YIANNIS Dimitriadis says he was always aware of his family’s wartime role in helping Greek Jews and that it still makes him very proud.

At a ceremony held in the Old Parliament building in Athens on January 18, Dimitriadis and his brother accepted the title Righteous among the Nations, awarded posthumously to their father, Nikos.

“It’s a great honour for our family to receive this recognition,” said Dimitriadis, an Athens businessman. “In a way, the award reflects a simple value that was always central to my family ethos – to be good to others.”

The medals were presented on behalf of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Institute and Museum in Jerusalem. The ceremony was part of the Greek events to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops.

Representatives of the Rovolopoulos and Kalligas families also received awards for their role in helping Greek Jews avoid arrest and death during the Nazi occupation (1941-1944) of the country.

Attending the ceremony was Thessaloniki native Yolanda Modiano Benuzilio, who, in 1943, found refuge at the Dimitriadis residence, an imposing building designed by Ernst Ziller located at the junction of Akadimias and Omirou streets in Athens.

When Yiannis Dimitriadis was young, he used to play with Yolanda Modiano’s daughters, before the family emigrated to Israel.

“My father, who was 25 when this happened, was the top of his class at university,” says Yiannis Dimitriadis. “His was an old, propertied Athenian family which didn’t have enemies and which always tried to help people.”

Modiano Benuzilio now lives in Jerusalem, where she has published a book recounting her experiences. The Dimitriadis and Modiano families have kept in contact since.

The granting of the title Righteous among the Nations is based on strict criteria and historical evidence, and the recent awards were made on the strength of an application submitted by Modiano Benuzilio.

The names of recipients are inscribed on a special wall at Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem. To date, 22,700 individual awards have been made, including 280 to Greeks.

Speaking at the event, Israel’s Ambassador to Greece Ali Yahya, said: “We are [...] here to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, the survivors who rebuilt their lives and those brave heroes who put themselves and their families at great risk to save their fellow Jewish citizens during the Nazi occupation.”

Previous Greek awardees include Damaskinos, archbishop of Athens, Angelos Evert, chief of police and father of politician Miltiadis Evert, and Loukas Karrer and Chrysostomos, wartime mayor and archbishop of Zakynthos, respectively.

The Modiano family rescue

YOLANDA Modiano was born in Thessaloniki. Because her father, Jacques, was of Italian origin, the family were not forced to wear the yellow stars and remain in the Jewish ghetto, established by the Nazis.

With great difficulty, in April 1943 the Modianos and some other Jewish families managed to make it to Athens, then considered somewhat safer than Thessaloniki for Jews, where they rented an apartment from Konstantinos Rovolopoulos.

In September 1943, when word spread that the Germans were seeking lists of the city’s Jews, Rovolopoulos urged the Modiano family to find shelter with his sister, Virginia Dimitriadou, who, with her two children, Fanis and Nikos, did everything she could to make them feel comfortable, despite the great personal risk.

A few days after moving in, Jacques Modiano died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Thanks to the help of Rovolopoulos and his nephew Nikos, a funeral was organised with false documents so that the burial could take place in a Christian cemetery.

Despite being interrogated by the Germans, Nikos Dimitriadis refused to reveal where his uncle’s Jewish tenants had gone.

Technorati Tags: greece, jews, holocaust, award,

The family subsequently found shelter with the Kalligas family.

Later, Yolanda and her widowed mother, Alin, along with another Jewish family, were spirited away to an area in Evia under the control of the Greek resistance.

Via Kathimerini

A bid to grant citizenship to thousands of second-generation immigrants caused more intense debate over the weekend as the right-wing nationalist Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) claimed it has the Church of Greece’s support in opposing the draft law.

LAOS held a special congress on Saturday to discuss the proposals drawn up by the government, under which children born in Greece to immigrant parents would be able to apply for citizenship if their father or mother has been living here legally for at least five years and the child has completed at least three years of schooling in the country.

It is estimated that 250,000 youngsters would qualify for citizenship and 150,000 of those would be able to apply in time to vote in local elections later this year.

LAOS is opposed to the bill and has demanded a referendum but leader Giorgos Karatzaferis suggested that he would abandon this request if PASOK holds a vote among its own MPs to see if they are in favor. Nevertheless, the LAOS leader encouraged people to take to the streets to protest against the government’s proposals and to drum up support for a referendum.

