[ALBSA-Info] Anti-semitism in the Balkans

[Agron Alibali]

Vandals seriously damage Greece's largest Jewish
cemetery 
By Associated Press, 5/26/2000 14:08 
ATHENS, Greece (AP) Vandals attacked Greece's largest
Jewish cemetery Friday, painting Nazi slogans and
symbols on its Holocaust memorial, synagogue and more
than 90 graves. 

''I express the outrage and repugnance of the Greek
Jews,'' said Moses Constantini, president of the
Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece. 

This was the third such attack against Jews or Jewish
holy sites in the past month, and the community
demanded the government condemn the actions. No one
has claimed responsibility for the attacks, believed
to be the work of extreme right-wing groups. 

''I am sorry to say the Greek government did not react
to the other vandalism,'' Constantini said. ''Now it
will have to react.'' 

Constantini said the public order minister never
replied to a protest letter sent by the Jewish
community when vandals carried out a Passover attack
last month, scribbling Nazi slogans on the city's
synagogue and Holocaust memorial in the northern port
of Thessaloniki. 

Two days ago vandals scrawled anti-Semitic slogans on
the home of American film director Jules Dassin, the
husband of the late actress and former Culture
Minister Melina Mercouri. 

''They wished a quick death to me and all Jews,''
Dassin said about the graffiti painted on his house in
central Athens. 

In the cemetery attack, vandals painted ''Jews Out''
and ''Hitler was right'' on the synagogue, and covered
the marble Holocaust memorial in swastikas and the
twin lighting flash emblem of the Nazi SS. 

More that 90 percent of the 80,000-strong Greek Jewish
community was wiped out in Nazi concentration camps
during World War II. The community now numbers about
5,000. 

The cemetery, located on the outskirts of Athens is
the largest Jewish burial ground that remains in the
country and has about 3,000 graves. Two weeks ago,
Greece's Jewish community held a Holocaust memorial
service at the cemetery. 

''The damage is very large,'' Constantini said, but
did not have an estimate. 

Other large cemeteries, including one in Thessaloniki,
were destroyed by the Nazis. 


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