Unknown persons vandalised the Holocaust Memorial on Friday and sprayed it with swastikas.
The incident coincided with the recent anti-FYROM demonstrations on Friday were police in Thessaloniki used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse anti-government protesters.
Meanwhile the Israeli Embassy in Athens on Sunday unequivocally condemned the latest incident of vandalism targeting Thessaloniki's Holocaust Memorial, which was sprayed with swastika by unknown assailants on Friday.
"Turning Jews into scapegoats for events that they have absolutely no responsibility for is the absolute expression of anti-Semitism. Such incidents by extreme nationalist circles must be condemned by all and the aggressors must finally be led before justice," an embassy announcement said.
The memorial which stands in Eleftherias Square is a bronse sculpture depicting a menorah with human bodies intertwined into its flames, has been the target of far-right saboteurs in the past.
In January, the words “Golden Dawn” — the name of a Greek far-right party — were daubed on the base of the sculpture which commemorates the 54,000 Jewish residents of the city who were deported by the Nazis. Over 90 percent of those deportees were eventually killed.
The sculpture is the last piece designed by acclaimed sculptor Nandor Glid and was completed after his death by his son, Daniel, in 1997.
