"On the next day, August 6, the feast of Our Saviour, Thessaloniki made history, yet again. There where once the labyrinthine alleys of the Jewish district had spread out, were now only stones and smouldering ashes. In the other quarter, where the grand shops and hotels tower, tragic ruins reminded one of their former glory.

And all these sad remains of a rich big city were swathed in heavy clouds of smoke. Deep in their basements the embers glowed for several months after the fire and, as we discovered later, so great was the force of the fire that all the glassware melted and amidst the debris of the pastry shops one could make out the jars of sweets transformed into a mass of burnt sugar and glass. The tremendous expanse covered by this catastrophe took the name of the Kammena (burnt areas). The whole district had been transmuted into a new Pompeii, where by day teams of excavators labored and by night the bums, criminals and lovers found refuge".