“Greece is saying ‘no’ to this bill because it does not want Hellenism to be diluted,” said Karatzaferis. “Greece belongs to its history: We were building the Parthenon when they were still living in trees.”

He went on to claim that the leadership of the Church of Greece supports LAOS’s bid to hold a referendum and will sign such a petition. Karatzaferis also said he will collect signatures from other European countries.

In contrast, the Communist Party (KKE) issued a statement calling on the government to legalize all immigrants and to grant citizenship to all young migrants at 18.

Technorati Tags: greece, laos, nationalist, citizenship, immigration

Two British men have been arrested in connection with arson attacks on a medieval synagogue on the Greek island of Crete. The two men, who have not been named, are being held in the coastal town of Hania. A Greek man is also in custody and two Americans are being sought. Hania’s Etz Hayyim synagogue has been targeted by arsonists twice this month.

The UK embassy in Athens said two British men had been arrested on charges of arson. The BBC’s Malcolm Brabant in Athens said, according to the police, the men are aged 23 and 33 and are nightclub waiters in the seaside town. Police said they were arrested after a 24-year-old Greek man confessed, our correspondent added. The British men have been offered assistance by consul staff on the island.

The first attack happened on 5 January but it was the second attack on Saturday 16 January which caused extensive damage to the synagogue’s interior, its archive material and technical equipment. The financial cost of the fires has yet to be calculated

The Etz Hayyim synagogue, which dates back to the Middle Ages, is the only surviving Jewish monument on the island of Crete. It was restored in the late 1990s and has since become a memorial and a tourist attraction.

By 1941 most of the Jews in Crete had emigrated, leaving only the Hania community of about 270 people. They were deported by Nazi invaders in 1944 and died when their ship was bombed and sunk by the Allies.

Technorati Tags: greece, crete, synagogue, britain, arson, arrests

Greek police on Friday arrested two Britons and a Greek man in connection with two arson attacks against a synagogue on the Aegean island of Crete this month.

Police said they were still looking for a U.S. citizen, who is suspected of setting fire to the synagogue in the city of Chania on January 5, while the other three men watched.

One of the Britons arrested was suspected of launching a similar attack on January16, police said, damaging extensively the roof of the building, thousands of books and computers.

“We have arrested three people over the synagogue attacks, and we are still looking for a U.S. citizen,” said a police official who declined to be named.

The police official said the Britons, both in their early twenties, and the 33-year-old Greek were nightclub employees. They were expected to appear before a prosecutor within the next few days.

The attacks have alarmed Greece’s 8,000-strong Jewish community.

“I can’t say I’m happy now; they should have arrested them earlier, after the first attack and not leave the synagogue unprotected,” Moses Constantinis, head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, told Reuters.

“We are worried, the Jewish community is worried.”

Technorati Tags: greece, jewish, jews, synagogue, crete

The government’s decision to grant citizenship to immigrants and their children makes sense on so many levels that it is difficult to see why it is the subject of such virulent opposition. It is reasonable to expect a lively and informed debate on an issue that will change the fabric of Greek society but at present the discussion appears to be dominated by the simplistic and emotional extreme right-wing stance that “this is our country and we don’t want to share it.” Let’s look at the issue from a broader perspective.

Greece, with its negative birthrate, needs as many immigrants as it can get. Foreign workers and their families already provide a lifesaving injection for the economy and the social security system. From the time of the first legalization process in 1998, an influx of young, healthy workers has been responsible for providing funds to and sustaining the social security system. In addition, immigrants’ bank deposits have continued to grow as locals went on a spending frenzy stoked by cheap loans; banks say that immigrants’ accounts were worth 2.5 billion euros early last year. They have taken out housing loans worth 100 million euros, or 5 percent of the total.

Immigrants are crucial to the farming and construction sectors, doing the jobs that Greeks will no longer do. Many of them have quickly developed into entrepreneurs and now provide jobs to others. Just as important is the fact that immigrants provide a range of services which have allowed both parents in each Greek family to work rather than stay at home to care for children and elderly relatives. Above all, though, immigrants have contributed to the growth of Greece’s population, which would have shown a decline in the last 10-year census in 2001 were it not for the influx of about 1 million people. This is invaluable in terms of any effort that will be made to save the social security system.

