World Jewish News

Holocaust Memorial vandalized in Athens, not the first time

Unknown vandals stripped the inscription in Elie Wiesel's words at the Holocaust Memorial in Athens on Saturday.

The meaningful inscriptions in Greek and French calling on passer-by to remember the victims of the Holocaust disappeared in two of memorial tracks.

Minor Moisis, President of the Jewish community of Athens declared: “Elie Wiesel's appeal to the passer-by to stand, to remember, to honor the victims of the Holocaust was turned into an act of vandalism, disrespect, insult.’’

He denounced the fact that this was not the first time the memorial was desecrated. ‘’It won’t be the last either,’’ he said.

He said the city of Athens to which the monument belongs ‘’hopefully will restore the pieces that have been removed.’’ ‘’It will condemn, in the most effective way, to isolation and public outcry those who are attracted to the disastrous anonymity that will never succeed in making us alter our memory.’’

Moisis stressed that the Athe sHolocaust Memorial will remain open and accessible, ‘’will invite the passerby to walk through it, stand for a while, remember, and understand.’’

‘’The vandals will never win”, he said.

Holocaust survivor and famous author Elie Wiesel wrote those lines especially for the Athens memorial, they are engraved on a plaque at the entrance of the park in 3 languages:

Pause awhile as you pass by, close your eyes and remember. Remember the time when here,

or near here, men, women and children- our own fellow creatures- congregated in peace and trust,

only to be arrested, humiliated, deported and murdered in the

Camps that shall forever shame our Civilization.

Because they were Jewish, six million people were denied the right to be free, happy, to hope, to smile, to pray, and finally, the right to live.

Remember them, their anguish and their death. Do not recoil at such horror; do not descend into despair at man's inhumanity to man.

Just remember.

For by remembering we honour their deaths, and we save them from dying again, in oblivion.

EJP