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Wednesday, 24 March 2021 14:23 |
 (Brussels, 24 March 2021) European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor congratulated the Hellenic Republic ahead of the two-hundredth anniversary of its independence on March 25th 2021.“On this joyous anniversary of 200 years of the fulfilment of freedom and democracy in Greece, we extend our warmest congratulations to the Greek people,” Dr. Kantor said.
“Greece has always been very proud of its ancient and vibrant Jewish community, whose rich tradition is a gift to the Jewish world,” Dr. Kantor added.
“For their part, Jewish Greeks have played an integral role in public life in the country, distinguishing themselves in various societal fields, such as science, culture, and the arts, and contributing to the rich mosaic that is the Greek nation.”
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Tuesday, 23 March 2021 14:23 |
.jpg) “Freedom requires virtue and boldness”, it is with these verses of the poet Andreas Calvos that Greeks made headway and built modern Greece, a State that unites roots and tradition with Philosophy, Letters and Arts. Greece fought and managed to resist against its enemies protecting the values of National Independence, Freedom and Democracy.
The Greek Jewry, an integral part of the Greek people, was active in the formation of the modern Greek State.
We struggled together during the Balkan wars and fought to gain our freedom in the First World War. All together we resisted against Fascism and Nazism in the Second World War striving to maintain our common principles and stop barbarism.
We participated by boosting the cultural evolution of our homeland, in poetry, literature, historic research, arts and theatre.
We contributed to the economic and scientific growth of our country, commerce and industrial progress, architecture, education, jurisprudence and medicine.
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Thursday, 28 January 2021 11:52 |
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  The Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated in Greece since 2004, when the Greek Parliament unanimously voted for Law 3218/2004, which established the 27th of January as the "National Remembrance Day of the Greek Jewish Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust". The Greek Parliament, as well as the country’s Regional Administrations, with the cooperation of the local Jewish Communities, organize annually a series of commemoration, cultural and educational events.
This year -due to the pandemic restrictions- most events were held on-line. From documentaries, to survivors’ testimonies, concerts, lectures and interviews, the 2021 programme covered a vast scale of activities that approached Holocaust history from many aspects and stressed the message of tolerance and respect of Human Rights. Greek officials, at the highest level, joined Holocaust commemoration events. The most symbolic ones were the following:
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Monday, 18 January 2021 13:38 |
 The gate of Auschwitz: Only 76 years ago, on January 27, 1945, soviet soldiers saw the living skeletons and smelled the burned flesh. The sky was dark due to the smoke coming out of the crematoria. The inhumanity was revealed before humanity. And this was only the beginning of a series of revelations on the Shoah, the Holocaust of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and the extermination of hundreds of thousands of others who were “different”. The notorious sign “Arbeit macht Frei”, which was meant to deceive not only the victims but the whole world as well, is the symbol of the most hideous crime against humanity. Its trivialization and minimization means the legitimization of oblivion and Holocaust denial.
The new cartoon published in “Efimerida ton Syntakton” on January 16, 2021, combines the Nazi sign with the cartoonist’s confection “Studies make you free”, thus equalizing the gate of Auschwitz with the gates of the universities and the prisoners in this horrific extermination camp with the students. It is a hideous and vulgar instrumentalization of the Holocaust for political purposes.
In any case, the newspaper’s expressed respect towards the victims of the Holocaust and its firm position against antisemitism cannot be used as excuses for the publication of such cartoons that insult both the memory of the victims and the survivors alike, by trivializing the place of their martyrdom.
The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, the Greek Jews, those of us who passed through the gate of Auschwitz, survived and are still alive, as well as the descendants of the victims, we will never stop denouncing every attempt to diminish and exploit the Holocaust which leads to oblivion and the distortion of history.
Athens, January 18, 2021
CENTRAL BOARD OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN GREECE |
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WJC President, Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, addressed the following