Skip to main content
How Salonika became disfigured by anti-semitism
KEVIN OVENDEN charts how the birthplace of the Greek working-class and socialist movement has come to be riven by the far right and rabid nationalist forces
Thessaloniki

THERE is a dreadful symmetry in the desecration of the Holocaust memorial in Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki. 

It took place last Sunday, in the week that ends with today’s commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. 

Its perpetrators were the neonazi Golden Dawn, who, according to its leader, are “the seeds of the defeated army of 1945” — of Hitler’s Third Reich.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP proposing the assisted dying B
Features / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
The shameful passage of the assisted dying Bill where safeguards have been all but jettisoned is symptomatic of a hyper-liberalised society where the cult of individualism reigns supreme, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to soldiers at
Features / 21 February 2025
21 February 2025
The proxy war in Ukraine is heading to a denouement with the US and Russia dividing the spoils while the European powers stand bewildered by events they have been wilfully blind to, says KEVIN OVENDEN
BY POPULAR DEMAND: Michel Barnier leaves
Features / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
As heavy industry flees and public-sector strikes paralyse the nation, the French leader’s increasingly desperate attempts to rule without a majority reveal the deep crisis at the heart of European liberal democracy, writes KEVIN OVENDEN
Anti-fascist demonstrators march on the offices of the fasci
Features / 5 August 2024
5 August 2024
KEVIN OVENDEN draws on the Greek anti-fascist movement’s resounding successes against the neonazi Golden Dawn to outline a united front strategy to challenge state racism and surging mob violence
Similar stories
Golden Dawn members hold flags with the meander symbol at a rally outside of party HQ, Athens, March 2015 / Pic: DTRocks/CC
Book Review / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

These are vivid accounts of people’s experiences of far-right violence along with documentation of popular resistance, says MARJORIE MAYO

People shelter from the snow at Birkenau ahead of a memorial
Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 / 27 January 2025
27 January 2025
Political manipulation of history and exceptionalising of anti-semitism as a shield for Israeli war crimes are having a harmful effect on the fight against all racism and fuelling a cynicism that’s especially dangerous in today’s world, argue JULIA BARD and DAVID ROSENBERG
RESILIENCE: (Right) Stand Up To Racism protest on October 26
Features / 31 December 2024
31 December 2024
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year
Tampa Tribune, 3.12.1947
Book Review / 10 December 2024
10 December 2024
TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK relishes a collection of cartoons that focus on Palestine from the period 1917 to 1948