Distomo massacre victim moves the German audience

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and a single black and white photograph can beat even the most convincing arguments and excuses.

A skit presented in the latest episode of German satirical show Die Anstalt, broadcasted by ZDF channel, used an old photograph of a young Greek boy to get its message through and make the German audience realize why "war reparations" is not a closed issue, as the Germany government claims.

The skit, in which a German Foreign Ministry official tries to explain to an "indebted client" the complicated issue of war reparations, all the arguments presented over the last few decades by the German government are mentioned, only to be defeated by a single black and white photo of a small boy.

This boy, who lost both his parents and almost 30 members of his family at Distomo Massacre, a brutal Nazi war crime perpetrated by members of the Waffen-SS in the village of Distomo, Greece, during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II, is Argiris Sfondouris, now 75, who made an appearance at the German show to talk about his deeply traumatic experience on June 10, 1944.

Sfondouris received a warmed applause from the moved audience. This reaction surprised him and gave him strength to continue his long legal battle for the vindication of the people who fought and the victims who gave their lives to defeat Nazism.