The most serious anti-Semitic incident in 1997 was the desecration in March of the Jewish cemetery of Trikala. An anti-Semitic campaign directed against the deputy minister of foreign affairs led to his resignation. Greece refused to demand the extradiction of the Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner from Syria.

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITIES AND HATE GROUPS

One violent incident was recorded in 1997: the desecration in March of the Jewish cemetery of Trikala, in central Greece, where more than 80 percent of the graves were vandalized. The perpetrators were not caught. In addition, in October, swastikas and Nazi symbols appeared on the wall of the Jewish cemetery of Zavlani (in the Peloponese) and an abusive anti-Semitic slogan was scrawled at the site of the memorial to Holocaust victims from the Saloniki community.

An anti-Semitic campaign which had been conducted against Prof. Ch. Rosakis, following his apointment in 1996 as deputy minister of foreign affairs, eventually led to his resignation in January 1997, ostensibly for health reasons. MP G. Kartzaferis, of the Nea Dimocratias (New Democracy) Party, had initiated the campaign by asking the prime minister about the origins of Rosakis' name and about whether he had connections to foreign powers. Kartzaferis is known for his extremist and racist remarks.

The largest and most extreme nationalist publication Stochos continued to publish inflammatory articles against the Jews and Zionism. Among the themes which appeared in 1997 were the Jewish monopoly of Salonika as the cultural capital of Europe and their commemoration there of the Holocaust, instead of Hellenism, and the Jewish support of Turkey against the Greeks following the Turkish surrender of Salonika in 1912.

Greek President Konstantinos Stafanopoulous unveiled a Holocaust memorial to victims from the Salonika community at a ceremony in November. More than 96 percent of the city's Jews died in the Holocaust.

On the other hand, Greece refrained from joining France, Austria, Israel, the Czech Republic and Germany in demanding the extradiction of Alois Brunner, the last major remaining war criminal, who was discovered living in Syria. Brunner was responsible for sending 120,000 Jews, including almost the entire Jewish community of Salonika, to the death camps. Since the 1950s Greece has waived its rights to try World War II criminals.

The national Committee against Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism has issued a memorandum of suggestions and proposals for strengthening Greece's 1979 anti- racist legislation. At the official inauguration of the European Year against Racism, organized by the above committee, Prime Minister Costas Simitis made a special reference to Holocaust victims and the annihilation of the Greek Jewish community.