A Response to Andrew Apostolou

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Andrew Apostolou wrote an outrageous Anti-Hellenic article in what I believe looks like a shameful act of attempting to promote an upcoming book. I was sent the following response to Mr. Apostolou's article and felt it important to post.

To the Editor:

The collective responsibility attributed to the Greek nation for past and present acts of anti-Semitism (“The Shame of Modern Greece”, WSJ Opinion Europe, Jan. 20) is based on conjecture and pure historical ignorance. In the most recent attacks on the Synagogue of Chania, the culprits appear to be 2 Americans and 2 Brits plus a single Greek accomplice. This rush to judgment and the wholesale condemnation of Greece – without any evidence of state or broad community complicity – should not have been tolerated by your prestigious paper.

Mr. Apostolou also had the audacity to assign blame on the Greek nation for crimes committed against her citizens by the Nazi occupational government. Greece fought against the fascist Italians and the Nazi Germans, and endured a triple occupation (the third aggressor being Bulgaria) that cost her approximately half a million citizens killed, countless more wounded, and massive damages to her infrastructure. The Nazis perpetrated numerous slaughters of entire towns and villages whose only crime was being Greek. To even consider placing any blame on Greece for crimes committed against any of her citizens – Christian or Jewish – is tantamount to absolving the Nazis from these crimes!

Dionysios Pilarinos
Board Member, Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York