n their invasion of Greece, it fell to the forces of Nazi Germany on 8 April 1941 and remained under German occupation until 30 October 1944 when it was liberated by the Greek People's Liberation Army. The Nazis soon forced the Jews into a ghetto near the railroads and on 15 March 1943 began the deportation process of the city's 56,000 Jews to its concentration camps. They deported over 43,000 of the city's Jews in concentration camps, where most were killed in the gas chambers. The Germans also deported 11,000 Jews to forced labor camps, where most perished. Only 1,200 Jews live in the city today.
The importance of Thessaloniki to Nazi Germany can be demonstrated by the fact that, initially, Hitler had planned to incorporate it directly in the Third Reich (that is, make it a part of Germany) and not have it controlled by a puppet state such as the Hellenic State or an ally of Germany (Thessaloniki had been promised to Yugoslavia as a reward for joining the Axis on 25 March 1941). Having been the first major city in Greece to fall to the occupying forces just two days after the German invasion, it was in Thessaloniki that the first Greek resistance group was formed (under the name «Ελευθερία», Eleftheria, "Freedom") as well as the first anti-Nazi newspaper in an occupied territory anywhere in Europe, also by the name Eleftheria. Thessaloniki was also home to a military camp-converted-concentration camp, known in German as "Konzentrationslager Pavlo Mela" (Pavlos Melas Concentration Camp), where members of the resistance and other non-favourable people towards the German occupation from all over Greece were held either to be killed or sent to concentration camps elsewhere in Europe. In the 1946 monarchy referendum, the majority of the locals voted against contrary to the rest of Greece.
After the war, Thessaloniki was rebuilt with large-scale development of new infrastructure and industry throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many of its
