Master Thesis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Making Room for the Holocaust?
Entangled Memory Regimes and Polarized Contestation about the Greek
1940s in Thessaloniki
Student: Dimitrios Tziogkas
Term and year: Spring 2021
Credits: 45
Supervisor: Tomislav Dulić
Word count: 31.011
Contents
Abstract ... 2 Acknowledgements ... 3 Introduction ... 4 Research Overview ... 5 Research Design... 14 Theory ... 14 Research Questions ... 24 Method ... 25 Empirical Analysis ... 31Renaming the Chrysochoou Street... 31
Left-Right Cleavage and Political Polarization ... 36
Tropes and Narratives of the “National Repertoire” ... 52
Memory Layering ... 71
Conclusions ... 77
Literature and Sources ... 82
Abstract
The present thesis offers a new perspective on Holocaust memory in Greece by examining the ways in which divergent mnemonic representations about the Greek 1940s, as evidenced in polarized public contestation, influence the position of Holocaust in contemporary Greek collective memory. Adopting a micro-level case-study approach, the thesis focuses on the process of renaming a street in Salonika (or Thessaloniki), by examining public discourses around the issue. On the basis of theoretical elaborations in the area of collective memory, and through an application of Kubik and Bernhard's conceptualization of the politics of memory, a qualitative evaluation of Holocaust memory in Salonika is presented by attempting to categorize the memory regime emerging. It is assessed that the memory regime pertaining to the Holocaust is affected by the salience of pre-established memory regimes, occupies a secondary status in the wider mnemonic field and, what is more, is not unified. In such context, a problematic tendency to actually distort the historical record of the Holocaust, in the form of downplaying the complicity of local elites in the implementation of the Nazi genocidal policy, is also detected and explained as a repercussion of the specific dynamics at play whenever political actors engage in discussions about the Greek 1940s. All things considered, the study demonstrates that the official institutionalization of Holocaust memory on a commemorative level, a phenomenon observed during the past twenty years, should not be equated to the emergence of a cosmopolitan Holocaust memory in the country.
Acknowledgements
I will always feel grateful to those who were directly and indirectly involved in the process of writing this master thesis. It would be impossible to undertake this project without their support, advice, and active engagement. I am especially thankful to my supervisor, Tomislav Dulić, Associate Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Director of the Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University, for his patience and invaluable guidance during each phase of this work. His challenging comments were a source of continuous reflection for me and fundamentally improved every aspect of the present study. I also wish to thank
Associate Professor Roland Kostić at the Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University. I am grateful for his constant encouragement, while his intriguing suggestions provided me with a basic sense of orientation, especially in the earlier stages of this process.
On a rather personal note, I want to express my gratitude to my family for supporting me in so many different ways. Their understanding and encouragement made it all possible.
Introduction
The Second World War was the context in which the genocide of the European Jews was perpetrated and, as a result, memory of the Holocaust has, throughout the decades, been embedded in national narratives which represent attempts to assess in a holistic way the war years. In the case of Greece, memory of the Holocaust cannot be adequately examined without reference to those, official or unofficial, narratives which have shaped the way political elites and society view the events of the “Greek 1940s”.
focus on the narratives surfacing in the museums, monuments, commemorations, and public discourses pertaining to the Holocaust (Radonić 2017, 270-271).
Furthermore, what is also necessitated is a serious consideration of the potential effect politicized debates about the 1940s, especially those focused on the issue of collaboration, may have on Holocaust memory. More specifically, an objective of the present thesis is to investigate whether the recurrent polarization between Left-Right whenever the Greek 1940s are discussed poses impediments to the development of self-reflective memory, enables the adoption of defensive strategies on the part of some mnemonic actors, and is at the background of the articulation of problematic positions which are tantamount to Holocaust distortion.
The study's “point of entry” into the investigation of the aforementioned complex issues is the renaming of Chrysochoou Street in the city of Salonika. The renaming proposal, which was framed in a way that reflected a high symbolism in the area of Holocaust memory, gave rise to an intense debate, centered around important events of the 1940s, inside the municipal council but also among representatives of the local society and in the press. Taking into consideration the general absence of micro-level empirical studies of the specific dynamics which shape political discourses about the Greek 1940s, the main contribution of the present thesis is to demonstrate that public debates on the course of which different actors choose distinct strategies, articulate different historical representations, and made use of preexisting narratives and features of the national repertoire, may provide an ideal basis of analysis for any attempt to shed light into interesting peculiarities of Holocaust memory in Greece.
Research Overview
theoretical framework proposed here. What is more, an attempt is made to cover an important lacuna in the relevant literature, the one demonstrated by the absence of any extensive problematization and sufficient empirical examination of the ways in which the prevalent mnemonic representations pertaining to the Greek 1940s crucially affect the status of Holocaust memory in contemporary Greek memoryscape. Equally important, the study aims at addressing another conspicuous lacuna in previous research on Holocaust memory in Greece, by investigating the emergence of Holocaust distortion in Greek political discourses.
Relevant research has brought attention to the fact that Holocaust commemoration on an official level was practically nonexistent for decades in Greece, as Holocaust memory has been tentatively incorporated in public discourses only from the late 1990s (Mavroskoufis 2012, 57-59; Droumpouki 2016, 200-207; Papamichos Chronakis 2018, 178-179; Varon-Vassard 2007, 83-92). In this respect, as it has been quite poignantly observed, many parallels can be drawn between Greece and the post-communist states (Droumpouki 2016, 200).
illuminated the continuities of antisemitic approaches on an official, bureaucratic and judicial, level during the post-war period, the military dictatorship era, and into the years of democratic transition (Blümel 2017; Mavroskoufis 2012, 57; Droumpouki 2016, 211-213).
Whereas it is true that the narrative analyzed previously has been prevalent on a political and social level since 1982, as it represents a general hermeneutic schema used by most political actors in public discourses, one can also detect the parallel existence of other unofficial narratives pertaining to events of the 1940s. These constitute alternative readings of important historical events, such as the Resistance or the Civil War, which do not enjoy a mass appeal on a social level and are disseminated by, for example, some non-EAM veterans' groups or the Communist Party. In the former case, the narrative may be viewed as a remnant of the pre-1974 official anticommunist narration of the events, while in the latter it has been established by the Greek communist Left after 1989 as a means to draw a connection with a “revolutionary” past, construct a distinct political identity, and reinforce a radicalized rhetoric (Voglis 2007, 450-451, 453-456; Tzoukas 2012, 403-405, 406-407). Most importantly, different actors often make use of them in the context of debates about the Greek 1940s. Thus, historical representations of this kind are also of interest in the context of the present thesis.
argue that in Greece there has been developed a “screen memory” of the Holocaust (Freeman, Nienass, and Melamed 2013, 1-2). The phenomenon may be understood as the development of a selective and one-dimensional memory of the occupation events that blocks the most inconvenient memories of local attitudes to be articulated and discussed, serving the goal of preserving a positive self-image, and represents the way Holocaust memory has been shaped in others countries as well (Assmann 2007, 15-16; Subotić 2015, 190).
