Outrage has followed the vandalism of a Holocaust memorial in Greece’s second city of Thessaloniki.
The words “Golden Dawn” — the name of a Greek far-right party — were daubed on the base of the sculpture which commemorates the 54,000 Jewish residents of the city who were deported by the Nazis. Over 90 percent of these deportees were eventually killed.
Mayor Yannis Boutaris condemned Sunday’s attack.
Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, Boutaris vowed to raise the issue at the next city council meeting.
He also criticized the organizers of Sunday’s large rally in the city against the use of the term ‘Macedonia’ by Greece’s northern neighbor, saying: “The notion that Macedonia is only Greek and nothing else is bad.”
He claimed such rallies do not help ongoing negotiations between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on finding a solution to the chronic name dispute.
“When you try to solve a problem, you have to see the problems the other side is also facing,” he said.
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