For one more time, the Jewish Memorial Cemetery in Thessaloniki became the target of vandals. The unknown perpetrators violently unripped and broke the marble plaques. The Jewish Memorial Cemetery is located in the court yard of Thessaloniki University Campus.
The Memorial stands on the old Jewish Cemetery that was destroyed by the Nazis occupying Greece during the WWII. They destroyed the Cemetery in 1944.
The desecration took place Friday afternoon by suspected far-right extremists during a protest against the Prespes Agreement voting in Athens.
The desecration occurred two days before the Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan 27) dedicated to the 6 million Jewish victims murdered by the Nazis during the WWII.
Condemning the attack, the Israeli Embassy in Greece said “it is a complete insult to turn Jews into scapegoats of political controversies just two days before the World Holocaust Remembrance Day and thus in a city where the Greek Jewish population paid such a heavy price to the Holocaust.”
The desecration was condemned also by the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Giannis Boutaris, and the German Consul.
In a statement the Rector of Aristoteleio University, expressed the abhorrence of the university community as a whole, strongly condemned the desecration and called on the society with all its bodies to react with vigilance against the phenomena of racial hate, blind violence and destruction.