The present study holds that, as far as Holocaust remembrance is concerned, post-authoritarian Greece has a strong resemblance to post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Generally speaking, it can be assessed that the Holocaust is not the central event that shapes and dominates Greek collective memory of the twentieth century. This lack of centrality for Holocaust memory is similar, albeit under a different context, to the situation in the memoryscape of post-communist states (Subotić 2018, 299-300). Consequently, previous research focused on analyzing Holocaust remembrance in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe offers valuable insights which are of special relevance if one aims to examine the case of Greece.
Taking into consideration the argumentation presented in previous research focused on the post-communist states, the present thesis acknowledges that attempts to designate the Holocaust as a central event in the context of Greek collective memory may lead to increased ontological insecurity, as “undesirable” questions may be raised concerning the Greek national autobiography and constructed identity, built largely on a basis of a self-assuring ethnic homogeneity, itself a repercussion, among others, of the implementation of the Final Solution in Greece, and especially in the city of Salonika (Subotić 2018, 300).
367-372; Mavroskoufis 2012, 57). This aspect of the whole issue is of special importance as far as Salonika is concerned.
Different studies have contended that, in the aforementioned context, attempts to introduce a cosmopolitan, “European” memory of the Holocaust into the post-communist countries, and the present study supports that the same holds for Greece, may actually generate anxiety in both state and society, as they challenge main aspects of the national autobiography, undermine the state's positive view of self and its international reputation as a benevolent actor in its relations with its significant others, leading to ontological insecurity (Subotić 2018, 298-299; Assmann 2014, 553; Assmann 2007, 15-16). Moreover, some researchers have argued that such ontological stress is further exacerbated by an internalized sense of inferiority on the part of Eastern European states, and Greece, towards the West, a feeling that makes these countries obsessed with constantly displaying their European credentials and trying to secure their identity as “truly” European in the eyes of their Western counterparts in the European Union (Zarakol 2010, 3-4, 8-9, 9-12, 19-20; Subotić 2018, 298; Ejdus 2018, 888-889). Relevant research focused on the dynamics of ontological security in periods of transition, allows us to hypothesize that in Greece, during the post-1974 transitional period towards democracy, there was a need to create a new biographical narrative, securing a continuous in time and positive self-perception, and to foster new relations on an international level, as the old political order had collapsed, its master narrative was completely delegitimized, and routinized relationships of decades were destabilized (Evans 2003, 9; Rumelili 2018, 287-288; Ejdus 2018, 888-893). This context of political and ideological transition must have generated a profound ontological insecurity for Greece, at a time when the country was entering into negotiations for its accession to the European Communities (Rumelili 2018, 282, 287-288). Against this transitional background, one has to presume that the highly contested memory of the Holocaust must have created additional anxiety in the newly established democratic state (Subotić 2018, 300-301; Rumelili 2018, 282, 287-288).
historical past which reinforces an actor’s stable sense of self, and of defending it against internally and externally generated alternative narratives (Mälksoo 2015, 222). Accordingly, in the background of the analysis of the present thesis is the perception that in post-authoritarian Greece, especially from 1982, what has taken place is an, officially endorsed, securitization of historical memory of the Second World War, aimed at promoting political reconciliation between the victors and the defeated of the Greek Civil War and at stabilizing the nascent, fragile democratic institutions. Here, the process of securitizing memory politics is understood as the establishment, propagation, and dissemination, at an official level, of a unifying and heroic understanding of the past. This fixed and monolithic understanding of the Greek 1940s, centered on the phenomenon of Greek resistance, has shaped collective memory representations since the 1980s and enabled what could be described as a problematic long silence with respect to both the issue of Greek collaboration with the Nazis and the related issue of Greek complicity in the Holocaust.
In this sense, the case of Greece shares similarities with those of other European states, which, as previous research has showed, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, constructed self-serving, identity-enhancing, and “patriotic” national memories of the war (Assmann 2014, 553; Mälksoo 2009, 663; Judt 2005, 805-809, 814-815; Himka 2008, 362-363; Assmann 2007, 14-16; Chirot 2015, 48-49, 51, 62, 67; Berger 2010, 122-123; Stokholm Banke 2010, 166-167, 170, 172).
Stokholm Banke 2010, 163-164, 171-172, 173). It has even been argued that the Stockholm Declaration and the framework of international cooperation it established perceive post-1989 Holocaust remembrance as a “civil religion”, at least as far as Western European memory politics are concerned (Allwork 2015). The present thesis is built upon a central argument, specifically formulated with reference to the Eastern European member-states of the European Union, that the case of Greece should also be analyzed as one of those in which the foundational narrative of the Union creates ontological insecurity in a member-state, by questioning the state's biographical continuity (Della Sala 2018, 269, 272, 276).
It has to be stressed that demonstrating forms of Holocaust distortion, as these may be found in different political actors’ public interventions, constitutes one stated aim of the present study. In this regard, it is of interest to note the absence of specialized studies focused on phenomena of Holocaust denial and distortion in Greece. On the other hand, these issues have been analyzed in depth by previous research which attempted to systematically investigate phenomena of Holocaust denial and distortion in multiple settings, especially in the post-communist countries.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) formulated a, legally non-binding, Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion in 2013, and adopted it as a working tool (IHRA 2013; Bauer 2020, 209-210; Whine 2020, 59-60). Interestingly enough, Greece is the only member-state of IHRA that has officially adopted IHRA's Working Definition on Holocaust Denial and Distortion, a decision presented as having a highly symbolic value (Whine 2020, 62). At the same time, this formal endorsement on the part of the Greek state should be regarded as indicating that the IHRA's Working Definition has now also gained a special significance in terms of its normative status.
