This town of 14,000 is located on Lake Orestiada on the periphery of West Macedonia. It’s name is thought to derive from the Greek name for beaver (Canadians understand beaver/castor well enough.) Long held by the Ottoman Empire it was liberated by Greek troops in 1912 in the first Balkan War. During WW II the Jewish population of Kastoria was slightly over 900 people. The area was held by the Nazis. Four months before the Allied liberation of Kastoria the nazis moved the whole Jewish population to concentration camps. Only 38 people survived this part of the Holocaust. The town is notable in the fur trade. originally they traded in beaver pelts. The beaver is now extinct in the area so they trade in mink pelts.

Kastoria