Thessaloniki is a beacon of extroversion, even if the focus is now on negatives
“We have a historic debt, because the biggest blood tax in Auschwitz and Birkenau was paid by Jews from Thessaloniki”
“We have a historic duty to stand up to anti-Semitism, both as Europeans and as Thessalonians, “Because anti-Semitism continues to be a modern image,” said the vice-president of the European Commission Margaritis Schoinas, reminding him heavy tax paid by the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, “With a commitment to comparing the first European strategy against anti-Semitism and the completion of one year since the historic condemnation of Golden Dawn as a criminal organization.”
“This week opened on Tuesday with the first market strategy for the fight against anti-Semitism, for which I have the honor of not being responsible to the European Commission, which is the first strategic text of a coherent defense of Europe against anti-Semitism. “Yesterday we had another black occasion, the completion of one year since the historic conviction of Golden Dawn as a criminal organization”, said Mr. Schoinas, during his speech at the presentation of the book of the lawyer Stefanos Stavros, entitled “Family techniques. Thessaloniki, occupation-civil war “, which took place in the hall of the Association of Greek Industries (SVE).
Anti-Semitism is a modern threat
“Anti-Semitism continues to be a modern image and we each have a memory, as we have very worrying evidence that 38% of Jews living in the European Union today, at some point are thinking of leaving the European Union and asking elsewhere and we have “Many criminal, terrorist attacks on Jewish communities in Halle, Copenhagen, Paris,” he said. The Jews of Thessaloniki were the ones who made the longest distance, by the trains of death, and when they got there they did not have the physical stamina to work and drive straight to the crematoria. occasion for a modern look at the past, which we owe to history, to the dead, to the survivors and we owe, of course, to the new generation. I recently met with David Harris who is the president of the Jewish American Congress and one of the most iconic figures of the Holocaust in the world. He lives in America and he told me the following shocking thing: Our grandparents and fathers left Europe because for them Europe was hell. Do something so that our children and grandchildren can see Europe as a place they are proud to stay. It is a debt that concerns us all and maybe more the Christians of Thessaloniki “.
Mr. Schoinas said that in his book Stefanos Stavrou sees history as a mirror. It does not create myths, it tells historical facts, the story of people who are shaped but also shaped by the events and developments of the time.
Thessaloniki is a beacon of extroversion and now that the focus is on “negatives”
“It describes a Thessaloniki of the interwar period, open, multicultural, cosmopolitan, of people around the world, multilingual, bourgeois culture, a Thessaloniki with our fellow citizens who created, lived in a tolerant and free society, in a Thessaloniki international, extroverted, technical, a Thessaloniki that “Perhaps this is the best example of what we have learned today to call the European way of life,” he said. It has hatred, it has fratricidal disputes, blood, battles. And one, perhaps the darkest page in the history of Thessaloniki and in European history, which is the annihilation of our Jewish fellow citizens. Of course, if one looks at this course macroscopically, there are the good times of the city and its dark times that shook us but did not turn us away “.
At this point, the Vice President of the Commission referred to the current image of Thessaloniki and the fascist provocations of the last days, saying: “Thessaloniki remains to have this extroverted dynamic, cosmopolitan, international perception of things even in difficult times, like the current one. where it has become the focus of denials or difficulties, it continues to be a beacon of extroversion and buying. “
On Sunday, Mr. Schinas will visit the Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki and meet with representatives of the Israeli community to present the European strategy against anti-Semitism.
In his book, Stefanos Stavrou writes about the families of his father, mother and godfather, while he also describes the extermination of the Jews of Thessaloniki by the Nazi occupation troops.
The book is published by “Epikentro” Publications and the publisher Petros Papasarantopoulos, the authors Sakis Moumtzis (he has written the foreword), Simos Bensasson and Stefanos Stavrou spoke about it.