2002, 2-3; Rozett 2019, 24; Rozett 2012, 54; Gerstenfeld 2007, 36, 51). Following Michael Shafir’s analysis, a distinction can be made between three different general forms of Holocaust denialism: outright negation, deflective negationism, and selective negationism. He also outlined the basic aspects of Holocaust “comparative trivialization” in post-communist Eastern Europe (Shafir 2002, 3). Holocaust distortion, as understood in the analytical framework of the present thesis, is the deflective negationism described by Shafir. It is also worth mentioning what relevant research has emphatically demonstrated and which is of particular importance in the context of the present study: In contemporary European democratic polities, while outright Holocaust denial is almost always a marginal phenomenon, communicated by anti-Semitic groups of neo-Nazis, extreme right-wingers, and populists, Holocaust distortion is a much more insidious and widespread form of negationism, often detected among mainstream political parties of the whole political spectrum (Shafir 2002, 10-11; Bauer 2020, 214; Rozett 2012, 54; Gerstenfeld 2007, 51).
Shafir's insightful analysis of deflective negationism has demonstrated the different tactics used by those who distort Holocaust memory. It is illuminated that deflective negationism constitutes a special form of the "externalization of guilt" syndrome, a phenomenon examined in the context of clinical and social psychology (Shafir 2002, 21-22; Gerstenfeld 2007, 41-42).
type of deflective negationism involves the acknowledgment of the participation of some members of the national collective in Holocaust crimes, but perceives these actors to have been on the “fringe”, that is, that they should be regarded as insignificant “aberrations” in the national collective's allegedly positive stance towards the Jews and in a national history of harmonic Christian-Jewish coexistence (Shafir 2002, 22, 33-38; Rozett 2019, 24-27, 28; Bauer 2020, 222; Gerstenfeld 2007, 41, 51). Often, this type of deflective negationism appears as explicitly “personalized”, when the guilt for crimes is attributed exclusively to specific politicians or government officials (Shafir 2002, 37-38). Deflecting the guilt for the Holocaust to the Jews is a third form of deflective negationism (Shafir 2002, 22, 38-47). Finally, Shafir has defined the “comparative trivialization” of the Holocaust as another form of willful Holocaust distortion. Comparative trivialization involves attempts to minimize the effect of Holocaust's perpetration on a local level through comparing it to other crimes perpetrated by the Germans. It also refers to all those comparisons made, with the aim to minimize Holocaust's record, between the Holocaust as a historical event and others instances of mass violence (Shafir 2002, 55-69; Rozett 2019, 33-34; Whine 2020, 62-63; Rozett 2012, 54; Gerstenfeld 2007, 42-46, 50).
Research Design
Theory
First and foremost, the study's central argumentation is based upon theoretical approaches crystallized in previous research focused on collective memory. On the other hand, my analysis makes use of Kubik and Bernhard's theory of the politics of memory and their theoretical framework, specifically formed to analyze the emergence of different types of mnemonic regimes.
which will navigate the analysis. Relevant research has stressed that, although considered by some a “spurious” notion (Assmann 2010b, 35-37), collective memory is highly useful as an analytical tool (Assmann and Shortt 2012, 8-10; Bottici 2010, 340-343; Assmann 2016, 16-17, 43). Numerous different definitions of the term have been presented. It can be argued that what all the given definitions have in common is a basic understanding of collective memory as a type of memory that is shared by members of a group (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 318).
Relevant to discussions of terminology is the distinction drawn between the term “collective remembering/remembrance” and “collective memory”. As argued, the former denotes the continuous and dynamic renegotiation and reformulation of representations of the past, while the latter gives the impression of a static mnemonic situation as far as representations are concerned (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 319-320).
Collective memory (or remembering) is closely related to processes of identity-formation for different groups. It is formulated with the aim to serve the construction of a distinct and specific identity which differentiates the members of one group from those of others (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 320). In this sense, collective memory narrates a historical past that is linked interpretatively to the present. It has to be noted that representations in the area of collective memory are constantly related to main features of contemporary cultural discourse and identity. The past is re-framed, reinvented, and reformulated in order to address vital needs of the present (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 320-321).
important feature of this ‘‘cultural tool kit’’ are narrative forms. “National narratives”, as a form of cultural memory, present ‘‘a coherent ordering of events along a strict narrative line, serving as an intellectual and emotional backbone of national identity’’ (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 323-324). Thus, national narratives aim to establish a meaningful representation of the historical past which binds together specific events, historical figures, and motivations (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 323-324). In this respect, research in the area of collective memory is especially focused on explaining the various ways in which the social, cultural, or political context of the individuals influence the narratives which are used. Members of a given group share the same narrative tools. As far as collective memory representations are concerned, one can observe the employment of narratives that are already embedded into the aforementioned ‘‘cultural tool-kit’’, making use of a limited and specific ‘‘stock of stories’’, in an effort to make sense of the past (Wertsch and Roediger 2008, 324).
As argued in relevant research, no analysis of collective memory can be initiated without a simultaneous examination of the social and political frame(s) that shape such memory (Assmann 2010b, 37-38; 49-50; Assmann and Shortt 2012, 4-5; Bottici 2010, 340; Assmann 2016, 13, 16). Although there have been delineated different, insightful and useful, categorizations of collective memory or collective remembrance (Bottici 2010, 343-347), quite relevant for my analysis will be the theoretical distinction between three different, but quite often overlapping, formats of collective memory, as outlined by Assmann. She draws an interesting distinction between social, political, and cultural memory.
Accordingly, social memory is “bottom-up”, related to the past as it has been experienced, communicated, or even ignored within a given society. It is closely related to “generational memory”, and what is of particular importance is that social memory is never stable, as it continuously evolves together with the generational shifts that take place in the society (Assmann 2010b, 40-42; Assmann 2016, 14-16, 21).
as the basis for the construction of national myths and establish specific ways in which the past is to be interpreted. Mythologizing the past should be understood as an attempt to affectively view historical past through the lens of identity. Thus, in this way, the past is used both to make sense of the present and, equally important, to address a constant, basic need for orientation for the future (Assmann 2010b, 42-43; Assmann 2016, 22-28).
