



The Greek Jewish community in a letter to the country’s political leaders and President Kaloros Papoulias expressed its “revulsion” to the swearing in of an anti-Semitic musician as a Member of the Greek Parliament.

Artemios Mattheopoulos of the far-right Golden Dawn party took the oath as a member of the Greek Parliament on Wednesday, July 25 replacing another member of the party who resigned.

“This composer of hate lyrics that praise Auschwitz offends the memory of the six million Jewish victims of Nazism — of whom 65,000 were Greek Jews — also offends thousands of their Christian fellow Greek citizens and vulgarly trivializes Jews and their sacred places, is now a member of the Greek Parliament,” said the letter from the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece sent Thursday.

The Jewish community took particular exception to Mathaiopoulos who was a bass player in a hard rock Greek band called Pogrom, which had a “repertoire of fiercely racist, fascist, vulgar and anti-Semitic songs,” the letter said, noting that a song titled “Auschwitz,” has lyrics like “f*** Anne Frank”, “f*** the tribe of Abraham” and “piss on the Wailing Wall.”

The letter asked President Karolos Papoulias to take “all necessary measures to keep those who extol Nazism out of the mainstream of our country’s political and social life.”



