Greek government censures neo-Nazi party head over Holocaust comment

Golden Dawn leader said there were no ovens or gas chambers used in death camps

16 May 2012, 6:35 am

Edit

Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos (AP/Petros Giannakouris)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s government on Tuesday strongly criticized the leader of an extreme right party who claimed that Nazi concentration camps did not use ovens and gas chambers to kill prisoners during the Holocaust.

Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis described televised remarks made by Golden Dawn party leader Nikos Michaloliakos as an “extreme insult to the memory of millions of Holocaust victims.” The spokesman accused the 55-year-old party leader of “distorting history.”

“There were no ovens — it’s a lie. I believe it’s a lie. There were no gas chambers either,” Michaloliakos said in an interview with Greece’s private Mega television, broadcast on Sunday. Michaloliakos and 20 other Golden Dawn candidates were elected to Parliament in May 6 general elections that saw traditionally dominant parties hammered in the crisis-hit country.

Kapsis described the remarks as an attempt to revise history.

“I condemn these views in the strongest terms,” he said.

“The Greek people have not forgotten that they too mourned the death of hundreds of thousands of people who were victims of the Nazis, among them tens of thousands of Greek Jews. We honor their memory and stand against any attempt to falsify facts and revive intolerance. ”