Cultural memory also aims at creating permanent, trans-generational, and temporally limitless representations of the past, but is more complex than political memory, as it does not necessitate a homogeneous view of the past. It calls for more personal and intellectual forms of participation in the construction of such representations, which invite some form of critical thinking. Cultural memory involves the “active memory of the canon” (also called functional memory), that is, those information consciously selected by society to be collectively remembered due to their importance. It also is relevant to the “archival memory” (also called storage memory) which incorporates all information and items which are preserved but are forgotten and sidelined, being accessible only by professional specialists, historians etc (Assmann 2010b, 43-44; Assmann 2016, 21, 35-42). Of course, the content of these three formats of collective memory is not stable and is constantly renegotiated.
are deemed to be highly relevant in the context of an examination of Holocaust commemoration.
Their conceptualization of the politics of memory focuses mainly on official memory, understood as representations of the past endorsed by the state and by political, and other collective, actors in the public space, and cultural memory (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 8). The approach employed is described as “instrumentalist,” centered on the development of subjective perceptions about the historical past on the part of political actors. The focus here is on forms of political manipulation and instrumentalization of history (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 9).
Under this theoretical perspective, the concepts of “memory actor” and “mnemonic regime” are of central importance. This conceptualization may enable an all-encompassing analysis of the diverse political, social, and cultural mechanisms that affect the formation and transmission of collective memory in a given society. The authors refer to four ideal-types of mnemonic actors which may be individuals, political parties, groups, organizations, etc.: mnemonic warriors, mnemonic pluralists, mnemonic abnegators, and mnemonic prospectives. Each type has different characteristics (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 10-11).
Mnemonic warriors vividly distinguish between themselves, the guardians of the historical “truth”, and other political actors who “falsify” and distort the historical record. They paint their opponents in the field of political memory as agents of “obfuscation” and “opportunism”. Thus, alternative views of the past, false by default, are completely delegitimized. They usually endorse monolithic and mythologized views of the past. In such a context, past “glorious times” of the nation or its past defeats come to the forefront and provide the sole basis for interpretations of the present (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 12-13).
could not be implemented under pragmatic considerations at a previous point in time. The pluralists' main concern is to participate in the formation of a field of memory politics which can incorporate competing views and promote dialogue. They believe in the construction of a pillarized memory regime (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 13).
Mnemonic abnegators tend to avoid participating in memory politics. Usually, mnemonic abnegators believe that a unified and dominant view of the historical past exists in the state, one shared by the vast majority of political actors and the public. Thus, they strongly support that mnemonic issues are, and should stay, depoliticized, and actually the discussion of alternative views of the past would only be divisive and harmful. Sometimes, a political actor decides to avoid engaging in the field of memory politics, or in discussions of a specific memory regime, irrespective of what are the choices of other actors. In general, mnemonic abnegators project a “technocratic” (even apolitical), “pragmatic” approach, focus on present practical societal needs, and try to refrain from participating in mnemonic debates and contestations in the area of collective memory (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 14). Actually, some mnemonic abnegators may engage in the politics of memory, albeit in a distinct way. They may pursue a strategy of “convenient or purposive forgetting”, aimed at removing discussions pertaining to collective memory off the political arena and further some vision of “reconciliation”. It is noted that such a tactic is usually adopted by a set of specific political actors, those who could be held indirectly responsible for past historical crimes and social traumas, due to their political ancestors' complicity and participation in them (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 14). For example, a political party whose political or ideological predecessor-formation had embraced persons accused of criminal behavior may defensively adopt such a stance of abnegation and place a need for oblivion at the center of their mnemonic strategy.
Mnemonic prospectives seem to represent a category specifically outlined by the authors to capture the strategy of political groups which share an utopian vision for the future and belong to the neo-communist revolutionary Left. I presume that this type of mnemonic actor has no analytic relevance in the examination of mnemonic regimes pertaining to the Holocaust. For this reason, the characteristics of mnemonic prospectives will not be analyzed here (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 14).
regime as: “a set of cultural and institutional practices that are designed to publicly commemorate and/or remember a single event, a relatively clearly delineated and interrelated set of events, or a distinguishable past process” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 14-16). The focus is on official memory regimes, that is, memory regimes which are constructed through the engagement of official institutions, state authorities and political parties. Memory regimes are generated through mnemonic contestations developing in the public sphere. The notion of official “field of memory” (or “mnemonic field”) includes all the official memory regimes existing in a given country at a certain point in time (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 16-17).
A typology of memory regimes is also constructed, distinguishing between fractured regimes, pillarized regimes, and unified regimes. Fractured memory regimes emerge when there is at least one mnemonic warrior takes part in a mnemonic debate on a particular issue and develops his argumentation at the discursive level (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 17). A memory regime in which there are not mnemonic warriors can be either pillarized or unified. In such cases, the regime's specific type, pillarized of unified, will be dependent on the exact mix of abnegators and/or pluralists. Pillarized memory regimes usually involve pluralists and abnegators. In pillarized memory regimes, divergent views of the past coexist, and there is a degree of toleration of contending interpretations (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 17). At last, memory regimes are unified when there is general agreement how the historical past is viewed and there are no mnemonic conflicts. It is stressed that in unified regimes all mnemonic actors are de facto abnegators. This depoliticization of collective memory may be the result of actual political agreement on the representations of the past. But, in unified regimes, the vast majority of actors may also instrumentally chose a strategy of abnegation, because they are aware that politicizing memory issues would be costly and not politically advantageous. It is important to stress that one may detect all types of mnemonic actors in mnemonic conflicts emerging in the context of modern democratic memory politics (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 17-18).
choice might have on the level of support he/she enjoys from the electorate and, at the same time, the other actors' potential reaction to this choice. A particular mnemonic strategy may seriously affect this level of political support. The semiotic calculation pertains to the potential cultural impact of a chosen strategy, leading actors to think about how their actions may be interpreted, mainly by the public. Against this background, Kubik and Bernhard's outline three factors that affect political actors when they choose a specific mnemonic strategy: (a) Cultural constraints. These can be found in the features, values, and identities incorporated in the public discourse (for example, in the form of narratives). Political actors are aware of them and may make use of them; (b) Cultural choices. These are the choices actors make within the existing cultural constraints. Such choices are, for example, the invocation of specific political/cultural identities, the employment of specific ideological themes and features, or the use of a specific narrative about the past; and (c) Structural-institutional constraints. These are the limitations imposed by the political environment in which actors operate (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 11-12).
