The Minister of National Defence Mr. Panos Panagiotopoulos described as unacceptable the statements questioning the historic truth of the Holocaust of Jews and the persecution of Greeks from Asia Minor and Pontus, thus responding to a journalist’s question after the completion of a celebration that took place at the War Museum of Thessaloniki, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary since the Balkan Wars of 1912-13.

Specifically, Mr. Panagiotopoulos stated:

“First of all, I would like to say that it is unacceptable for Greece, a country that has mourned over hundreds of thousands of victims of the Nazi atrocity, a country where the Greek Jews were also the victims of this atrocity, to hear statements which question the historic truth of the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was a crime against Hebraism, as well as a crime against humanity. It is in this sense that it should be registered in everyone’s conscience.

Especially in the conscience of the Hellenic People, who have experienced in their long historic course numerous genocides and many persecutions, most recent of which were the persecutions of Greeks in Asia Minor during the Asia Minor Disaster, and of course the persecutions of Pontic Greeks.

Therefore, it would be good to take as Greece, but also as international legal order, all action needed so that the historic memory will be redressed to its real dimensions”.

Mr. Panagiotopoulos, as keynote speaker to the event, presented the issue: “The Macedonian Struggle and the Liberation of Thessaloniki in the past and present”.