In a statement, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece condemned the vandalism by unknown individuals of a Holocaust mural depicting the deportation of the Jews from Thessaloniki on Michail Kalou Street, close to the city’s new railway station.
Specifically, the members of the Central stated that “the period of tolerating antisemitism is irrevocably passed and neither in Greece nor in Europe can free voices allow a return to pogroms against Jews”.
The announcement was issued after the mural was defaced by unidentified individuals who spray-painted black slogans against Jews and in opposition to the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip (‘Free Gaza’ and Jews=Nazis).
In addition to the slogans, the same individuals wrote on several parts of the mural; they blackened the Star of David on the lapels of the three children depicted in the mural, which was painted to mark the unjust deaths of Thessaloniki Jews in WWII.
