The Greek Jewish community has expressed outrage after a monk uploaded a video of himself desecrating a Holocaust memorial in the city of Larissa on Monday, urging civil society to condemn the incident and respect the Jewish community, which it called an “integral part of the city.”
In the video translated by the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS), Father Kleomenis, an excommunicated Old Calendarist monk cursed Jews, denied the Holocaust and called on “patriotic organizations” to take a bulldozer to the monument, which he pelted with eggs.
“Here, we read 6 million! Fairytales… S*** on their faces, Hitler merely wiped out 600,000,” he yelled. “Curse on your dirty Monuments.”
"Shame and outrage are the feelings that one feels when realizes what happened in Larissa on Monday,” the KIS said in a statement, noting that the monument was the first erected in Greece.
"On the same day leaflets of relevant anti-Semitic content were strewn across the monument and the Square of Jewish Martyrs of Larissa. The case is being handled by the Police and the justice system. The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece asked the competent authorities to arrest the perpetrator and bring him to justice.”
According to a poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in 2014, 69 percent of Greeks harbor anti-Jewish attitudes, making it the most anti-Semitic country outside of the Middle East.
The Golden Dawn party, a Neo-Nazi faction, currently holds 17 out of 300 seats in the Greek Parliament.
