THESSALONIKI – The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki in an announcement on Tuesday welcomed “the Greek State’s efforts to claim war reparations from Germany and the relevant report of the parliamentary committee on Germany’s debts, according to which the total claims exceed 300 billion euros including interest.”

“The recognition of the historic truth and a vindication through reparations linked to the persecution and extermination of the Jews of Thessaloniki, who are included in Greece’s overall claim, is a fundamental moral issue,” says the announcement.

The announcement noted that up to 96 percent of Thessaloniki’s pre-war Jewish population died in the Nazi concentration camps of Auswitz and Birkenau, in addition to being economically bled by the German occupation regime, which demanded ransom to release Jews pressed into forced labour within Greece and also obliged Jews to pay a “fare” for the trains taking them to their deaths in the camps.