Antonis Samaras stood in the pale morning light coming through the stained glass windows of the only Thessaloniki synagogue to survive World War II and vowed, “Never again.” For Greek Jews marking the 70th anniversary of the destruction of this city’s historic Jewish community, the Greek prime minister’s words were long awaited. So was his…
The AEK Athens midfielder Giorgos Katidis has been handed a life ban from all national teams by Greece’s football federation EPO after he appeared to give a Nazi salute to supporters during a match. Katidis, 20, a former captain of Greece’s Under-19 team, made the alleged salute in celebrating his winning goal in a 2-1…
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras vowed to crack down on neo-Nazi groups in a landmark speech marking the 70th anniversary of the first deportations of Thessaloniki’s Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Samaras spoke Sunday at a memorial ceremony at the city’s Monastiriotes Synagogue, the first-ever visit by a sitting prime minister to a synagogue…
It was spring in northern Greece, 1943. Efthymios Kontopoulos, 13, had come to Thessaloniki for the day when he saw Nazis rounding up the city’s Jews. “My father brought me into town,” Kontopoulos, who is not Jewish, said. “We saw them being taken away. They were with their [yellow] badges.” On March 15, 1943, the…
Greek police are investigating the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party after some of its members were filmed threatening to turn immigrants “into soap” and put them in “ovens.” The investigation announced Wednesday was prompted by the broadcast Tuesday of a program on Britain’s Channel 4 News that followed Golden Dawn candidates during last year’s elections. In…
The Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party has questioned the country marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, calling it “unacceptable.” In a question posed in the Greek Parliament last week, Golden Dawn lawmaker Ioannis Lagos asked the Education and Interior ministers why state institutions and schools where commemorating Jan. 27th. “We have received complaints that on this…
The Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn said a visit to Greece by American Jewish Committee leader David Harris is meant to ensure further “Jewish influence over Greek political issues” and safeguard the interests of “international loan sharks.” Harris, the executive director of the AJC, is leading a Jewish delegation to the region that is meeting…
The head of the European Jewish Congress condemned the “racist” killing of an immigrant in Athens last week, saying it was a result of Greece’s tolerance of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party. “We are witness to an increasing violence against foreigners and minorities in Greece which is the natural result of inaction by the authorities…
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