Greek Kos island, fascism, anti-fascism, flowers

As this blog reported, on 18 April 2019 we arrived on the Greek island Tilos after a sea journey from the island Kos. However, before I will tell more about Tilos, still some things about Kos on 18 April. Like this photo of the harbour of Kos town, the capital of the island.

And these flowers near Kos harbour.

This fountain near Kos harbour was damaged by an earthquake a few years ago.

There are bulls´ heads sculptures on the fountain.

A very sad place in Kos town. Jews had lived on Kos ever since antiquity. In 1310, the Christian crusaders of the Knights of Rhodes expelled all of them. The plaque on the photo reminds us that in the 16th century, Jews fled from persecution by the Spanish inquisition to Kos, then ruled by the Ottoman empire. Their community lasted until 1944. When Adolf Hitler, then occupier of Kos, had the Kos Jews, those Kos Jews who had been unable to flee to Turkey, deported to Auschwitz death camp. Not one of them survived. The former synagogue stands empty and dilapidated.

According to Hitler’s nazi ideology, only the ‘Aryan race‘ was supposedly really human. While Jews, Roma, Africans etc. were supposedly ‘subhuman’.

Unfortunately, tendencies similar to Hitler still exist today: like the AfD and NPD parties in Germany. And the Golden Dawn party in Greece.

Groups like Golden Dawn depict the refugees from NATO’s regime change wars in the Middle East, Afghanistan etc. as ‘subhuman’; as ‘illegal’.

Many people in Greece reject the Golden Dawn racism.

On an advertisement billboard near Kos harbour, people had put this black and white sticker. It says. translated: No human being is illegal [a quote by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel]. Anti-fascist movement of Kos. With barbed wire pictured, now erected against refugees in Hungary and other European Union countries.

Stay tuned for more blog posts on Tilos island!

Advertisements