Wiesenthal Center condemns Salonica cemetery desecration

Center’s director for int'l relations sends letter expressing disgust to Greek PM.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Jewish cemetery (photo credit: Associated Press)
Jewish cemetery
(photo credit: Associated Press)
Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, has sent a letter to Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, expressing disgust at the desecration of the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki (Salonica).
In the letter that the center announced in a press statement on Friday, Samuels wrote that “for five hundred years Salonica resonated and thrived through the contribution of its Jewish community. [With the community] deported to Auschwitz, Salonica today represents Jewish ghosts and graves.”
The letter continued, “One can but note the timing of this outrage, in the wake of the Greek Supreme Court’s ruling to endorse the acquittal of Kostas Plevris for his neo-Nazi volume that calls for anti-Semitic violence. One can but note the timing that coincides with the Greek financial meltdown.
“It is time to advise the Greek people that your national economic crisis is a result of their own profligacy and not a Jewish conspiracy. It is time for a zero-tolerance policy for anti-Semitism and other forms of hate,” the letter continued.
“Scapegoating will only bring to mind that ‘xenophobia’ is a Greek word,” Samuels wrote.


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