The President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, took part in the memorial march from Eleftherias Square to the old train station of Thessaloniki, 80 years after the departure of the first train carrying Jews to Auschwitz
“With the “Memorial March” we honor the victims of National Socialism, fascism, anti-Semitism, we participate in the mourning of their descendants, we listen to the insightful speeches of the few survivors, we join our voice with the thousands of citizens who follow the same path, from the ghettos to the railway station, and put into practice the universal motto NEVER AGAIN”, stressed the President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who took part in the memorial march from Eleftherias Square to the old railway station, 80 years after the Departure of the first train with Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
“We are here, after the tragedy of Tempe, which the whole of Greek society is experiencing with feelings of deep devastation, to commemorate one of the most shameful and painful events of the 20th your speech Ms. Sakellaropoulou.
And he continued: “Starting from Eleftheria Square, a place of humiliation and inhumane treatment of Greek Jews, we walked in silence to the old train station, from where on March 15, 1943, the first train to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp departed.
He was just one of many trains that gradually and under miserable conditions transported around 46,000 of our Jewish fellow citizens to the Nazi horror camps in animal transport wagons. Of these, fewer than 2,000 returned to the beloved ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’, where their Sephardic ancestors found a welcome refuge in the 15th century. Commemorative events like today’s are necessary in order to retrospectively show the true events of the arrest, expulsion and finally the annihilation of our Jewish brothers. Terrible events that sealed the life of the city and violently transformed its rich multicultural identity.
And it is particularly important that Thessaloniki has recognized its shared responsibility in recent years and has expressly condemned the mistakes of the past in order to heal the historical wound.”
Source:Iefimerida
