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Greek president visits the Memorial Site
The president of Greece, Karolos Papoulias, visited the Memorial Site and Museum of Auschwitz on 9 July as part of his official two-day visit to Poland.
During the tour of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, the president was accompanied by the director of the Museum, Dr Piotr MA Cywiński, who described the history of the camp to the guest.
Karolos Papoulias visited part of the museum exhibitions. He saw, among others, block 4, dedicated to the extermination of Jews, block 5, which brings together some of the items stolen from the victims, as well as the crematorium and gas chamber in Auschwitz I. In front of the Wall of Death in the courtyard of block 11, the president laid a wreath and paid tribute to the victims.
”Our duty is to preserve the memory of the tragedy brought about by the Nazi forces. Whoever denies the sacrifice and deprivation of life of people who found their way here has no right to belong to the European family,” said President Papoulias. He added that after seeing the Museum exhibition, he felt ashamed, because - as he said" - it is a place that testifies to the fall of humanity”.
In the second part of his visit, President Papoulias visited the Auschwitz II-Birkenau, including the railway platform on which the Germans carried out the selection of Jews deported to the camp. He also laid a wreath at the tablet in Greek located on the monument to the victims of the camp, located next to the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria II and III.
Before the outbreak of war, the largest Jewish community in Greece was in Thessaloniki. In 1941, the city was under German occupation. Persecution began on a larger scale several months later, when many Jews were sent to perform forced labour, and the remaining were required to pay contributions. In February 1943, the Germans began the preparation for deportation: they focused on the Jews in three areas of the city, where they were then transferred to the ghetto. From there, in the period from 15 March to 7 August, deportation by trains took place, mostly to Auschwitz and a few to Treblinka. In 1944, Germany also sent to Auschwitz additional transports from the mainland and islands of Greece (Corfu, Rhodes). In total, during the war, approximately 55,000 Greek Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
