spread of disease. His friends found out he was alive and called Jakitto who traded my father with a different dead body so that on Auschwitz's registers he appears as dead." Gideon Greif's book: An Angel in Auschwitz. The amazing story of Jakob "Jakitto" Maestro The book includes 3 parts: The first one is dedicated to the childhood of Jacob ("Jakitto") Maestro, who lived with his poor patents in a suburb of Thessaloniki, Greece, called "Baron Hirsch", where mostly poor Jews lived. He describes his parents, brothers and and sisters, the atmosphere, the synagogues. the Rabbis, the professions of the Jews, Folklore, figures, smells, scenes. The second part is dedicated to the period after the German occupation of Greece. We accompany the Jewish community of Thessaloniki in the process of escalation. After a relative calm period, which lasted until summer 1942, soon began the process of persecution, decrees, abuses, malicious harassment. The two most traumatic events that announced the forthcoming destruction of the Greek Jewry were the desecration of the old cemetery and the event called "The Black Sabbath", both in Thessaloniki.Jakitto describes all these significant events very detailed, through the eyes of a child. On March 19, Jakitto, his family members and thousands of Jews had to leave Baron Hirsch - now a sealed Ghetto - in a cattle train, leading to an unknown place in Poland. The place was Auschwitz-Birkenau. The story describes the tragedy of the Greek Jews, who reached Hell on Earth. However, because of objective and non-objective reasons, which the author describes, the suffering of the Greek Jews in Auschwitz was much bigger than the suffering of all other Jews. Luckily, Jakitto got a position at the "Arbeitseinsatz", the office which distributed the several "Kommandos" and working places among the prisoners. After short time he discovered the possibilities of saving lives of his Greek comrades: he realized, that he can make the survival chances much bigger, if he manages to change the hard and difficult "Kommando" of a prisoner, by adding him to a different, easier "Kommando". For many months Jakitto systematically changed the identity and profession of dozens of Jewish prisoners, and because of his brave actions, about 100 Jews gained their life. Nowadays, they have already great-grandchildren! Jakitto could succeed in this daring activity due to his natural talents to become friendly with the German SS-Men, to bribe them and get all he wanted, and because of his young age. He survived Auschwitz and other Concentration Camps, to which he was deported after the evacuation of Auschwitz. The third part describes his life in Israel, after emigrating to the country in the late 40. He tells about his first years as a Holocaust survivor, about his first job, his marriage, his participation in the War of Independence and as a businessman. The book contains also a chapter about his sister Estherina, who also saved Jewish women in Auschwitz! The book has 240 pages, and 35 photos. Jacob "Jakitto" Maestro is still alive. He lives in Bat Yam, a city in central Israel which reminds him of Thessaloniki.

 
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