NEVER AGAIN! THE BATTLE OF MEMORY AGAINST SUBCULTURES OF HATE |
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Thursday, 30 January 2014 10:24 |
On 27 January 2014, on the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day of the Greek Jews, the website tvxs.gr published the following article of the Secretary General for Gender Equality of the Ministry of Interior Mrs Vasso Kollias: Approaching the concentration camps from afar, on the road leading to the town of Krakow in the Polish countryside, an odd feeling prevails. Being aware of the horrible crimes that took place there, one might expect to come across to something totally gruesome; as if the horror could be imprinted on the buildings and their surroundings and even on the land itself. Nazism, fascism, racism are not ideologies. They are different faces of the same agony to extinguish the “other”. They are not more than “necessary” alliances of self-satisfied “egos”, who search their “enemy” inside the dark meanders of their pathology. In the meantime, an industry of consumption and of various intersecting interests thrives around and further feeds the subcultures of fascism and neo-nazism by promoting the necessary paraphernalia. The imagery available on the internet evokes sadness: reproductions of hate symbols, fetish imitations massively produced in Asia, but also original vintage military gear and objects that would easily attract the attention of the historian or the museum curator; memorabilia from one of the worst periods of humanity. Legal or illegal weapons are sported in the hands of young people who obviously lead a self-indulgent life and fulfill their fantasies of “heroism” by wearing the military camouflage uniform in front of the mirror. However, the aesthetics of ludicrousness should not fool us. Inside these subcultures of hate violence simmers. Anti-social behaviors are nurtured, history is shamelessly distorted and Holocaust deniers find there a safe shelter. It is our duty to safeguard the lessons history attempted to teach us through pain and human sacrifice, and save them not only from oblivion but also from deliberate falsification. In 2004, the Greek Parliament unanimously proclaimed the 27th of January as “the Day of Memory of the Greek Jews Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust”. The memory of thousands of Greek Jews who died in concentration camps is honoured this day as well as the heroism of Greek Christians, who risked their lives to save their fellow Jew citizens from certain death. The 27th January must be a constant reminder of what may happen when intolerance settles in while indifference and apathy take hold.
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