Anti-Semites vandalize the second Greek Jewish site in Thessaloniki
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Greece’s highest Jewish body says a memorial to the thousands of Jews killed in the Holocaust has been vandalized in Thessaloniki, the second such incident in as many weeks.
She added that a mural commemorating the deportation of Jews from Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, to the Nazi camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau was painted with swastikas and fascist symbols.
“Anti-Semitic vandals roam freely and sully undisturbed any attempt to preserve the memory of the Holocaust in Thessaloniki,” the Central Council of Jewish Communities of Greece (KIS) said in a statement.
Last month, a swastika and a fascist symbol were spray painted on a monument dedicated to the Jewish cemetery in Thessaloniki, one of the oldest in Europe, which was destroyed in 1942 when Nazi Germany occupied Greece.
There were no arrests.
“Once again we call on the authorities to take all necessary measures in order to catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” KIS said.
“Statements of conviction are not enough! It is unacceptable that those responsible for memory vandalism remain at large,” she added.
Jewish memorials and cemeteries are often vandalized in Greece, where anti-Semitism is rife.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government includes three ministers who were formerly senior members of a Greek far-right party.
There are 6,000 Jews in Greece now. An estimated 60,000 Greek Jews were murdered in the Holocaust—about 83% of the prewar population.