The YouTube video-hosting website has removed a clip showing a young man urinating on the Holocaust monument in Rhodes.
August 28, 2008 14:59The YouTube video-hosting website has removed a clip showing a young man urinating on the Holocaust monument in Rhodes.
The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece had denounced the video, posted last Friday and removed last Tuesday. A separate website claimed the clip was filmed by "a secret group of students from Venetokleio High School of Rhodes [one of the country's most prestigious schools] that does not dig at all the Jews who wish to turn the island into a second Land of Canaan [sic].
"After all the propaganda fed even in religion school books over the ‘chosen people' and other bullshit, we have decided to take the situation into our own hands and show to everyone with deeds of how much do we really agree with this view... Auf Wiedersehen!"
The film shows the youth urinating on the monument, his face hidden by an Israeli flag with a red line symbolising "no" pasted over it.
The lyrics which accompany the video contain offensive language, including: "F*** Wiesenthal, F*** Anna Frank, F*** the race of Abraham, pee on the Wailing Wall, throw Zyklon in synagogues, choke a faggot rabbi." They end: "I am burning in Auschwitz."
Moses Constantinis, the head representative of Greek Jewry, wrote in protest to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the Interior and Public Affairs and to the Rhodes Public Prosecutor asking for the perpetrators to be traced and punished accordingly.
He also asked for added security during the upcoming High Holy-Days, as many tourists visit the synagogue. Greece's cybercrime police unit has also been called in to investigate the abusive video.
This is not the first time the island's Holocaust monument had been attacked. During its construction, police protection was called in to prevent workers being verbally abused and targeted by stone-throwers.
Since its inauguration in 2002, it has been vandalised several times, including one incident where the engraved lettering was destroyed. The memorial commemorates the extermination of 1,694 Jews from Rhodes and Cos. Today only 40 Jews live in Rhodes. Around 67,000 Greek Jews perished in the Holocaust, more than 85 per cent of the community.