Friday, March 29

Tsipras: “The most urgent fight is against the darkness of the extreme right, Europe is threatened”

A symbol of the past and a compass for the present. This is how they have described Manolis Glezos (1922-2020), the partisan who in 1941 tore the swastika from the Acropolis together with his partner Apostolos Santas, leaders of different political groups in the European Parliament on the day he would celebrate his 100th birthday, 72 hours after Italy elevated the extreme right of Giorgia Meloni.

It was May 30, 1941, and the Nazi flag disappeared from the Acropolis, where it had been flying since April 27, 1941 as a synonym for Nazi domination of Greece. “Where have you been?” Her mother asked Glezos when he got home, where she was waiting for him worried: “I unbuttoned my shirt and showed him a piece of the Acropolis flag.” This is how Manolis Glezos (1922-2020) remembered the feat of that night with his friend Apostolos Santas (1922-2011) in the documentary The Last Partisan, about his long political life, marked by that event when he was barely 18 years old.

“De Gaulle called him the first European resistance fighter”, recalled the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola: “An infinite force pushed him, he fought for freedom and pluralism. Here [como eurodiputado] He was among those who did not give up. He never gave an iota to defend people, freedom and democracy. He was in prison, in exile, and always defending the most vulnerable against the autocracy. and he would be devastated to see the cruelty of the Russian attack. But also of the unity that reigns in this EP against the war. Today, in the presence of his family, we honor the memory and legacy of Glezos. We follow in his footsteps against tyranny, for Europe, for its peoples and for its citizens”.

Glezos, throughout his 97 years -he died in March 2020- moved from the KKE -Greek communist party- to PASOK -socialist- and then military in Syriza -with which he was elected MEP- and Popular Unity -the split to the left that emerged after the 2015 referendum on the Greek bailout–.

Simon Gronowski (Brussels, 1931), a Holocaust survivor after escaping from the train that took him to Auschwitz on April 19, 1943, has participated in the tribute in Brussels: “I have the memory of Manolis very much alive in my memory, a Greek hero of the resistance against the Nazis. We were victims of the same barbarism, and we waged and continue to wage the same struggle against fascism, Nazism, racism and anti-Semitism, against colonialism and imperialism. That is our fight. I know what Nazism is, they killed my mother and my sister in the gas chambers in Auschwitz. My father died desperate. And I myself, at the age of 11, was arrested by the Gestapo, the Mitler police, and put in a prison in Mechelen. A month later, they put me in a car, the 20 convoy, in April 1943. I did not understand anything of what was happening, I did not know that he had been sentenced to death and that he was going to be led to my death. I jumped off the miracle train and escaped. And all because my parents were born into a religion, the Jewish. My father escaped the pogroms in the East in 1918 and entered Belgium illegally, he was undocumented, like refugees and migrants: all refugees must be treated in the same way, there is no good refugee and no bad refugee. Life is beautiful, but it is a permanent struggle because today in the world there are still people and peoples who suffer.

But Glazos, writes the Greek press, he did not want to be called a “hero”, because he reserved that distinction for his little brother, Nikos, who was executed by German collaborators in Kaisarianí, a town on the outskirts of Athens, in May 1944 and left a last word scrawled on the inside of a cap. message.

“On the way to the place of execution, the young man managed to throw the cap he was wearing out of the car window,” explain Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith. in South Wind: “A friend found her and gave her to the family; this cap is among the things that Glezos kept most lovingly. This is what his brother Nikos had written: ‘Beloved mother. I send you a kiss. Regards. Today they are going to execute me, fallen for the Greek people. 10-5-44”.

“Others normalize the rise of the extreme right”

The former Greek prime minister and leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, has declared that this Wednesday the European Parliament has experienced “a historic day in which tribute is paid to a Greek, a fighter, an important European, a symbol European of resistance, fight for social justice and against fascism, in a very important historical moment. For all of us, Manolis was not a symbol, he is our history, the face of the Greece that fights, the soul of a Greece that never bows to totalitarianism”.

