Greece and the Holocaust: A controversial ANEL analogy

A deputy of the right-wing anti-austerity junior coalition partner Independent Greeks (ANEL) Dimitris Kammenos on Thursday posted a photo of the infamous Auschwitz sign, “Arbeit macht frei” replaced by “We Stay in Europe”. The post led to friction within the ANEL party between ANEL spokesperson Marina Chrysoveloni and and deputy Dimitris Kammenos who had a terse discussion.

There was a reaction to the statement by the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, that issued a statement:

The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece expresses the outrage and the repudiation of the Greek Jewry at the shameful photo posted on Facebook by MP Dimitris Kammenos (of the Independent Greeks – ANEL party). The post trivializes in the most hideous way the sign over the gate of Auschwitz. In the photo posted the “We stay in Europe” moto has replaced the world known sign which “welcomed” 1.500.000 Jews who were tortured and exterminated by the Nazis in the gas chambers.

We call upon the President of the Greek Parliament and the representatives of all democratic parties to condemn the malevolent trivialization of the Holocaust of the 6 million Jews and all the victims of this barbarity, a trivialization that at the same time downplays the importance of the struggle against Fascism and Nazism in our country.

We must not stay indifferent to such phenomena because if our society allows the distortion of the historical truth and memory of the Holocaust, it would have been as if we reopened the gate of Auschwitz to new crimes against humanity.

Kammenos had equated the euro currency to Auschwitz last month. Later, he deleted the image and apologized to the misunderstanding. “Maybe the comparison was unfortunate, but my country is experiencing an economic Holocaust.”

Weekly satirical newspaper also compared Greece’s economic woes to the Holocaust in Thursday’s issue: