The birth certificate of the first Anatomy department in Thessaloniki was drawn up during the period of the Nazi occupation of the city, and its establishment coincides with the founding of the Medical School. The first Anatomy department in the city was housed in the autumn of 1943 in a Jewish school, which was "allocated" by the occupying authorities of the city to the university during the mass deportation of the Jews of Thessaloniki to the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria.

For the education of the first medical students in the subject of Anatomy, anatomical tables made from looted marble tombstones from the adjacent Jewish cemetery were used, the destruction of which had begun in December 1942 by a decision of the Germans and with the full participation of the Greek occupying authorities of the city.

The book traces the history of the establishment and operation of the first Anatomy department in occupied Thessaloniki, as well as the grim history of the destruction of the Jewish necropolis. It also includes an extensive biography of the first professor of Anatomy, Nikolaos Michalakeas, narrates the story of the first Jewish female medical student - in the early days of the school’s operation during the academic year 1942-1943 - and contains unpublished photographic and archival material.

Thus, it pays tribute, among other things, to the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, which played a significant role in the establishment and functioning of the first Anatomy department and, by extension, of the Medical School of Thessaloniki itself, through its tragic downfall.