Over the years, the vast majority of immigrants have become part of Greek society. In 2008, a study by the Research Center for Equality found that one in 10 immigrant women had married a member of another ethnic group – a Greek in 90 percent of such cases. In addition, the children born to immigrants in Greece are estimated to number about 250,000. With the great wave of immigration starting at the end of 1990, many of them have passed right through the Greek education system, from kindergarten to university graduation. The principal argument presented by the New Democracy party in its opposition to the immigration bill is that it allows citizenship to be granted to children who have at least three years of Greek schooling, proposing instead the full nine years of mandatory schooling that applies for all Greeks. The argument is moot, as most immigrant parents are dedicated to their children’s advancement through education, but it allows New Democracy to put up a fight and so steal some of the extreme right’s thunder.

Aside from the many economic and social benefits accruing from an increase in the number of citizens, the debate should also focus on the identity of the citizens of Greece. It is time that Greeks came to terms with the fact that their ancient nation has always been an amalgam of natives and immigrants, not a pure race descended from Homer’s time. We are now living through one more surge of new blood, with all the opportunities and challenges that this presents. Things are changing, whether we like it or not. Taking the initiative and trying to control how our nation will be shaped, as the government has done, is far better than trying to stop the tide, destroying the lives of immigrants and missing opportunities for a stronger Greece.

A negative one from Kathimerini

The granting of citizenship and voting rights to immigrants is too serious an issue to be reduced to an exchange of empty slogans or accusations.

Most of Greece’s immigrants have entered the country without permission. Greece has, over the years, legalized a great percentage of them but the trend continues unabated. Thousands make it here every month and end up trapped, because it is easy to get in but almost impossible to get out. Claims that the borders will be closed are groundless. Most coast guard operations are, after all, rescue operations.

The only solution is to adopt a common European policy on returns and refoulement of immigrants who are not entitled to political asylum.

The burgeoning number of illegal immigrants is threatening social cohesion. Clandestine labor is bad for manual workers who work legally. The strain on social infrastructure is growing. Many find it difficult to survive, more turn to crime. Cultural differences prevent even Muslims who have acquired citizenship from integrating into Western societies. In Greece, it is pointless to talk about large-scale integration, as the number of immigrants is constantly rising and, as a result, most live in appalling ghettos.

The challenge is, on the one hand, to curb the influx and, on the other, to manage existing migration problems. Instead, the government is ducking the issue, granting citizenship and voting rights. This is a leap into the void rather than progress, since the bill has many loopholes. Lax legislation will fuel illegal immigration. The granting of citizenship and voting rights must be part of a comprehensive strategy – not ideology. Respecting the human rights of immigrants is one thing, granting citizenship is another. Those who scorn public criticism as “right-wing” and “racist,” are only playing into the hands of ultranationalists like LAOS. They are trying to confine the public debate between Scylla (of those who see Greece as a place rather than a country) and Charybdis (those who fear contamination of Greeks’ supposed ethnic purity).

Technorati Tags: greece, immigration, citizenship, voting, economy,

Dozens of prostitutes, most using headscarves or hoods to hide their faces, demonstrated in central Athens Wednesday, demanding working licenses for brothels across Greece.

Prostitution is legal in Greece, and sex workers have personal permits to exercise their profession. But they can only do that by walking the streets, not using brothels. As a result, many end up working illegally and facing arrest because they operate out of brothels.

“We are here to put an end to our hardship and degradation,” said Dimitra Kanellopoulou, president of Greece’s sex workers’ association, SEPE. “The situation is tragic, hypocritical and miserable.”

About 100 sex workers held a rally outside the Interior Ministry, chanting: “We will not back down until we are given justice.”

“We want to be able to work legally in brothels and not on the streets,” said 47-year-old Maria K., who has been working as a prostitute for more than 20 years. She would not give her surname.

Kanellopoulou, the head of the union, said Interior Minister Yannis Ragoussis met briefly with union members and agreed to discuss their grievances, including cutting red tape and making it easier for prostitutes to obtain licenses.

Technorati Tags: greece, prostitution, license,

Via CBC News

A synagogue on the Greek island of Crete was hit by arsonists for the second time in three weeks, police said Saturday.

The attack happened in the city of Chania when an unknown number of people entered the building, broke through a first-floor door and started a fire, police said.

Fire officials said the blaze partly destroyed the synagogue’s wooden ceiling, as well as many of its archives, computers and CDs.

Police say about 2,500 books, many of them rare editions, were destroyed in this attack and a previous arson attack three weeks ago.

For a personal account of what happened and photographs of the destruction, please visit the blog of the Etz-Hayyim synagogue.

