On August 18, 1917, a devastating fire broke out in Thessaloniki, reportedly caused by the carelessness of a French soldier. The flames burned for 32 hours and destroyed more than two-thirds of the city. Over 70,000 people were left homeless, many of them from the Jewish and Muslim quarters. Around 9,500 homes were lost across an area of just one square kilometer. With entire neighborhoods gone and businesses in ruins, half of the city’s Jewish population eventually emigrated.
Nearly a year earlier, the Serbian army had established its own film unit. Their recently acquired film development lab, brought from Italy, was among the buildings destroyed in the fire. Despite this, the unit’s cinematographer, Colonel Mika Mihajlović Afrika, managed to record the disaster as it unfolded.
His footage offers a striking contrast between calm and chaos. It shows soldiers and civilians standing on the beach, the city behind them slowly disappearing under a thick column of smoke. Some shots are eerily quiet, with no visible sign of the fire, only to shift to scenes filmed from a boat that reveal the full extent of the destruction.
Afrika’s camera also captured the quiet endurance of Thessaloniki’s residents. Firefighters worked with steady determination, though their efforts were largely in vain. People walked along the pier with bundles in hand, not in panic but with the weary calm of those facing something far beyond their control.