During the ‘Macedonia’ name dispute rally that took place in Thessaloniki on Sunday, unidentified supporters of Greece’s Neo Nazi group Golden Dawn found a chance to write the party’s logo on the city’s Holocaust Memorial.
The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece condemned the desecration of the Memorial asking state and Church authorities to take action.
In their joint statement they denounce the act offending the memory of the thousands of Jews that were killed by the Nazis and their families.
“Merely a week before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day followers of the Nazi party in Greece stated their presence by desecrating the Holocaust Monument in Thessaloniki with their repulsive signature,” the statement said.
“They did not desecrate just the memory of the 50.000 Jews of Thessaloniki, the 65.000 Jews of Greece, the 6.000.000 Jews of Europe deported and exterminated by the Nazis in the German concentration camps. They desecrated the values of Democracy itself, the very civilization of a city, and proved that the remnants of Nazism have still roots in our country. Roots that -if not eradicated by society- might spread even more guiding us again in the darkest period of world history.
The Central Board of Jewish Communities (KIS) in Greece urges one more time the State Authorities, the Church and the social institutions to firmly condemn the vandal attack against the memory and the history of Thessaloniki and of Greece.
According to movement Against Antisemitism dikra, the Monument was recently desecrated with a ‘Free Palestine’ graffiti.
Dikra stresses that also on Sunday -the day of the big Macedonia-protest, antisemitic leaflets were posted at the White Tower square targeting the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris, and calling him ‘a slave of the Jews’,” the statement concluded.