The structural constraints limit the actors' freedom of choice and weigh heavily in decision making processes. Kubik and Bernhard present various structural constraints that are context-specific and unique to post-communist Europe (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 19-21). In the present thesis, the structural constraint taken into account is one that is deemed specifically relevant for actors engaging in political debates about the Greek 1940s. The two authors argue that the equilibrium of power, degree of polarization, and the state of affairs between the main political forces at the time of a mnemonic debate (or commemoration) posit a serious structural constraint on actors' choices. Especially, the existence of a polarized political climate in which the Left-Right cleavage is of great salience is considered as quite conducive to the politicization of memory issues and the development of mnemonic conflicts (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 22).
What they support, and the present study fully endorses this thesis, is that, in any national context, there exist “official” narratives about the historical past, constructed by the political elites and disseminated through official institutions and the system of public education. Also, there may be numerous “unofficial” narratives, formed and endorsed by various social and political groups, which represent a view of the past that is not in full accordance with official narratives. In this connection, it is important to stress that the authors perceive the “culture” of a group as a set of common “points of concern”, and not necessarily as a set of “shared values” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 22).
A mnemonic actor's political genealogy poses important cultural constraints on the actor's choices. Here, an issue of credibility lies in the background. Political actors with a specific identity and links to problematic political formations of the past (or the ancient regime) face serious cultural constraints while designing their mnemonic strategy (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 23-24). All things considered, mnemonic actors are always constrained by the available cultural repertoire. In the context of mnemonic debates, an actor who initiate an alternative interpretation of the past, which is not based on any of the features of the existing national repertoire, will have difficulties in attracting support from the public (or the electorate) and may end up a cultural pariah (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 24).
In any case, mnemonic warriors, pluralists, and abnegators choose a specific cultural strategy. Choosing a cultural strategy means selecting specific features from within the existing toolbox of narratives about the past, that belong to a highly salient national repertoire. This argument is made on the basis that there exists a stable, highly resistant, and accumulated over time, historical repertoire of themes and tropes, which constitutes a semiotic (cultural) set that members of a group (of a nation) are socialized and educated to acknowledge as “theirs” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 24-25). These choices may have a major political effect, as they establish an actor’s credibility and legitimacy in the area of mnemonic contestation. What has to be stressed is that a mnemonic actor may always attempt to reinforce or attenuate a dominant narrative’s central position in a national culture (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 25).
mnemonic debates about a specific event are rich in references and invocations of memories of other events. In this way, different memory regimes are connected. Kubik and Bernhard define this phenomenon as “memory layering”. Memory layering can either weaken or reinforce the significance attributed to the remembrance of a historical event. In extreme cases, it may serve to neutralize or minimize the status of a historical event in the context of collective memory. Memory layering may also be considered as a cultural constraint, when, for example, one can detect the existence of a tradition of memory layering (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 28).
Kubik and Berhnard, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the case-studies presented in their book, made an important general assessment with respect to the cultural content of mnemonic debates and commemorations. They observed that the cultural tone of commemorations was in all cases affected by a dominant feature (for example, a narrative) of the national repertoire or influenced by a major cleavage situated at the heart of the country's “national culture” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 285). The authors admit that the notion of “national culture” is conceptually spurious. What is denoted here by “national culture” is not a stable set of patterns demonstrated in the behavior of people from a given country, but a wide discursive field in which competing views of the nation are constantly re-negotiated. In this context, the nation is constructed as “a compelling symbolic configuration”. As already noted, culture diffuses not so much values to be shared but “points of concern to be debated”. Whereas some mnemonic actors simply make use of available discourses to strengthen their position in debates focused exactly on such “points of concern”, other actors may disseminate counter-hegemonic features and themes in an attempt to question the dominant narratives. State authorities, political parties, schools, religious institutions, families, museums etc., systematically reproduce central themes (heroes, myths of origin, narratives, etc.), that are considered an inherent part of the “national culture”, and scripts. These themes and scripts constitute what is called (a subjective version of) the “national character.” What is more, such themes and scripts (for example, “heroism”, “victimhood” etc.) are highly resistant to change. As a result, one may get the impression of an immutable “national culture” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 285-286).
a salient and persistent Left-Right political cleavage. Political polarization influences political actors’ strategic choices; 2) Mnemonic actors formulate their strategy by using available themes and features that belong to the “national repertoire”. Here, special attention should be paid on potential invocations of the dominant narrative about the occupation years; 3) Memory layering is a common phenomenon in the context of mnemonical contestation pertaining to the Holocaust. It has to be examined whether memory of the Holocaust is layered with memories of other events and periods, such as the Greek Civil War, the resistance etc. Empirically testing these hypotheses will help me detect and demonstrate which line of argumentation and specific cultural choices distinguish those mnemonic actors who adopt a defensive stance from others who endorse the development of self-reflective memory.
Research Questions
Altogether, the study's research questions are focused on the following points: a) What is the position of Holocaust memory in the context of public elite-level contestation about the Greek 1940s? ; b) How could contemporary Holocaust memory in Salonika be qualitatively evaluated, and what is the type of the memory regime with regard to the Holocaust? Are there perceptions on the part of political actors which represent forms of Holocaust distortion?
Method
This section presents an analysis of the main methodological approaches employed in the study.
Case Study
I chose to concentrate the study's analytical focus on Salonika, taking into account the fact that the city is the second biggest in Greece, was for centuries the major Jewish metropolis in the Balkans, and the main site of Holocaust perpetration in Greece. Thus, it has to be stated that the choice of Salonika is premised on a basic empirical assumption: it is mainly on a local level, specifically in Salonika, that important aspects of the Holocaust as it was perpetrated in Greece have the potential to generate contestation between different mnemonic actors and, thus, an in-depth examination of mnemonic debates arising on this local level may most adequately shed light into the problematic nature of the incorporation of Holocaust in the memoryscape of contemporary Greece. Consequently, considering that developments in Salonika constituted the major and most important chapter of Holocaust history in Greece, an analysis of the state of Holocaust memory in the city can offer interesting findings concerning Holocaust remembrance in Greece, in an attempt to investigate why the country is such a latecomer in official Holocaust commemoration. In this context, Salonika is selected as a “critical case” for the examination of Holocaust memory in Greece. Salonika is chosen as the unit of investigation of the case study taking into consideration this case's particular typology (Titscher et al. 2000, 45).
Against this background, it is obvious that I decided to adopt a single case study approach (Titscher et al. 2000, 45-46). The empirical data of case studies can be collected through various methodological techniques (Berg 2001, 225, 226, 227; Titscher et al. 2000, 45, 46). My case study examines “a specific phenomenon using one object of investigation in its real context”, that is, Holocaust memory in Greece with a special analytical focus on Salonika (Titscher et al. 2000, 45).
