THE HOLOCAUST AND THE LYCORNIES OF BEVELOSIS - Central Jewish Council of Greece, coordinating body of the Jewish Communities of Greece

by PANTELI BOUKALA

Ninety years ago, on 30.1.1933, Nazism was deeply rooted in the body of Germany: Adolf Hitler - who still has fans, both in his country and in the Greece of Distomos, Kalavryta, Viannos, Kandanos - became chancellor. Racism and anti-Semitism are elevated to state doctrines. The road to the "Final Solution" becomes a boulevard. It primarily concerns the Jews, but not only them. For the wild Aryan gang, the world is full of "cockroaches".

Days like these also, on 27.1.1945, the liberation by Soviet troops of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest extermination camp, reveals the hideous magnitude of the "Final Solution" in the eyes of those who really did not know but also those who pretended not to know: the of "ordinary" Germans, who were "carrying out the orders of their superiors", nothing more, the Quislings and the Catholic Church. The Vatican did not hesitate to canonize in 1998 the Croatian Cardinal Aloisio Stepinac, who blessed the killing of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma by the pro-Nazi Ustasi regime. The UN has designated January 27 as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust. For those who perished in the first officially declared, scientifically methodized and factory-disciplined genocide in human history: six million Jews. At least 220.000 Roma and Sinti. Mentally ill, physically disabled, political dissidents, communists, homosexuals. Jehovah's Witnesses (the "Bible Students", as they were then known, who were required to wear a purple triangle, were the only group persecuted solely on the basis of religious beliefs). Freemasons, Soviet soldiers and civilians captured in occupied territories. Polish non-Jews, intellectuals, artists. And few Catholic and Protestant clergy. A total of 9 to 11 million perished in Le Pen's "simple detail of History".

Neither the horrific numbers, nor the testimonies given by survivors (such as Primo Levi, author of the shocking "If this is man") or eyewitnesses (such as Vasily Grossman, who chronicled the "Treblinka Hell"), nor the cinema they finally buried the monster of Nazism. But even the dedicated days do not manage to create conscious antibodies. Anti-Semitism is unabated, racism has spread to new social or ethnic areas, the Far Right wears an anti-systemic cloak and thrives in Europe and the US, despite Trump's defeat. For the electoral exclusion of the Nazi criminal organization Golden Dawn and its heirs like Ilias Kasidiaris - who has a well-equipped propaganda office in the prison, while young prisoners plead in vain to be given the opportunity to study -, it is very likely to be found constitutionally inviolable way. No law, however, and no threat can change the hearts of bigots, racists, pro-Nazis and all the rest of the gray chorus. Undauntedly continuing the masquerade of "patriotism", as if living in a permanent carnival regime, they beat up immigrants, set fire to Roma and desecrate anything Jewish left in the place.

I mention here, as a sample, episodes of anti-Semitism in our country, which boasts, among other things, of ministers who have "come clean" by declaring they are sorry for their anti-Jewish past. It is no coincidence that the hatred against the Jews manifests itself raw and profane especially in cities where the Jewish element once flourished, above all in Thessaloniki. It would not be completely unfounded even to assume that anti-Semitic violence is led by the blood and spiritual heirs of those "genuine" Greeks who rushed to seize Jewish properties when their owners were headed for Auschwitz. Unicorns are never missing. They are not creatures of myth. On 30.5.2014, therefore, Nazi fanatics destroy monuments in the Jewish cemetery in the University of Thessaloniki. On Christmas Eve of the same year, some good Christians take revenge on the "lawless race of Jews", desecrating the Jewish cemetery of Larissa with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. On 22.10.2015, it's the turn of the Jewish cemetery of Athens: Hitlerites paint a swastika and a "Raus" at its entrance.

On 5.5.2018, nine commemorative marble uprights are destroyed in the Jewish section of the Third Cemetery, in Nicaea. On 10.7.2018, the monument of the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki is desecrated. The announcement of the Central Jewish Council of Greece (KISE) ends as follows: "There are no other words left to describe the grief of Greek Jewry: Shame - shame - shame." On 25.1.2019/2019/57, a breath before Memorial Day, the monument is desecrated again. "Unfortunately", states the KISE, "we repeat that there are no other words left to describe the grief of Greek Jewry: Shame - shame - shame". This sadness, however, does not seem to be shared by most of us, taught for centuries by ecclesiastical and popular tradition to detest the "Christ-killing" Jews. According to the 40 Eurobarometer, XNUMX% of Greeks thought that the desecration of Jewish cemeteries was not a problem (the EU average was XNUMX%) – just as the graves of other Greeks at Delos were not for the ancient Athenians, for ' and they destroyed them, for the sake of "cleanliness".

So since sacrilege is "not a problem", in the fall of 2020 a wave of desecrations breaks out. From the announcement of the KISE: "A shameful graffiti on the Holocaust Memorial of Thessaloniki, on 16.10.2020, added to the chain of desecrations, threats and vandalism of the past week: "Juden Raus" in the Jewish cemetery of Athens, "Death to Israel" in the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki, four graves broken in the Jewish cemetery of Rhodes, and the most recent slogan "With Jews you lose", written on the facade of the monument dedicated to the 50.000 Jews of Thessalonica who were exterminated during the Holocaust. On 10.9.2021, a grave in the Jewish cemetery of Ioannina is vandalized for the second time in a month. At the end of December 2022, the monument in the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki is again desecrated. 2023 showed early that it had taken up the baton of brutal anti-Semitism: on 10.1, a huge swastika was painted on the fence of the new railway station in Thessaloniki, reminiscent of the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. So, how many more Memorial Days will it take?

THE HOLOCAUST AND THE LYCORNIES OF BEBELOSIS