On a state visit to Greece, one of Israel’s closest Mediterranean allies, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the site of a railway station that was used to transport Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp. During the visit, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that the site will be transformed into a museum to honor the memory of victims of the Holocaust.
“Ninety percent of Greek Jews from Thessaloniki were exterminated,” Rivlin said at the site on Tuesday. “This museum will be a place of memory and witness.”“The Holocaust museum is an homage to 50,000 Greek Jews from Thessaloniki: young people, children, elderly exterminated in the concentration camps. Nothing and nobody has been forgotten. Neither the criminals nor the victims,” said Tsipras.
The museum, whose construction is expected to cost $24 million, is scheduled to be completed in 2020. Work on the 7,000-square-meter (75,000-square-foot) site is due to start later this year.