G.G. of KISE Viktor Eliezer participated in the Day of Actions, with the theme "From Genocide and National Destruction to Rebirth", organized by the ND Program Secretariat, at the ND central pavilion, Syntagma Square, on Wednesday 21.6.23.
The Day of Actions included special thematic sections dedicated to Armenians, Jews, Pontians. G.G. of KISE, in the program dedicated to the Jews, spoke with pr. Minister Haris Theoharis, MP Sofia Vultepsi, Hon. ND program secretary Antonia Dimos and many other ND officials, about history, the Holocaust and the post-war reconstruction of the Jewish communities of Greece.
At the same time, topical issues concerning Greek Jews were discussed, such as the need to progress the case of building the Holocaust Museum of Greece in Thessaloniki, anti-Semitism, educational programs about the Holocaust and the importance of education for society in general and mainly for the new generation .
"Anti-Semitism threatens the core values of a democratic society. And this is because the hatred against the Jews starts with the Jews, but it does not stop with the Jews. That is why it is necessary to put an end to the tolerance of hatred and racism, whether it is directed against the Jews or against any minority living among us", emphasized Victor Eliezer. "86% of Greek Jewry was exterminated in the Nazi death camps, with the Community of Thessaloniki, but also other Jewish Communities such as those of Ioannina, Arta, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Rhodes and Kos, being almost completely annihilated. It is there where anti-Semitism was widespread, where the local Authorities collaborated with the occupiers, where the institutions and society were ostentatiously indifferent to the expulsion of their Jewish fellow citizens. A crime that was carried out with the Nazi abusers and the German extermination machine but also with the tolerance of the spectators, with the tolerance of many governments, many local lords, who then rushed to loot the property of those who were forcibly displaced and brutally killed. We have said before that if there were more Mayors like Carrer of Zakynthos, Archbishops of Damascus and Metropolitans of Chrysostom, more Evert Angels, more EAM resistance fighters, more Schindlers and more Wallenbergs, then far fewer Jews in Greece and throughout Europe would follow his path martyrdom, in the death camps", pointed out the General Secretary of KISE.
Regarding the reconstruction of Jewish Communities after the Holocaust, Victor Isaac Eliezer told his interlocutors: "In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of World War II, the BBC asked the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs to make a film about Auschwitz. His reply was, "I will only do so if I can tell the story the Jewish way." So they asked him, "What is the Jewish way?" And he replied, "A Jewish story may begin with tears, but it always ends with hope." Today, therefore, the Jews of Greece are organized into 8 Jewish Communities that operate in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Volos, Chalkida, Ioannina, Trikala and Corfu. A few Jews also live in Rhodes, Karditsa, Chania and Kavala. Jewish life in Greece was reconstructed with tears but also hope, in schools, museums, synagogues. But we are not complacent...We must be reminded of what can happen again to humanity if memory is erased by oblivion and if hatred prevails as a tolerated norm in a society. Because "ultimate evil" did not start at Auschwitz. It started with hate speech and ended in Auschwitz."
The event was accompanied by a video screening of the life, tradition and Holocaust of the Greek Jews, produced by the Jewish Museum of Greece, as well as music from the CD "Unknown musical treasures of the Greek Jews", of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, with the interpretation of soprano Mariandzelas Hadjistamatiou. The KISE provided a number of books which were exhibited in a special stand at the event site.