The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, with a presence already in Greek high schools and attempting to recruit students in elementary school, now says it will open nursery schools to indoctrinate pre-schoolers with their beliefs. The party has a vehemently anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, ultra-religious, extreme nationalist stance.
Speaking at an event in Crete on March 3, Golden Dawn Members of Parliament Ilias Panagiotaros and Ilias Lagos announced the plans and delivered a blistering attack on the country’s Leftist parties, claiming schoolchildren had been taught a warped version of Greek history.
Golden Dawn supports the reign of the brutal military dictatorship from 1967-74 that imprisoned, tortured and killed Greeks, and has praised its leaders, and also said the Holocaust that killed six million Jews and millions of other people didn’t happen and was fabricated.
Golden Dawn, which rose from obscure and a fringe party in 2009 to win 18 seats in Parliament last year with its opposition to immigrants and accepting bailouts from international lenders that is all that is keeping the economy from collapsing, has been giving what it calls “national awareness” lessons to elementary school students aged 6-10 to teach them “Greek ideals,” its officials have admitted.
On its website, Golden Dawn said that more than 20 children took part in a tutorial at the party’s offices in Artemida, eastern Attica, on Feb. 23, and were shown educational videos, taught the virtues of the ancient Greek gods and the Christian faith and Greek Orthodox Church.
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