Technorati Tags: greece, synagogue, arson, attack, crete

Debate on religious symbols intensifies

The public debate about whether crucifixes and religious icons should be displayed in Greece’s classrooms is set to intensify after it was revealed yesterday that the country’s Ombudsman received several complaints about infringement of religious freedoms.

Four sets of parents have asked for religious symbols to be removed from their children’s classrooms and one pupil has filed a complaint about her school making her attend religious education classes.

The issue of whether crosses and icons should be hung in schools, as well as other public service offices, has been a subject of discussion since last December when the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the presence of crucifixes in classrooms was a breach of human rights after hearing a case brought by a mother from Italy.

“We believe that the European Court of Human Rights ruling on the removal of religious symbols from Italian schools must also be applied by Greece,” said Panayote Dimitras, spokesman for the Greek Helsinki Monitor human rights watchdog.

The possible implications of the ECHR decision for Greece prompted the Greek Orthodox Church to immediately declare its opposition to any effort to remove religious symbols from public buildings. However, Justice Minister Haris Kastanidis admitted at the time that Greece could not ignore the court’s ruling if it stands.

The complaints filed with the Ombudsman could also end up at the ECHR and are certain to stoke debate in Greece. “Religious symbols are part of our country’s cultural heritage, which cannot be shaped by legislation,” said theologian Stavros Yiagazoglou. “In a democratic country, we must respect the rights of minorities but of the majority as well.”

I am very interested in what you think about the statement by the theologian Stavros Yiagazoglou. While I agree that religious symbols are part of the country’s heritage and history, I still do not believe that they have any place in schools or in public buildings. There are countless churches and other religious sites that maintain that religious heritage. Even the flag has a cross on it. I cannot see what damage removing crucifixes from classrooms can possibly do. What do you think ?

Technorati Tags: greece, religion, freedom, crucifix, icons,

Doctors without Borders need help setting up emergency clinics after their own was damaged. Donate by secure server here

There is a warning on the site:
Alert: Due to reports of fraudulent activity, we are asking all donors to please be wary of third-party solicitations for Haiti relief. To ensure that your donation goes directly to Doctors Without Borders, please use our secure website or toll-free phone number 1-888-392-0392.

Please be aware that there will be people out there using this tragedy to make money. Be careful and make sure your money reaches the victims in Haiti.

Violence, poverty and widespread discrimination have made Roma communities the ”punchbags” of Europe and victims of the regions ”undeclared apartheid.” These are among the conclusions reached by a panel of experts which assembled for the Council of Europes Viewpoint human rights talk show.

Technorati Tags: roma, europe, apartheid, discrimintion, rights

Refugees in Greece are in danger. Though the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention grants asylum seekers protection, recent regulations and the Greek government’s bureaucracy are putting lives in jeopardy by illegally deporting refugees with pending asylum cases.

Greece’s long shorelines and eastern border with Turkey have made it a common entrance point for refugees fleeing Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. On February 18, 2003, the European Union (EU), Iceland, and Norway adopted the Dublin II Regulation, allowing states to send asylum seekers back to their country of entrance and into the EU.

As a result, Greece has become flooded with asylum claims, with more than 20,000 new cases filed in 2007 and 2008 alone. Part-time asylum board hears only about 60 cases a week and grants less than one percent of applicants refugee status. Most recently, Greek President Karolos Papoulias made police officers responsible for interviewing asylum seekers, even though these officers have no training in asylum law.

Last October, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Norwegian Organizations for Asylum Seekers and Aitima, put together a magnificent report, Out the Back Door: The Dublin II Regulation and illegal deportations from Greece. The report includes interviews with refugees who were illegally deported by Greek authorities. Here are excerpts from the report:

“We were transported in a truck. We were three Iranians and the rest were Iraqis. In all, we were about 30 persons. They collected our cell phones and threw them in the river. There was a commander who beat us with a stick while we climbed into the truck. There were 7-10 persons who escorted us to the border with three or four cars. Two of them were commando soldiers, the others were in civilian clothes, but they carried automatic weapons. They used binoculars to look over to the Turkish border. When all was clear, they forced us to cross the border into Turkey.”

“Police in the Evros region systematically arrest migrants on Greek territory and detain them for a period of days without registering them. After rounding up a sufficient number of migrants, the police take them to the Evros River at nightfall and forcibly and secretly expel them to the Turkish side.”

“I didn’t apply for asylum because I heard from friends that Greece doesn’t grant asylum to refugees and doesn’t treat them well.”

