The Holocaust monument in the Greek city of Kavala was brutally defaced on March 30, 2017 by vandals who shattered a large part of its marble façade.
The attack was condemned by the Municipality of Kavala, government officials and political parties.
In an announcement, Greece’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that such “incidents of vandalism of historic monuments, racism and intolerance are unequivocally condemned by Greek society”.
The Monument commemorates the Jews of Kavala who were deported and exterminated by the Nazis in Treblinka. It was destroyed with the use of a heavy tool by unknown perpetrators. The municipality of Kavala in May 2015, memorialising the 1.484 Jews of the city.
In a statement, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, the country’s EJC affiliate, expressed its “abhorrence for this vandal attack against the Holocaust monument of Kavala, which occurs only a few days after the desecration of the Holocaust Monument of Arta.”
“At the same time, the statement went on, “we express our deep concern that these acts of desecration show in an obvious way that antisemitism – an antisemitism almost without Jews – racism and intolerance survive and lurk everywhere in every moment.”
