World War II

Ravna Gora Movement members Dusan Sladojevic, alias Krvce and Cica, Slavko Aleksic, alias Vojvoda, and Risto Lecic pleaded not guilty at the Bosnian state court on Monday to charges of inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance at gatherings in the town of Visegrad and the nearby village of Dobrunska Rijeka in March 2019.

But even though inter-ethnic relations remain highly sensitive, members of Chetnik associations from Bosnia and Serbia who participate in these events did not face any consequences for staging their rowdy celebrations and singing nationalist songs that seem to threaten bloodshed until last year.

Greek leaders on Wednesday marked the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-operated Auschwitz death camp in Poland. 

"Freedom, reason and dignity… The very nature of man was murdered at Auschwitz," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted.

"Memory must translate into constant vigilance and action against the Absolute Evil," he said.

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 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.

The Bosnian state prosecution said on Thursday that it has filed an indictment charging Dusan Sladojevic, alias Krvce or Cica, Slavko Aleksic, alias Vojvoda, and Risto Lecic with inciting hatred between Bosnia and Herzegovina's main ethnic groups at a rally in Visegrad.

Croatia will take over the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, in 2023 after its nomination was unanimously endorsed at IHRA's plenary session, the Croatian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.

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.

Israel's ambassador to Romania, David Saranga, while on a two-day official visit to Iasi, attended this Friday a ceremony at the Jewish Cemetery for the commemoration of the pogrom victims, the Embassy said in a release.