Source Material
Street. The renaming proposal was debated and approved by the Municipal Council of Thessaloniki on the 26 March of 2018, and the official transcript of the minutes from this session is used as the basis upon which the empirical analysis expands. The empirical part of the thesis is further supplemented with the analysis of documents originating from other implicated official organs and institutions, like the Commission for the Promotion of Historical Memory and the Thessaloniki History Center. What is more, newspaper articles and blog postings concerning the renaming of the street constitute an important part of the data used. In this connection, some other newspaper articles helped me clarify important aspects of the local political context. Semi-structured interviews with local politicians were also conducted. I attempted to approach the councilors who participated in the aforementioned session.
Most of the data material described above fall within the category of primary sources. Generally speaking, primary sources are documents authored by persons who have participated in, or witnessed, the events described (Dulić 2011, 36). While assessing whether a certain material constitutes a primary or secondary source, one has to take into consideration the, so called, “proximity criterion” (Dulić 2011, 36-37). On most occasions, newspaper articles constitute secondary sources (Dulić 2011, 37). But one has to keep in mind that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is not a strict one and mainly depends on the researcher's approach to the source material and the outlined research question(s). In the context of the present thesis, the focus is not so much on assessing specific historical facts. In other words, my aim is not to empirically establish that some events actually happened. My interest is on narratives and the subjectivity of different perceptions about the historical past. In the case of the mnemonic contestation analyzed here, newspapers played their own important role in disseminating different narratives in public discourses and, thus, they should be approached as distinct actors with their own subjective perceptions. Consequently, here, newspaper articles, at least those in which the author's opinion is communicated, can be considered primary sources (Dulić 2011, 36-37).
Thus, one should always be cautious with respect to generalizations and rationalizations made by interviewees (Dulić 2011, 43).
The biases of my study's source material have to be acknowledged and highlighted in order to present a general overview of important peculiarities of the collected data. The politically biased character and subjectivity of most sources comprising the empirical material of the study can be assessed quite easily. What has to be underlined is that, in the context of the present thesis, such elements do not really constitute defects or problematic aspects of the source material. On the contrary, it is exactly this pluralism of interpretations and perceptions of the historical past that renders the specific material so valuable and useful for a research project focused on narrative construction and the articulation of divergent, highly subjective, views on the part of actors involved in contemporary political memory discourses.
Interviews
As already noted, in-depth interviews at the elite level were conducted in the context of the present research. This particular method was deemed most appropriate and useful as it may permit to comprehend and capture the dynamics that interplay in complex political processes and the involved actors' different perspectives (Brounéus 2011, 130-131; Berg 2001, 72-73). In this connection, in-depth interviewing can profoundly help researchers to vividly demonstrate the connections between theory and actual developments on the ground.
In the present thesis, representatives of the political elite are understood as “those persons who are elected into office by others to lead and govern, and who are in a position to view themselves in that way” (Scruton 1996, 161). An attempt was made to interview municipal councilors representing the whole spectrum of political factions on a local level, reflecting the political dynamics on a municipal level in 2018. The ideological positioning of each political group is specified on a “Left to Right” spectrum. The aim was to formulate a dataset that would have been representative of all different opinions. All in all, in line with recommendations made in relevant literature (Brounéus 2011, 133), my initial plan was to conduct more than ten interviews, with an anticipated time-length of one hour for each interview (Berg 2001, 80-82).
conduct seven interviews. I consider the exceptional circumstances created by the pandemic and the unwillingness to discuss the specific issue on the part of a substantial number of councilors, explicitly expressed by some on the course of contacting potential respondents, as the main dynamics resulting in this rather modest number of interviews. In this connection, a stance of noncooperation was conspicuously most prevalent among political representatives of the Right. One conservative former councilor eventually agreed to be interviewed and, thus, only one of the seven interviews conducted reflects the argumentation of this side of the political spectrum. As a consequence, my set of interviews is not adequately representative of all ideological factions. Had I extensively based my empirical analysis on this dataset, this parameter would have crucially affected the validity of my findings, and that is why I decided to make just a limited use of this interview material. Accordingly, reference to interview data is made only when the rest of the source material cannot help me to sufficiently illustrate divergent understandings between the Left and Right of a specific notion under investigation.
It should be clear by now that the choice of participants in the interviews, as described above, reflected an attempt to fulfill the criterion of credibility. Thus, I approached persons whose interviewing had the potential to establish and strengthen the validity and reliability of the study's results and conclusions. In the same connection, I was aware that the selected interviewees were “experienced” in the issues I aimed to investigate, as they are politicians who became involved in the mnemonic debate under examination. It is obvious that the selection of interviewees was conducted with a specific purpose (purposeful sampling). Purposeful sampling is quite common in qualitative social research and is dictated by the aim of each study and the research question(s). Consequently, I selected as interviewees those persons whose perceptions could aid me at capturing the different dynamics that interplay in the construction of political memory (Brounéus 2011, 134).
The interviews were largely focused on sensitive topics of collective memory. What is more, and as highlighted in the empirical analysis of the present thesis, the descendants of General Chrysochoou have pressed charges against three implicated persons, on the grounds of “defamation of a deceased person”.With these in mind, I decided to keep the identity of the interviewees undisclosed. All interviews were recorded, the recorded material was transcribed verbatim and then translated into English.
Content Analysis
The method of qualitative content analysis was selected in order to analyze the source material. The theoretical foundations of content analysis were first established by Harold D. Lasswell's model of mass communication (Titscher et al. 2000, 56). Considering that the present study is mainly focused on the perceptions and attitudes of political elites, my main intention was to analyze “who is saying what” in the transcript of minutes, interviews, and other documents (Berg 2001, 103).
Formulating a system of categories and designing a coding process are inherent aspects of content analysis. Categories are more general components of meaning. Each unit of analysis must be coded, that is, distributed to one or more categories. All categories should be explicitly stated and their content demonstrated in an unambiguous way. Categories serve the purpose of specifying and operationalizing a given research question, or its variables, for the needs of content analysis. Thus, it is evident that the study's theoretical framework, research question(s), and hypotheses determine the specific formulation of a system of categories(Titscher et al. 2000, 58-61; Berg 2001, 103-105).
structuring process is basically the classic content analysis procedure, described in the previous paragraph. The aim here is to designate a formal structure from the material (structuring according to content). First the units of analysis are identified. Then, the research question(s) and the theoretical assumptions of the study guide the researcher in his/her attempt to form and decide upon a system of categories. The rules of the coding process are stipulated and the coding process starts. The schema of categories can be re-assessed and reformulated even after the coding process has begun. But in such a case a new coding process must start after the revision of the categories. Finally, the processing of the results takes place (Titscher et al. 2000, 62-64). In the present study, all three analytical techniques of qualitative content analysis are used.