Tsipras recalled that night in which “without thinking about the danger, they dared to climb the Acropolis and lower the swastika”. The Syriza leader added: “That courage, that stroke of brilliance, he kept even in his 80s and 90s. That value of Manolis came from the ideas he had, from his faith in his ideas, the conviction that justice and freedom are unshakable values. He set an example to all the peoples of the world. Manolis was a socialist, from the left, but above all he was universal, with universal values, a symbol of the fight against fascism and injustice”.

“Manolis did not live to be a proud symbol of the past and useful in all the fights of today and tomorrow”, said Tsipras: “He was always in the front line. It is his most important teaching. In the world that we see, with the force of authoritarianism that wants to be imposed, they don’t give us anything. It is a world built on exploitation and injustice, in which everything must be won by fighting every day.”

Thus, the leader of Syriza added: “Manolis leaves us a legacy and an idea: that the world can change if we fight with passion, and if we unite all our forces, putting aside our possible differences. This legacy is more current than ever. It is our compass in the new struggles against the darkness of the extreme right and the authoritarianism that threatens to turn Europe’s clock back in time. This is the most urgent fight before us, a necessary fight because Europe is being threatened.”

“While we are all here honoring Europe’s first partisan, others are turning a blind eye and normalizing the rise of the far right in major European countries. This tribute to Manolis is a duty, an obligation, it is the struggle of the progressive forces for freedom, democracy and justice. Sometimes we have needed heroes to defend these values ​​and pull the wagon of history. But today it is the duty of all of us that we do not need heroes like Manbolis in the future. Europe must stay on the path of democracy, peace, prosperity. It is our obligation, the tribute, to work all in this sense”.

Different political figures have participated in the tribute, both in person and through videos, such as the one sent by the former Vice President of the Government Pablo Iglesias, Glezos’ bench partner in 2014 and 2015: “It is a symbol of anti-fascism, and it was a lovely person. He deserves all my recognition.”

“He always listened to his conscience”

The president of the European socialist caucus in the European Parliament, Iratxe García, for her part, expressed in the tribute in the room of the European Parliament in Brussels baptized with the name of the Greek partisan: “Today the European Parliament honors a symbol of resistance Greek, the first partisan in Europe. He never stopped defending his beliefs, he fought for freedom, against repression. He was a hero. His life was a constant struggle, he tried to enter the army at the age of 18 to protect his homeland from the Nazi invasion. But he was too young when the Nazis entered Athens and he climbed the Acropolis to tear down the flag with his companion and friend Apostolos Santas. He always listened to his conscience. After the civil war in Greece, he was sentenced to death three times.”

“Manolis also defended his ideas in this Chamber as a member of Syriza”, García continued: “He defended the Europe of the peoples, and he would be worried about the war in Ukraine and about what is happening in the EU with the extreme right, which wants attacking our values ​​of social justice and equality… It is more important than ever to remember him, honor his memory, his sacrifices and those of all those who fought for freedom and democracy, Even if others forget, we do not forget”.

The MEPs from Unidas Podemos María Eugenia Rodríguez Palop, Sira Rego and Idoia Villanueva were also present at the tribute.

The co-president of the Greens, the German Ska Keller, has also alluded to the electoral successes of the extreme right in Italy and Sweden: “Fascism returns to power, it is a reality. We need many voices in the face of that reality. Honoring his memory means continuing his work and fighting fascism day by day.”

Martin Schirdewan (Die Linke), co-president of The Left recalled that Glezos did not stop fighting fascism and Nazism, he was always a leader of the European left, he fought for freedom, against fascism“.

KKE MEP Konstantinos Papadakis said: “Today we honor a resistance fighter, a forerunner in a courageous act of resistance, he always fought against fascism, Nazism and for peace.”




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