the Israeli Community of Thessaloniki requests from the Rector’s Authorities “the restoration of the monument and their full cooperation with those responsible for the arrest of the perpetrators”.
The vandalism of the monument erected in 2014 within the AUTH Campus and dedicated to the old Jewish Cemetery is condemned, with today’s announcement, by the Israelite Community of Thessalonikis, asking the Rector’s Authorities “not only to condemn the event and to restore the monument, but also to cooperate fully with those responsible for the arrest of the perpetrators”.
“This act is an insult to the Monument that commemorates the 50,000 Jews of Thessaloniki who were exterminated in the Nazi camps and connects the modern image of the area with its history by reminding in every direction the existence, for centuries, of the old Jewish Cemetery which it was destroyed by the Nazis and their collaborators in 1942. The immoral act of imprinting swastikas and other symbols associated with the Nazi ideology on the marbles of the monument is also the greatest disrespect and insult to the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a place of Education, character formation and of consciences”, is emphasized in the IKTH announcement.
It is noted that “at a time when the Israeli Community of Thessaloniki is closely cooperating with the Greek Government, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the Municipality of Thessaloniki and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for the creation of the Holocaust Museum of Greece, the work of of these individuals confirms in the most emphatic way the ongoing need to combat racism, anti-Semitism, intolerance and fanaticism as well as how important it remains to highlight and promote the history of Thessaloniki and the aspects of the long-standing presence of its Jewish residents” .
It calls on the competent prosecuting authorities to ensure the immediate arrest of the perpetrators of the desecration of the Jewish monument at AUTH and their referral to Justice Central Jewish Council of Greece.
“The Monument dedicated to the Jewish cemetery and located at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki was, once again, the target of heinous vandalism. The swastika was imprinted on the monument that marks the sanctity of the site, one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe – which was completely destroyed in 1942 by the Nazis and their collaborators – and the annihilation of the country’s largest Israeli community, Thessaloniki, in the Holocaust. At the same time, the marble dedication of the Monument was also desecrated with a fascist symbol”, reports KISE.
“With the stigma of the gruesome Nazi swastika and fascist-inspired graffiti, 2022 leaves, a year in which no incident of desecration of Jewish space was recorded,” he notes and condemns “the unholy act of vandals, fans of intolerance and anti-Semitism who express their hatred and fanaticism by desecrating the memory of dead Thessalonian Jews”, emphasizing that there should be “no tolerance for anti-Semitism!”.
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