Taking into consideration the delineated research questions and hypotheses, a system of categories was designed. Overall, the coding process of the empirical data was guided by the following categories:
a. “Political dynamics and Left/Right antagonism in the area of memory politics”. In effect, all statements made by actors, concerning the alleged political motives of their mnemonic adversaries were included in this category. Coding took place by using codes such as “Left's alleged motives” and “Right's alleged motives”.
b. “Use of a specific narrative/theme of the national repertoire”. All explicit and implicit references to narratives, themes, and tropes, fell within this category. Invocation of the hegemonic narrative about the Greek resistance was denoted by the code “National Resistance of the whole Greek people”, while other codes, such as “Left’s narrative about the Civil War” and “Right’s narrative about the Civil War”, signified the use of different narratives about other events of the 1940s on the part on political actors.
c. “Perception on local complicity in the Holocaust of Salonikan Jews”. The category pertains to all statements made on this issue.
Empirical Analysis
Renaming the Chrysochoou Street
The renaming of streets which bear names of controversial figures of the 1940s, remnants of the name-giving policy implemented by the military dictatorship between 1967 and 1974, has been widely debated in Thessaloniki, especially during the past ten years. The case of Chrysochoou Street is unique in the sense that it is the only street of this kind that has actually been renamed, although political associations and civil society groups have proposed the renaming of at least two other streets of the city. Furthermore, what makes the Chrysochoou Street case so interesting and analytically relevant in the context of the present study is that the street’s renaming was explicitly connected to a need to pursue a symbolical restitution of Holocaust victims and to pay tribute to the Jewish Sephardic community of Salonika.
The renaming of Chrysochoou Street, a road connecting Queen Olga's and Delfon avenues in east-central Thessaloniki, was first discussed in the municipal council's responsible organ, the Commission for the Promotion of Historical Memory, in 2016. The Commission was established in 2015, after Yiannis Boutaris' electoral victory in the 2014 municipal elections, with the aim to examine issues concerning the preservation of the city's collective memory and, in this context, among its jurisdictions were the designation of the citizens and institutions of the city that were to be honored with awards, the preparation of official commemorations on a municipal level, and the historical evaluation of the streets' names and preparation of specific proposals, to the Municipal Council, concerning potential renamings (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2015; Lykesas 2020a).
introduced to the council of the fifth municipal district (Municipality of Thessaloniki is divided in six municipal districts, each having its own president and council), in which the street is located, and this council voted in favor of renaming the street according to the Commission's proposal. In 2017, the decision of the fifth municipal district was submitted to the Special Committee for Naming and Renaming Streets and Squares, an organ of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace, which has an advisory role on such issues. This special committee opined that additional historical documentation supporting the rationale of the renaming had to be presented, before it could assess whether the renaming of Chrysochoou Street to Nar was a necessity. This advisory opinion was forwarded to the fifth municipal district, whose President asked the preparation of a historical report from the Thessaloniki History Center, the Municipality's main scientific department dealing with historical research. The Thessaloniki History Center prepared a report of historical documentation, largely focused on General Chrysochoou's career and activity. Accordingly, on January 2018, the council of the fifth municipal district discussed again the issue of the street's renaming and, taking into consideration the aforementioned historical report, decided, for a second time, the renaming of the Chrysochoou Street. The district council's decision was then submitted to the previously mentioned special committee of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace, which, this time, advised in favor of renaming the Chrysochoou Street (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1112-1113; Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018b, 2-4).
leftists, social democrats, centrists, and even some liberals. His win was hailed by progressives as it put an end to an uninterrupted, twenty five year – long, right wing rule in the municipality, and he was reelected in 2014. The biggest group of the opposition was “Entaxei” (in Greek, “entaxei” means “ok” and, also, “in order”), represented by ten councilors, which was officially supported by Greece's main conservative, center-right party, New Democracy. Two councilors belonged to “Thessaloniki – Anoichti Poli” (“Thessaloniki – Open City”, hereafter: Anoichti Poli), endorsed by left-wing SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), while “Laiki Syspeirosi” (“People's Rally”, hereafter: Laiki Syspeirosi), the municipal formation representing the Communist Party of Greece, had also two councilors. Two councilors belonged to “Elliniki Avgi gia tin Thessaloniki” (“Greek Dawn for Thessaloniki”, hereafter: Elliniki Avgi), affiliated with the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.
TABLE 1.
Schematic Presentation of the Political Groups represented in the Municipal Council of Thessaloniki in 2018
Greek Name Name in English Ideological
Positioning
Laiki Syspeirosi People's Rally Left-wing
Thessaloniki – Anoichti Poli Thessaloniki – Open City Left-wing Protovoulia gia tin
Thessaloniki Initiative for Thessaloniki Center-left
Entaxei Ok/In order Center-right
Elliniki Avgi gia tin Thessaloniki
Greek Dawn for
Thessaloniki Far-right
intervention, he chose to leave before a vote was called (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1159; Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018b, 7-8). The motion passed and the municipal council gave its approval to the renaming of Chrysochoou Street. In August 2018, new street signs bearing the name of Alberto Nar replaced the old ones (Fotopoulos 2018).
