Auschwitz concentration camp

It was International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, during a period when the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage. Humanity is united in the effort to battle the virus with vaccinations as we struggle to maintain our normal way of life.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday marked the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp

"Freedom, reason and dignity… The very nature of man were murdered at Auschwitz," Mitsotakis tweeted.

"We honor the memory of Jews and particularly of Greek Jews that lost their lives in the Holocaust," he said.

The American ambassador to Athens, Geoffrey Pyatt, has issued a statement marking the 16th International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, as the United States pays tribute to the six million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazi regime.

The Central Board of Jewish Communities (KIS) in Greece issued a statement on Monday decrying a cartoon that appeared in Saturday's edition of Efimerida ton Syntakton, which depicts a gate resembling that of the Auschwitz death camp to make a comment on education reform.

One of the very few Greek Jews who survived the Holocaust, Esther Cohen, has died in her native Ioannina in northwestern Greece. She was 96. 

She was the only survivor in her family as her parents and siblings were killed. There are now only 20 Greek Jews that survived the Holocaust who are still alive.

She was also the second to last Jew left in Ioannina.

An annual march held to mark the anniversary of the first death trains carrying the northern port city's Jews to Nazi concentration camps in World War II has been canceled this year over coronavirus fears.

An exhibition entitled 'If I Forget You… The Holocaust in Croatia 1941-1945/Final Destination Auschwitz' opened in Zagreb on Wednesday, highlighting the persecution of Croatia's Jews with a special emphasis on the fate of those deported to the Nazi-run Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban attended, on Monday, the 75th anniversary of liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Just two months after receiving a 15-year prison sentence for his role in a bribery scandal concerning German giant Siemens, a former senior executive of the company's Greek branch was released from jail citing health reasons.

In an announcement for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Greek foreign ministry on Monday emphasized the need to "fight against the attempt to wilfully trivialize or even deny the blackest page in modern European history," and to honour the memory of millions of Jews, including Greeks, that "fell victim to the most heinous crime in modern history".