A Greek criminal prosecutor has launched an investigation after a report on the British network ‘Channel 4’ showed a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party threatening to turn immigrants into soap and "make lamps from their skin." The investigation was opened after the Greek anti-racist crime unit referred the news report to the criminal prosecutor.
The film, broadcast on 'Channel 4' on Tuesday, was shot by Konstantinos Georgousis who had spent a month filming Golden Dawn members on the streets of Athens.
In the footage, Alexandros Plomaritis, a 44-year-old who ran for parliament for the party in last year's election, is seen as saying: "We are ready to open the ovens. We will turn them into soap ... to wash cars and pavements. We will make lamps from their skin." Plomaritis was filmed ahead of the Greek election, and the footage also showed members of the Golden Dawn party talking openly about beating up illegal immigrants.
The Greek Jewish umbrella organization KIS reacted with outrage at the film. KIS said in a statement: “Greek Jews feel outrage and repudiation for the hideous and repulsive desire expressed by a Nazist member of the Golden Dawn to revive the industrialized methods of extermination of people. Six million Jews, along with millions of other ‘different’ people, were murdered in the crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka and in other Nazi extermination camps… Once more, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece calls upon the government and the democratic parties to reinforce legislation and fortify democracy against all those who threaten it with racist, anti-Semitic, and neo-Nazi behavior and ideology.”
Golden Dawn said in a statement posted on its website that its members had been illegally filmed and that they had been “joking” with the reporters. The party swept into the Greek Parliament with 19 lawmakers in last year's elections, campaigning on an anti-austerity, anti-immigrant platform that preyed on the fears of Greeks who have seen the country flooded with immigrants amid a terrible recession. Greek and international Jewish groups repeatedly have condemned Golden Dawn as racist and anti-Semitic.
Film-maker Georgousis described his experiences while making the film: "I was terrified that these members were proud to express their extreme ideas during campaigning openly in public. I was shocked by their hostility and by the way they treated immigrants in the Athenian squares." He continued: "My intentions were clear. I wanted to make an observational film to portray their hatred which haunts the streets of Athens. Sometimes I was concerned by the level of support from the Greek people."
In reaction to the report, Greek lawmaker Adonis Georgiadis of the governing ‘New Democracy’ party told ‘Channel 4 News’ that the opinions expressed by Golden Dawn supporters in the documentary were not "the opinion of the majority of the Greek people."
Watch the video here.