“One night after dinner the policemen took 150 people and put us inside a police bus for detainees. There were many policemen carrying a stick and commando soldiers carrying machine guns. They told us not to look at them, to look down and not to talk. The bus took an unpaved road for about an hour, then stopped in a place with trees by the river. We got off. It was very cold and we didn’t have clothes to keep us warm. We were shivering. The policemen and the commandos made sure that nobody was at the other side of the river then started putting the detainees into a big wooden boat.”

These people are in danger and, because Greece does not have the resources to review thousands of cases in their backlog, authorities are taking illegal measures.

Technorati Tags: greece, yale, asylum, refugee, iran, iraq, afganistan, turkey, dublin

Via CBC News

A synagogue on the Greek island of Crete was hit by arsonists for the second time in three weeks, police said Saturday.

The attack happened in the city of Chania when an unknown number of people entered the building, broke through a first-floor door and started a fire, police said.

Fire officials said the blaze partly destroyed the synagogue’s wooden ceiling, as well as many of its archives, computers and CDs.

Police say about 2,500 books, many of them rare editions, were destroyed in this attack and a previous arson attack three weeks ago.

For a personal account of what happened and photographs of the destruction, please visit the blog of the Etz-Hayyim synagogue.

Via the European Jewish Press

The Jewish community of Greece protested Friday after an arson attack against the only synagogue on the Island of Crete, urging the authorities to take measures in order to get rid of “similar phenomenons of anti-Semitism.”

According to local police, unknown individuals broke into the Etz-Hayyim synagogue’s yard an hour after midnight and set fire to an outdoor wooden ladder which leads to the library.

The synagogue is located in the city of Hania’s historic old quarter.

Thanks to the swift intervention of the fire brigade, the fire was extinguished immediately before it threatened the temple and the adjoining library, which features roughly 1,600 rare books and manuscripts.

Hania Fire Brigade chief said that at the scene, firefighters found a bottle with a flammable liquid still burning.

Authorities in the port city said the synagogue’s main doors were locked and that the alarm system sounded when firefighters broke down the main gate to enter the building.

The medieval Etz-Hayyim synagogue serves as a place for prayer, a museum and memorial and a library recording the long and troubled history of Crete’s Jews.

Until 1999 it was a desecrated house of prayer that remained the sole Jewish monument on the Island of Crete after the destruction of the Jewish community in 1944.

From 1996 until the year of its re-dedication in 1999 the structure has been painstakingly restored. It is mentioned on the it was still mentioned on the World Monument Fund’s list of most endangered sites.

The nearly 300 members of the Hania Jewish community were shipped out by the Nazi invaders in 1944, and died when their ship was sunk in transit by an Allied torpedo.

The synagogue’s director, Nikos Hanaan Stavroulakis, warned in a daily newspaper of Crete against racist act aiming in particular the immigrants in Hania.

Acts of vandalism sporadically aim Jewish cemeteries and buildings in Greece, whose community counts only a few thousands of people, after its extermination to more than 80% by the Nazis during WWII.

Last June, unknown people desecrated the Jewish cemetery in Ioannina, in the North-West of the country.

Technorati Tags: greece, crete, synagogue, arson, jewish, jews

I am going to take a few days away from my blog, to enjoy the holidays with my family. I wish you all a happy, hopeful and loving time.
Enjoy, be well and see you in a few days.
Peace
DD

From BBC News

The head of the Greek Orthodox Church has warned the country’s new socialist government that it faces a major battle over removing religious symbols from schools.

The European Court in Strasbourg has ordered Italy to take down crucifixes from its classrooms, and Greece’s justice minister has acknowledged that it may have to follow suit. From Lamia in Central Greece, Malcolm Brabant reports.

See the video on the BBC website

Technorati Tags: greece, church, religion, orthodox, crucifix

From the YouTube page

Directed by Dutch Director Aldo Smit, this video was shot in Greece for Amnesty International, Europe in No1’s favorite Dutch holliday country. The video was shot about 30 minutes driving from Athens. I have been traveling around the world many times, went to places like Delhi India, Rio de Janeiro etc. but this is Europe. Hidden poverty. These roma kids have nothing, no future, no school, no chance. I was shocked when I arrived. No difference between these people or other third world country’s. These people are discriminated, and dont even excualy exist (no passport or anything) So MAKE SOME NOISE AGAINST RACISM!

Technorati Tags: greece, amnesty, roma, rap, video, mandra