Greece
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Russia has agreed to return to Greece the pre-World War II archives of the Jewish communities stolen by the Nazis.

The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KISE) explained in a statement that in July 1942 the Nazis stole archives, books and religious items from 30 synagogues, libraries and other community buildings in Thessaloniki, which had a large Jewish population.

In May 1945, at the end of the war, the Soviet army removed the archives from Berlin and took them to Moscow.

“Our history returns home,” KISE said. “The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece and the Greek Jews with immense emotion welcome the decision of the Russian President Putin that Russia returns the pre-War archives of the Greek Jewish Communities, and especially the archive of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki which was looted [in 1942].”

The organization added: “A long-term challenging struggle conducted by Greek diplomacy and Greek Jewry seems to have come to an end thanks to the targeted actions of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.”

KISE called the agreement “an achievement of vital significance to our country’s history.”

“We express our thankfulness to the Greek Prime Minister and all those who have worked and continue working for the realization of the return of the pre-War Jewish archives to our country,” they said. “The Holocaust Museum of Greece, which will be erected in Thessaloniki, will be the ideal home for their safekeeping and for their use by researchers, given that the archives will be accessible through state-of-the-Art methods of research and browsing.”

Taking place during the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Greece’s war of independence, KISE said that “these archives bring light to its historic course, sacred heirlooms of the light of life and the darkness of the looting and the Holocaust.”

They noted that “their restitution would mean justice and would transmit knowledge about a part of the Greek people that contributed to the progress of the country and no longer exists, that of the 60,000 Greek Jews who were deported to and exterminated in the Nazi death camps.”