But the municipal council's decision did not mark the end of the two year – long debate over the renaming of Chrysochoou Street. A writ of annulment was brought before the Council of State, the supreme administrative court of Greece, through which the descendants of Chrysochoou requested the annulment of the decision of the municipal council (Makedonia 2020). The Council of State deemed that the specific case is under the jurisdiction of the lower regional Administrative Court of Appeals, in which it remitted the writ of annulment (Lykesas 2020b). At the same time, Chrysochoou's children have also launched a lawsuit against Triantafillos Mitafidis and two other members of the Association of Imprisoned and Exiled Resistance-Fighters, Alexandros Gribas and Spyros Sakettas, alleging that their public interventions concerning the renaming of the street caused a defamation of their deceased father (Avgi 2018a; Ethnos 2018; Typos tis Thessalonikis 2018a). The lawsuit generated a wave of public support for the three defendants, and numerous historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and academics, from Greece and abroad, signed jointly a declaration of support with the telling title “History cannot be put on trial” (Proto Thema 2019; Tipos tis Thessalonikis 2019). The Multimember Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki has postponed passing a judgment on the lawsuit, awaiting the verdict of the Administrative Court of Appeals on the writ of annulment (Lykesas 2019).
contradictions and significantly exculpatory of Merten's involvement in the destruction of the Jewish community of Salonika (Kouzinopoulos 2021; Kouzinopoulos 2018; Kostopoulos 2018; Lykesas 2018a; Thessaloniki History Center 2018, 21-22). Referring to the destruction of the Jewish cemetery, in which Merten had played a major role, Chrysochoou described it merely as a measure implementing the Christian population's years-long demand for the cemetery's relocation (Saltiel 2014, 22). In 1971, the Junta-appointed municipal council decided to name an, until then unnamed, street in east-central Thessaloniki after General Chrysochoou (Thessaloniki History Center 2018, 24-25).
In 2018, the Municipal Council of Thessaloniki decided to rename the street after Alberto Nar, a symbolic gesture of special significance in the context of Holocaust memory. Nar was an important intellectual from Thessaloniki, whose parents were Holocaust survivors. He was the head of the Center of Historical Studies on Judaism of Thessaloniki and wrote numerous articles for the historical journal of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece and, also, in the newspapers “Thessaloniki” and “Makedonia”. His work also includes several books and studies focused on the Sephardic culture of Thessaloniki (Commission for the Promotion of Historical Memory 2016, 3, 10-11; Toulas 2018).
The following sections of this chapter present a thorough review of the mnemonic contestation concerning the renaming of Chrysochoou Street, by empirically testing the three central hypotheses outlined in the Research Design chapter and derived from the proposed theoretical framework. As stressed, the cultural content of every mnemonic debate or commemoration is idiosyncratic and highly country-specific (Bernhard and Kubik 2014, 273), and its evaluation necessitates an in-depth investigation into the relevant public discourses. Such an investigation actually captures a substantial part of the empirical analysis.
Left-Right Cleavage and Political Polarization
debates which take place not only on an academic level but also permeate political discourse. In such public debates one can observe a high degree of political polarization, even among professional historians and political scientists, indicating that collective memory of the 1940s remains significantly fractured. In this context, a strong Left-Right cleavage is emerging, while accusations stressing the other side's alleged anticommunist or procommunist biases or blasting what is perceived as an attempt to normalize and excuse phenomena of collaboration with the Germans are abundant (Voglis and Nioutsikos 2017, 316-318, 324-328, 333; Avgeridis 2017, 8-9, 28-34; Voglis 2007, 439, 441-445, 451-456; Tzoukas 2012, 408-413). It can be assessed that the Holocaust of the Greek Jews - an, until recently, under-researched aspect of the Greek 1940s - has not been at the forefront of most of these debates. This lack of centrality does not necessarily mean that representations in the area of Holocaust memory remain totally unaffected by the repercussions of such polarization.
As analyzed previously, the theoretical conceptualization endorsed by the present thesis stresses that an important structural constraint which affects political actors' selection of a particular mnemonic strategy is posed by the specific characteristics of the political context in which mnemonic issues arise. A deeply polarized political environment and a salient chasm between the Left and Right crucially affect the mnemonic actors’ choices and may lead to highly politicized contestations in the area of collective memory. One of the key hypotheses of this thesis is that a climate of polarization between the Left and Right strongly influences public dialogue about the Greek 1940s.
The Left raises issues about persons who may have had a positive role during the occupation years (Lykesas 2017).
Mitafidis was present at the municipal council’s session of March 2018, as a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Historical Memory, and, before referring to aspects of Chrysochoou’s role during the occupation, addressed the members of the conservative opposition, who were against the renaming, and, also, a grandson of Chrysochoou who was also present at the meeting. He directly confronted accusations that this was a proposal based on political motivations:
…You think that we wrongly accuse him (Chrysochoou), that we are driven by revanchism, and, unfortunately, you have reached to the point of threatening the Thessaloniki History Center and, as I was informed, intimidating phone calls have also been made to members of the municipal council, telling them that you will sue them, because we have shown disrespect to this venerable son of the city (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1115).
Specifically discussing the doubts raised, mainly, by Chrysochoou’s descendants about the impartiality of the report submitted by the Thessaloniki History Center, he further emphasized:
This evidence does not originate from us, it does not come from the cursed Left. There is no revanchism on our part, it is a matter of respect to the history of this city (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1117).
At the same time, Mitafidis acknowledged that changes in the framework of local commemoration effectuated during the previous period were closely connected to political developments on both a local and national level, denoting that there actually exist divergent perceptions of important historical events between the Left and Right which affect choices made in the area of official memory. More precisely, he explicitly linked the 2016 decision that designated the 30th of October as the day of official commemoration of the city’s liberation from the Nazis to progressives’ rise to power, that is, to both Boutaris’ election as mayor in 2010 and SYRIZA’s victory in the general elections of 2015 (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1117).
the hate and divisiveness which transpire the interventions of some members of the Left in the area of memory politics (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1119). What is more, in his view, the historical report of the Thessaloniki History Center was a partisan and biased study, prepared with the sole aim to further entrench the historical evaluation upon which the renaming proposal was based (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1120, 1156). In a quite revealing excerpt of his address to the Council, he presented the renaming proposal as indicative of an ideological and political battle between the Left and Right that began during the occupation period and has never ended:
The target (of those supporting the removal of Chrysochoou’s name from the street) is Chrysochoou as an ideological and political opponent and, for this reason, the Thessaloniki History Center had to contribute in this direction. Something the Center actually did, by omitting evidence which proves Chrysochoou’s patriotic activity….because the last Civil War, a curse over Greeks, which started in the midst of the occupation, continues to this day (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1120-1121).
In this context, Chrysochoou’s grandson perceived the issue of the renaming as being derived from, what he described as, a permanent political struggle between Left and Right and its repercussions in the sphere of collective memory. His deceased grandfather was “put on trial” in 2018 merely because he was a staunch anticommunist during the 1940s, and, thus, the calls for removing his name from the street had an ideological foundation, at the core of which was a peculiar sense of political correctness, an anti-anticommunism (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1124). According to this reading, the renaming of the street would be a partisan political act (Municipal Council of Thessaloniki 2018a, 1125).
